This is a guest post by Darren Singleton, he is a Webmaster, Blogger and Internet Entrepreneur who loves to teach others!
Looking around the blogosphere, contests can be seen being held everywhere. Some of these contests can be quite small, offering Entrecard credits or a months free advertisement and other contests are offering huge prizes.
Recently, some of the pro-bloggers such as ShoeMoney and JohnChow have been using Twitter as a means to collect contest entries and increasing their number of followers dramatically as a result. These contests are held for no reason other than to gain exposure. And it works!
Infected by Bugs’ Contest – Shannon, here at Infected by Bugs, has still got a contest running, for which you should take a look at the contest post and sign up for his RSS feed to make sure your entry is valid. Who wouldn’t want to receive a free iPod Shuffle?
Shannon’s contest is proof that it works. His subscriber numbers have increased, he has received over 130 comments on his original post regarding the contest and I’m sure his number of back links have increased also, with people informing their readers of this opportunity.
Shannon has also been intelligent in the way he has set the contest up.
He stated that: “If we can reach 700+ subscribers by the end of January I will get this Apple iPod Shuffle and give it out to one lucky reader!”
He has set a target for his readers and it is in their best interests to tell others about it and increase exposure of the contest further. He gave 25 days to increase his RSS subscribers by 75 people. If three people a day signed up for his feed, he would be giving the iPod Shuffle away.
Running a contest can be great for your blogs exposure and it doesn’t have to cost you a lot of money. Giving away items such as iPod’s, Amazon/iTunes gift certificates or even advertising space on your blog, can have a huge impact on your followers and increase your blogs readership quite quickly.
My name is Shannon and I love to blog. I run multiple blogs and have been blogging for a few years now. You can find out more
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Contest are highly effective, both viral and word of mouth. They create a huge sense of buzz and urgency. I am planning on doing a contest on my blog in the near future, but I want to have everything laid out where my readers can actually win some very nice prices.
I agree with you. Running a contest on your blog can be very god. If done the write way..It can be a very effective form of viral marketing.
Contests are so powerful I believe if you don’t run one you might as well forget running a blog.
I’m not sure about your last statement. My company runs dozens of successful blogs and we’ve never had a single contest. I think contests are part of the MMO (Make Money Online) blogging community and when you step outside that circle, people aren’t looking for contests on blog, they’re looking for quality content.
As somebody who has been in business longer than most MMO bloggers have been alive and owned and operated several offline businesses, I’ve tried everything from promotions, giveaways, joining the chamber of commerce, church marketing, etc… Everything works for short bursts.
Online, I used to run contests on my affiliate entrepreneur moneymaker forum (just google moneymaker forum to find it), I gave away thousands of dollars in contests back in 2006/07 and after a while it became more of a liability than an asset. There was cheating, whining, crying, fighting and in the end the contests only attrcted the lowest common denominator as far as forum members were concerned.
My point – if something works, exploit it, then move on to the next area of conquest.
In introducing a contest in your blog choose a title that can catch the attention of every reader..and convince them to join the contest and it is according to your set up..article and techniques.
I think contests can be considered a special device attracting attention to the blog though it isnot for frequent use. It is really distracting enegy ,time and attention.
Contests have always worked great for me…
i did not hold single contest till now.your blog is very interesting to visit how about link exchange with my blog http://www.dfunda.com ?
All link exchange and questions are best directed to my email box or twitter message me bud. Its faster and I get the memos
I need some practice on the competition front – I ran one for wow gold-ers asking for witty comments as an idea to get htem to post anything that wasn’t absolute spam – well all I got from them was spam comments – these guys are addicted to keyword stuffing.
The contest is still runing and I’m Late to know about this informations.
@Dave: I agree that contests are generally aimed at the MMO niche, but why can’t they be implemented elsewhere. You just need to cater the prizes to the people who are reading.
If you own a blog about films, you could offer people a DVD, a voucher for one of the online rental services or something similar.
I believe a contest would work in a lot of different niches and by holding one you are giving yourself a chance of greatly increasing your readership.
Darren, you’re right, contests can be an effective promotion for not only blogs but all websites. However, a contest should be a contest and not a means to suck everything you can out of your visitors.
I guess I forgot to elaborate that I’ve seen a lot of blog contests where the blogger requests entrants to do things like subscribe to their RSS feed, Digg a few articles, Stumble the page, add them to their Technorati favorites, etc.. In my opinion, that does the contest holder nothing good in the long run because they’ve artificially inflated themselves.
It also devalues the social medium. It’s like giving somebody a lottery ticket to change their vote in a Presidential election. There are always plenty who would do it.
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Business cant get boost without Contests advertising..Nice post..I really like it. Keep it up..
Thanks
“Content is the king” I think this is enough to prove its importance for any blog.
hey create a huge sense of buzz and urgency. I am planning on doing a contest on my blog in the near future, but I want to have everything laid out where my readers can actually win some very nice prices.
yes one of my friends had the same experience…these guys are simply…taking a whale of a time enticing public for…nothing..I guess..I advise people to stop wasting their precious time on such time consuming activities…but gullible public is gullible
They create a huge sense of buzz and urgency. I am planning on doing a contest on my blog in the near future, but I want to have everything laid out where my readers can actually win some very nice prices.
They create a huge sense of buzz and urgency. I am planning on doing a contest on my blog in the near future, but I want to have everything laid out where my readers can actually win some very nice prices.
I have a contest myspace and I can’t find the code that I am looking for. I think it is called cross-blogging but I am not sure. It’s like a clickable link that says codes and when you click it, it will go to that blog. Can anyone help?
I think contests can be considered a special device attracting attention to the blog though it isnot for frequent use.
I am much concern with the last comment that contest is the best attraction for the blog and its really work.
They create a huge sense of buzz and urgency. I am planning on doing a contest on my blog in the near future.
As a newbie here i found this post very informative and knowledgeable. I glad to visit this post.
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I think contests are an excellent way to jump start comments and interaction on a blog. Although I haven’t actually had one on any of my blogs (planning to), I have participated in a few (haven’t won anything yet either). I think the quality of the prize also plays a role in how effective the contest is. People love getting things for free, but really nice things ups the ante.
As somebody who has been in business longer than most MMO bloggers have been alive and owned and operated several offline businesses, I’ve tried everything from promotions, giveaways, joining the chamber of commerce, church marketing, etc… Everything works for short bursts.
I believe a contest would work in a lot of different niches and by holding one you are giving yourself a chance of greatly increasing your readership.
In introducing a contest in your blog choose a title that can catch the attention of every reader..and convince them to join the contest and it is according to your set up..article and techniques.
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