As I was carving out my articles for Tyme Said, I looked over the list of topics I picked out and I noticed something missing. The topics are valid topics that deserve to be written about, but what about the fun articles?

Know Your Audience

Readers enjoy learning but they also enjoy laughing, relating to past events in their lives, and believe it or not…they like to goof off. I know, hard to believe but everyone needs to step back and have fun or smile, even if it is only for two minutes. A two minute “smile break” before a meeting can make all the difference in the upcoming two hour meeting one dreads going to.

To inject “fun” into your site, you need to have a feel for your audience. Hopefully you’ve been paying attention to the comments left on your site and you paid attention to repeat visitors. Go back through the comments left on your site and get a feel for what your audience likes and dislikes, then see if their opinions match your own thoughts on those topics. If they do, you are “syncing” with your audience and that’s good (usually the people who don’t agree do not come back…sort of like a self-maintaining filter). Odds are good your audience will enjoy the humorous, entertaining or “fun” article every once in a while.

How Do I Add “Fun” to My Site?

One of the beautiful traits of blogging is the uniqueness of each blog directly dependent on the writer(s). How “I” inject humor or fun into my site will most likely be different than how you’d do it but I’ll throw some ideas out to get the brain processes flowing for you.

IGN decided to share a quick article, with a picture, of one of their oldest Xbox 360 consoles dying. They interviewed the employee who used the console and had fun with the article. If you’re a 360 gamer you’re familiar with The Red Rings. If you have a 360, reading the article you either remembered when your console red ringed or said a silent prayer your 360 isn’t next. For gamers that might have a PS3 or Wii instead, you laugh to yourself because red rings aren’t something you have to deal with. Either way, a gamer can get a kick out of the article.

In a second example from IGN, if you’re a gamer you know all about talking trash. You have to defend your cred! IGN played on this well know gamer trait and published Wednesday 10: Smug Hardcore Gamer Quotes. Yes, it is a list but the article does not have the negative traits I talked about yesterday (I have one suggestion to improve the IGN list article which I’ll talk about in a minute). If you’re a gamer you’ll laugh at the quotes because you’ve heard them before and you’ll “get” the article (the comebacks are weak).

Knock Out Two Birds with One Stone

You’re having fun with your site by making a fun and entertaining article but that doesn’t mean you can’t tackle another goal at the same time. In the IGN examples, both articles are a wonderful opportunity to link to older content. In the Xbox 360 article if IGN wrote about red ringed boxes previously, the fun article would be an excellent way to gain new eyes to older content. In the trash talking article, wouldn’t it have been nice if the author linked to the games in question? Don’t go crazy with the links but guide your users. If a reader never heard of Galaga Legions before providing them a link to easily find more information can make the difference between them finding out on your site or another site. If they have to search for it the person might opt to search on Google instead.

That was my pet peeve with the list article. They linked to a couple of games but why did those two games get dibs over the other games? Laziness? Advertising opportunity? Bias? What’s the deal?

Break a Leg Kid…

Don’t forget to enjoy your blog and don’t be afraid to share your enjoyment with your audience. One of the reasons why many bloggers experience blogging burn out is because they aren’t enjoying their blog/site anymore. As with all things we enjoy, if you enjoy and have fun with your blog/site, you’ll want to write and express yourself more.