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Using Humor to Write Funny Articles
You get the bulk of your targeted traffic from the search engines when you engage in article marketing. But don't forget that articles can go viral as well - that is, if they are well written. The type of content with the highest chance of going viral is a funny article. Here is how to create a humorous article (last tip works like a charm).
1) Laugh at mistakes. - Your articles can be informative and funny at the same time. Very often, beginner marketers make all kinds of mistakes. You can write about the mistakes that you made when you are starting out. Will others see you less as an expert when you do that? The answer is no. On the contrary, readers will laugh alongside with you and they will also find you more friendly and approachable.
2) Laugh at jokes that arise spontaneously. - Some jokes are not planned. As you write, some funny thought pops into your mind. Just write them down. In fact, some of the best jokes appear funny simply because the readers are caught by surprise! The joke just happened!
3) Write about something stupid that happened. - There was this client of mine who told me about how an intern sent out the cost price spreadsheet to a customer by mistake. "So now the customer knows the cost of all our products!" exclaimed my client with a resigned tone. In the end, we just laughed at the mistake because there was not much we can do to remedy the situation. It was just a stupid mistake. But it was funny on hindsight. By telling me the joke, we had broken the ice and we found it easier to talk to each other. You can expect a similar result with humorous articles.
3 Tips For Finding Online Business Ideas
Online business ideas are a dime a dozen. You can sell a lot of things on the web. You can sell bags, shoes, and apparel while the more absurd ideas run along the lines of celebrity hair and other crazy random things. After all, one man's junk is another man's treasure.
Silly products that you can sell online on eBay are one thing; creating sustainable online businesses are another. So what exactly do you look out for when it comes to online business ideas? Here are some tips that you may find helpful.
1. Keep an eye out for everyday problems you can solve.
By now, you should realize that the businesses that have been around for awhile are successful precisely because they are solving a problem for someone. Think very hard about this. What are the problems that you encounter while going to work or while making breakfast? Watch out for the times that you think to yourself, "Why can't someone invent something that will help me with [insert problem]?" The ideas that come into your head might amaze you.
2. Check if the business idea can be done online.
There are pure online businesses and there are those traditional businesses that have websites and a traditional brick and mortar storefront. Businesses that have traditional storefronts usually realize that they can make twice as much if they set up an ecommerce store. And why not? The Internet has made it easier to reach clients from other states and all the way to China. The sky's the limit. Stop putting borders around your business and start truly participating in the global economy.
Businesses that are purely online are another story. These are the eBay shops, the information blogs running on affiliate income and advertising, as well as a number of online applications that offer their services on a subscription basis. Of course, there are many more that you can come up with. It's the Internet - anything is possible. An example of this would be "The Million Dollar Homepage" where the founder auctioned off one million pixels of his homepage. Starting out with the price of a dollar per pixel, it became an internet phenomenon and was being sold for more than that. The highest price was to the tune of $38,100. It just goes to show that the Internet is a real game-changer for businesses.
3. Put up a site and analyze later!
The funny thing about online business ideas is that it costs more to do extensive planning than to just execute the idea. At the very least, get the business model down pat and start building the website. The World Wide Web is awesome because the feedback is almost instantaneous. Unlike the real world where market feedback comes back after a few months or so, the Internet can give you immediate feedback in the form of analytics, user comments, and sales among other things. So stop over analyzing things and just put it up. You'll be glad you did!
How to Write Funny -- It's All About Timing
My Dad has this old joke that goes, "What's the most important thing about humor?" After a short pause, he interjects, "TIMING!"
I've rolled my eyes many a time over this joke.
But here's a new version for writers: "What's the most important thing about writing funny? ...... WORDING!"
Whether you're talking about stand-up comedy or humorous writing, surprise is one of the biggest elements of laughter. (Yes, Dad, I know, "Surprise" is what your little timing-joke is really all about.)
Readers become accustomed to seeing things written a certain way. As a writer, you have a choice: give it to them they way they expect, or surprise them with something different.
Here's an example:
In my article "Does Target Shun Veterans?" I say that Internet Urban Legends are "stories that scare readers into believing such things as rat urine contaminating the tops of their canned peaches, and so forth." I could have just as easily written, "Internet Urban Legends are stories that scare readers into believing the tops of their canned food is dirty." But that wouldn't surprise anyone, and it would have made my piece just another bland "news story."
I also shook up the sentence about Internet Urban Legends by including some humorous exaggerations. Simply writing "canned food" isn't nearly as funny as being super specific and writing, "canned peaches," and being "dirty" is far more typical than having "rat urine" on your lid.
The idea of being very specific is what comedian (and my hero) Jerry Seinfeld has built his entire career on. He doesn't just talk about flying on an airplane, he mentions everything from the really small bag of peanuts to the pilot announcing the flight play-by-play. As an audience, we laugh at these things because it's something we've experienced but never given much thought to. Who else but Seinfeld could have an entire 30-minute television show about toxic glue on envelopes?
Drawing attention to things that are common to all but seldom discussed makes people chuckle. This is mostly due to their slight embarrassment when they realize "wow, I do that," but it's also because for the first time they are paying attention to something they might not have otherwise.
But aside from timing, exaggerations and calling attention to life's quirks, sentence structure may be the ultimate weapon for writing humor. Just as a lyricist times his verses to a beat, writers need an internal rhythm to make their work conversational and surprising. There is quite a difference between writing a factual news piece and composing a humorous essay, but the biggest difference is sentence structure. Cut-and-dry news pieces need to follow a formula so that the content doesn't get lost. When writing a narrative or essay, however, you can play with pauses (dashes, colons, etc.), italics and words to create a feeling and rhythm.
How To Master The Art Of Great Prank Calls
Admittedly, sometimes prank calls can be annoying and a bit worrisome if you get them a lot from somebody that you do not know. However, most of the time prank calls are actually a lot of fun to make and receive because while a surprise, they are often funny and can leave you laughing for weeks. This is why you may want to think about making prank calls to your friends if you want to bring a smile to their faces and a joke that you and your friends will be laughing about for weeks.
There are some great prank calls that can really leave your friends talking for weeks about how great it was. Of course, in order to come up with it you need to first think of a great punch line that is tailored for the person that you intend to prank. Windup pranks when you have a friend thinking that they have won something great is a great way to bring a smile to their face after all is said and done. Plus, usually once the embarrassment of being fooled wears off, they find it quite amusing that you were able to have them fooled.
In order to make this type of joke work you need to practice having a stiff and detached tone. After all, if someone were to really make a surprise call about an award or something of the type, the caller would have a serious and plain voice. Therefore, even if you know your friend quite well and are tempting to laugh or give in early, for prank calls to truly work you have to keep going with the joke because the payoff in the long run will be well worth the effort.
You also need to get creative because it will take some true creativity to really get your prey into the joke. There are tons of great prank calls that circulate around, but the problem is that if you know about the prank joke the chances are that your friends also know it too and thus will suspect right away that they are being pranked. After all, on television shows when people are pranked the situations are always entirely creative and yet realistic enough that they work without fail. If you are trying to look for inspiration you can always look up a few ideas on YouTube where you will find plenty of inspiration.
Keep in mind that you do not want malicious ideas however, because joke calls are not intended to hurt anyone. You do not want your friends to feel horrible when the joke is over, but instead want them to feel a great mixture of embarrassment and joy. It can be hard to find the perfect balance when it comes to finding the perfect joke topic which is why you may want to look into websites that offer you excellent material.
Believe it or not, there are a great deal of prank call websites that offer advice and even some great stories that you can use to leave your friends rolling on the floor with laughter for weeks. In fact, there are even some websites that will make joke calls for you so that you can really pull the wool over your friend's ears.
