Hello,
I'm Mervi Eskelinen!
An artist, nerd and sorcerer, dedicated to make world softer and better for everyone, and to get you to make more art. Make art, change the world!
Get on blogging, chapter 7 – Alternative means of expression
Get on blogging is a weekly series about blogging and becoming a blogger. In this lucky chapter seven you will find out about alternative ways of blogging. Is writing long format not your thing? Would something else work better for you? Are you skilled with drawing, photography or maybe creating haikus?
Blogging has traditionally been all or mostly about written text. The early blogs had rarely other kind of content than plain, pure text, written either in a more formal way or with a touch of personal diary type. Your blog doesn't necessarily have to be a long format written text blog. The current web technologies give you a freedom of expressing yourself in many varying and imaginative types.
Videos
Video blogging, vlogging, is currently extremely popular way to create content for a blog and to get tons of blog followers. Especially different types of business, life and marketing coaches are using videos successfully. Watching videos has became undeniably popular pastime online and YouTube is now the largest social media site. There are even those who can make money with their videos. Of course now that your grandmother is making her own videos it's really hard to make it big with this format of blogging. However if writing is not your thing perhaps making videos is it.
Podcasts
If you feel that talking works for you but aren't so keen of showing your face, you could look into audio podcasting. It's sort of like making your own radio show. Instead of making a video you will only record your voice. Audio podcasts are also quite popular and can gain tons of listeners. If you are really successful you can also create paid subscriptions for your listeners and this way create income with podcasting. As making videos or any other format of blogging, podcasting is not a shortcut to the top. Plenty of other's are making podcasts and for instance well known comedians often have their own regularly published podcast series. Additionally there's an interesting podcasting type called podcast novels. They combine the format of a podcast and an audiobook and unlike an audiobook the story is cut into audio episodes delivered online.
Microblogging
Twitter is commonly known microblogging service. You don't however have to write your microblog on Twitter or other service alike, but create your own personal microblog. Microblogging generally means short form blogging that can consist as short entries as one sentence. A microblog post can also be only a link to some other content. Microblogging is in a way easier than long format blogging since it requires creating only very short posts. On the other hand expressing some ideas, feelings and such can be harder in short than long format. I suggest defining a maximum length for your microblog posts, in similar way as Twitter uses the 140 character format, to make your microblog more consistent.
Photos
In case photography is your cup of tea you can make yourself a blog that consists mostly or solely of photos you have taken. Many photoblogs are simply showcases of photos, but the most inventive photographers can tell stories with their photos. There are many ready made WordPress themes for photoblogging so starting one isn't completely impossible task. Photoblog can include photos only, photos with information about how they were taken (such as info about the camera, shutter times etc.) or photo and an accompanying, often short text. The subjects of photos vary greatly, thus they can be general photography, photos about your life or photos around a certain theme. Additionally you could also publish your drawings, digital art or paintings as a sort of a "photoblog".
Comic strips
Are drawings your preferred medium? Have you considered creating a blog with daily, weekly or monthly comic strips? Highly popular The Oatmeal is a comic, quiz and article site. It's comics aren't necessarily strictly a type of blogging, but it could be seen as an alternative blog as well. Publishing your own comic strips of course requires either a way to scan and manipulate your hand drawn work or a drawing program or app you can use. Comic strip blogging isn't as well known way of blogging and making it your way of expression could result to something very interesting.
Poetry
Some bloggers write occasional poems on their blogs. But poetry could be used as a main blogging method too. Maybe you could start a blog which would consist of regularly published haikus. Your poetry blog entries could be about current subjects, your life or just any other poems. Only the format would be a bit different than the more often used long form blogging. Putting your thoughts in a form of a poet is a good language and expression practise since it requires forming the ideas most often in a more short form and, depending of your style, even more strictly formatted way.
Show me yours
Did you get inspired of this list of alternative blogging methods and start some sort of an inventive blog? Or had you already been publishing alternative types of blog posts? Please share your ideas and link to your blog on the comments section of this post!
Next week on Get on blogging I will showcase some popular and some otherwise interesting blogs. Are you still looking for ideas? Do want to see what other blogs look like? Are you seeking for inspiration or something for your reading list?
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