Difference + Traffic = Success

What makes a blog different?

I subscribe by RSS to a stack of blogs and as I browse through them daily, I can't help but notice how similar some are getting. Sure, a lot of these blogs are in a similar niche - but that doesn't mean they need to talk about the same things!

Obviously if a blog post is interesting and unique it will stand out, a catchy idea, a competition or a controversial statement of point of view is sure to excite your readers and keep them coming back. However, when you blog is fairly new and you are still building a reader base - how do you launch an idea? As you may launching a good idea but too a new and limited audience.

I have tossed a few ideas around recently:

- A competition, awarding a prize to one of my readers if they could get my blog mentioned on a major blog (excluding the comments section). (ie: Copyblogger.com, ProBlogger.com or JohnChow.com) - In terms of a prize I was thinking something that would be easy to ship, such as a CPU chip from Intel or AMD.

- Evil promotion tactics! Pretending to sell your blog on forums for a ridiculous price or formulate a bogus press release stating that a big company such as Google has bought your site. Ok, this is a little extreme but it may bring a flood of traffic if the press release gets good coverage and you are all set to launch your idea to a big audience.

- Guest Blogging. If you can attract a high profile guest blogger, this maybe just the ticket to bring the traffic with the guest writer. If you get a quality writer that is well known, the crowds will come and hopefully will stay. Another perfect chance to launch your idea or promotion with the crowds in place.

Finally, I would like to get readers opinions on placing videos within this blog. As a reader do you find videos too time consuming? Too intrusive? or are they a better tool than simply reading plain text? Any feedback is welcome!