There are lots of blogs online and more are created on a daily basis, promoting the blog becomes a challenge for most new bloggers.
One way to effectively promote the blog is by way of creating a blog contest. Even sponsors like blog contest because it’s an avenue for them to promote their blog, product or service by offering good prizes and or cash prizes for a certain time.
If you’re considering starting a blog contest for the purpose of promoting your blog, then this article will show you how to effectively do it and succeed.
Have you ever watch a reality TV show like the Apprentice, Survivor, American Idol etc or any series movie series like 24, Prison Break, Nikita etc, these are popular contest and have built an audience that improve the rating of the channel and the brand of the company doing it. That is why most of the reality TV show or movie series have been turn into seasons and whenever it’s release, the audience turn to it again.
The shows follow some trend: good content produces good audiences and builds loyalty among them which will be eager for more from the provider. At these stage we’ll say, they have built a brand that is why people are eager to see their next project.
So the question is can you create a blog contest that will pull in more audience that will make people and sponsors to be eager to for more? Below are some tips for conducting a successful contest on your blow.
Have someone who decide on the result
This are people who you’ll recruit especially people who are expert or have good idea about the subject and give them some certain instruction about how to judge the contest.
Give them the guidelines, links and points to consider as correct. You’re not doing all the work, but trying to coordinate the entire process and to allow them do a fair judgment since you’re off it. This is good as you’ll not give preferential treatment to your friends or any sponsors, but will reward the winner base on quality.
Make your contest viral using social media
Although this depend on what you intent to achieve in your contest. If you intent to build visibility and credibility, build list, build your brand and to be an authority under a niche, then using social media is the best place you can start and the best place to make your contest go viral.
Don’t just stop there, continue to other social bookmarking sites this also boost your search engine ranking. Create a special page for your contest and encourage your blog visitors to share the page. That is not the only benefit the during contest, even after that as you’ll continue to enjoy the traffic.
You can write review in your page and at the end of it, put in some simple contest term for your visitor to read and subscribe to it.
Give the sponsors some benefit
Having sponsors for the contest is good, then try and do something special that will keep then willing to take part in the next contest. Let it begin by giving them some important benefits.
Give them some form of appreciation, it can be a book that interest them, a T-shirt, recommendation of how to improve their site and offer them some value to sponsor the next context.
How to make the contests exciting with benefits
- Now after having finish a successful contest and all parties have benefited. There were some who could not participate and yet contribute to your website. Don’t just leave them like that show them how important they’re by giving them some incentive. You can ask them to comment or ask a question and the person with the best comment or question, will be rewarded. This also will generate more traffic and more people will join your contest next time.
- From your feedback and comments, you can create a poll or voting widgets and ask your spectators and contestants too to vote their favorite blog comments or blog and who they fear the most in the contest. This way your next contest will exciting, because you have engaged your visitors or spectators.
- If the contest is running for a limited time, maybe for a month, you need to keep updating the leader-board with stats every week. This is a way telling the contestants and visitors that you are fair and credible. Playing the game with no partiality at all.
Plan the contest in other to avoid mistakes
Effective planning makes your contest stand out from the crowd. The following are suggestions on how to plan before the contest.
- Make the name unique and attractive
- Make sure the name is short and can be remembered easily
- Design your promotional tools with both text and banners included.
- Make the rules and state clearly what will disqualify any contestant.
- Make a disclaimer; these will avert the fight that may arise when the final result is announced.
- Limit the number of participants. These will make it easier for you to calculate points and easy to judge.
- Tell contestants on what they need to do exactly.
- Make the contestant have the same eligibility criteria for them to be admitted.
- Don’t forget your sponsors after the contest. Keep emailing them for next context and don’t forget to tell them the benefit.
Keep the best and eliminate the poor ones
Making your contest more exciting should be the top priority. When the contest is on, start eliminating those that are poor and keep the strong contestants to compete together. This will make the spectators to be more interested in the contest.
Announce the blog contest winners
At the end of your contest, don’t just announce the winners just like that. Give the exact calculation of the points and state clearly why the winner was chosen. Mention what the prize is and how you intent to reward the spectators. And when it’s successful, then start working on the next contest.
Author bio
Bako Yila is a blogger and have been blogging for the past three years on various subjects like blogging, personal finance, inspiration and lifestyle. Visit our blog for more on personal finance, inspiration and lifestyle.