Contests to Promote Blog

[airraid81]

I was thinking of doing a contest to see who could comment the most within a month or something. Do they help much? How do you get the word out? And what should I use for a prize? Would it sound stupid to just be like "$20 to whoever comments the most?"

[cmanlong]

I actually posted on this topic a while back. Here is the thread so I don't have to type it again.

http://www.bloggingtips.com/forums/showthread.php?t=180

[airraid81]

Whoa, your post really helped me. I was asking how to promote a contest and what to do the contest about, so you gave me a link to enter your own contest. Very relavent. Do I get to have my original question answered if I win?

[cmanlong]

Maybe if you would have poked around a bit on my blog you would have found the answer! Your sarcasm isn't lost on me :)

Well since you haven't even entered the contest I can't answer your question if you win. Of course at this point I probably wouldn't answer even if you did enter and win.

As for your idea of awarding who comments the most - bad idea. You will end up with a ton of stupid irrelevant comments that don't contribute jack to your blog or the discussion.

All sarcasm aside, contests are a great way to bring in some traffic and promote your blog. I know many people that get much more "bang" for their buck from contests than they ever did with paid reviews. As far as what to give away that is up to you. Cash is always good or something that is popular and perceived as a quality prize.

[jblanton]

Contest are definitely good ways to give your blog a boost in a certain direction. They are also a sneaky way of getting what you desire accomplished. I am going to start a contest on my blog this weekend so I am ok with a little sneakiness myself.

I agree the most comments thing is not really a good idea.

Although you could restructure it to something like this. Ask those that have a blog to write a review and provide links back to your blog with a certain anchor text. If you want to enter and don't have a blog then you can enter by reading and posting 5 relevant comments. But explain that it can't be something like "great article" or "great Site". Haven't actually tried this but just an idea.

Jason

[Ginene]

Contests are great ways to promote blogs. I was thinking about having a contest to give away a grandcentral invite since that normally gets a lot of comments.

[jblanton]

So does anyone have a secret sauce for promoting a contest or give away? I am going to launch a contest this weekend (maybe even tomorrow) to give away a Video Nano. I figure its going to be a hot Christmas gift so it should go well as long as I can get word out.

We should start a new thread to list contests here.

Thoughts?

[airraid81]

ContestBlogger.com is a good place to submit your contest.

I recently started a contest that is running through October. The object is to photoshop the funniest picture of infamous Virginia Tech alumni Michael Vick and Seuing Hui Cho together for prizes including permalinks, site reviews, and money. It's up at http://www.juicedcontests.blogspot.com

[cmanlong]

I agree that contest blogger is a good start, there are also quite a few smaller contest blogs around. Also forums like this or DP usually send some traffic.

[airraid81]

I just searched for blog contest blogs and submitted it to the top 4. It was featured on 3 of them (not Contest Blogger), but the publicity from those sites has gotten it featured on two more. If you post on DP about your contest, would they consider that spam?