Hi All,

I am a little sad/confused and am seeking advice on how to improve in the future.

Basically, (a friend and myself) were hoping to increase usefull commenting on blogs. Our idea was to create a contest   such that if you left a useful comment on one of the blogs within our network, you would be entered to win a $15 gift cerficiate.  The contest is/was open for about 30 days (till Sept 30)

It is past the middle of the month know, and I have had very few entries. I am actually unsure how concerned I should be about this.  Perhaps everyone is just waiting until the list minute to enter (which will make it hard to get all the entries in time)

Anyway I thought it was a good idea, but am looking for suggestions on wording for next months contest so perhasp we can have a better results.

The contest details are at: http://articleswap.blogspot.com/2007/08 … e-way.html

Perhaps people just figure it's a scam (which it isn't) and don't want to answer, or are not willing to email because they are afraid it will be used for spam (which it won't).  Perhaps the rules are too restrictive, or hard to understand? Perhaps the contest $ are too low (though it's all I can aford at the moment)

Any tips would be greatly appreciated

Hi JP, don’t be sad, those things take some experimenting and fiddling. I am curious about what you are trying to achieve, why you are giving away money? If your not getting a financial return on your money I don’t quite see the point. If your just looking for to increase readers they are better ways to use $15

Thanks for your comments waveshoppe.

There are several reasons behind my contest idea, and yes one of them would be to increase traffic to my site.

However, what I am trying to do is create a distribution model for other bloggers to help them get their blogs noticed.

The concept is that many people out there have lots of interesting things to say (lots don't as well), but I work to try and springboard newbies into the blog-o-sphere and encourge the contribution of thoughts and ideas

Although, I do this for "free". I do actually hope to gain experiance and popularity in the process which someday in the fiture I can capitalize on.  However, it is not currently my primary objective.

The other thing is, although I'm starting with my own $, I am hoping at somepoint the contest will be run (at least partially by donations). So 50% of it will be used to the prize and 50% can go to a charity. In this way "everyone wins".. I get traffic, charity gets a donation, someone gets a prize.

That's the theory anyway :-)

Tks again.

Did the amount of comments increase, decrease, or stay the same? Having a very low amount of comments doesnt mean anything if we dont know what to compare it to.

Now, for example, if you normally get an average of 25 comments (comments meaning USEFUL comments), and since starting the contest the average dropped to 5, then you got a problem. Users may feel they are being persuaded too much to comment - if you are giving away money, there's got to be a reason. That, or as you said, they may feel you will use the information for malicious or suspicious activity.

But, if the comments increased, I'd say you need to work on getting more traffic to your site. More traffic = more comments if the contest is working.

Lastly, if it stayed about the same, I'd say test with other "contests". Try offering more money, or gift certificates, or something related to the site (i.e. if its a marketing site, offer a free marketing e-book, etc.).

Ask anyone who does this stuff for a living. There is only one thing to learn: TEST, TEST, TEST!

JP, after reading your post it came to mind that you may enjoy the concept used in one of my friends sites at http://www.brickfish.com/Default.aspx

It was just sold for big $$$ but it was a project from the creator of Compass Learning. A lot of money went into R&D for this site so if you digest it slowly you may get some more ideas.

JP,
How many visitors are you already getting for your blog?! How's it doing on the SERPs for your KW phrases?

Contests are tough to get more visitors, because you already need enough visitors coming to even know you're putting on a contest. Sorta like that problem we all had coming out of schools -- employers wanted experience, but we couldn't get experience until we were employed!

Now, I don't want to discourage you, especially, since I know how tough it is to gain visitors for blogs! On the other hand, I do join writing contests on occasion, but I wouldn't join yours for two reasons:
     1. "Useful comments" is too subjective for me.
     2. A gift certificate at Amazon.com for $15 wouldn't pay for most stuff sold by them, particularly since shipping costs, too!

I'm sorry, if that sounded too blunt. I too have sites that aren't making money, and one that is costing me money without even being published yet, so I know how much $15 is to spend on a business idea that isn't ROI yet! Personally, I'm hoping WS tells us both how to use $15 better to market your blog, so we can both learn.

Now, don't give up on the idea, since, you are also right! When I do enter writing contests, I don't slap together a response and post immediately. I enter to win! September isn't over, and, from what I've witnessed in the social networking place that I go to (where I've won for writing comments a couple of times,) most entries are published in the last couple of days of the contest! You're contest entries will probably increase towards the end of the month.

Now, if you like more folks to know about it, you might want to join into the social network I belong to for writers and publish a little piece about your blog and contest in the community at Gather.com. They even have a community about Contests!

While there, keep an eye out for their contests! The two I've won weren't even for articles -- merely comments -- and I won five $100 gift certificates to Borders and a $50 American Express gift certificate. If you could win similar prizes, you have something to give away worth a bit more for your blog's contests in the future! (No, I'm no more associated with them, then I am associated with this site. )

Good luck, and let us know how your contest worked out! No matter how it turns out, you've learned more to tell your visitors!

Thanks again.

These have been some helpful suggestions.

I promoted the contest itself by submitting it to  a few contest forums, social bookmarking sites, etc.  What I probably should have done is put some sort of counter to keep track of views to the site vs people who actually entered the comments.

I would say comments have stayed about the same, but it's a little hard to be sure, since the idea is to post comments on other people's sites that are part of the network, so I have no specific statistics (hence the need for the email to let me know so that I can put the entries in.

I suppose what really confuses me is that my expectation was that if I gave something away for free, lots of people would try it. I mean what would they have to loose?.

So let's say for example for every 1000 views only one person enters. This would be surprising to me, unless of course, 999 people just assumed it was some sort of scam.

For now, I have bookmarked that brickfish site and look forward to reading it more in the future.

Does anyone suppose I would get more entries if it were PayPal instead of a gift certificate..I wonder?

those kind of contests are neat - I won an iPod on this site in a contest like that one time

yeah yeah Muty, rub it in!

Contests won't drive much traffic - you might get some from the comp listing sites - but are they the ones you really want - I'd probably guess not!

Tto me it is more a case of gathering useful info and email addresses. Like a mini survey. It can potentially add value to your site.

If you were say doing some TV advertising about your site, it is a way of leveraging the value of your ad spend.

Seems like maybe a little more thought into the REAL purpose of the exercise might not be a bad idea.

JP, you said "However, it is not currently my primary objective" Can you say what the primary objective is?

Unless you are trying to get recognized as an authority in a field or selling something I don’t see what added traffic and comments will change. But traffic can come in more ways than you would expect.

A common thread amongst blogs is that they are full of self promotion, while its ok to do that, you may not want it to dominate your posts. But if you are open minded you can try bloging about a site with content similar to your content, preferably one that has a lot of traffic. In Universal Search there are instances where if you cant beat them you can  join them.  (And its good for a few more things)

So lets say you only have a web and your competitor has a web and a store. You can write a nice loving review about them, making sure to include the physical address (no OBL link)

Using Jims site, Aloha Shirt Shop, as an example. People may Google aloha shirt shop morrow bay and the results would list them as well as your Blog, done right you can even bump them.

Here is an example (Da Kine is ours) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en& … tnG=Search

“I'm hoping WS tells us both how to use $15 better to market your blog, so we can both learn” Honestly, outside of some directory submissions, I wouldn’t spend money on marketing a personal blog. I would spend it on double fudge chocolate ice cream.

But if you have a product, we found that donating a portion of a products sales to charity works fairly well. People that buy our firefighter shirts are getting 10% of their purchase donated to local firefighter charities. In turn the charity will usually drop some mention in their mailers or on their webs.

A similar thread was also started on this a while back and the title asked a good question: How to promote a contest?

thing is..a lot of people believe having a contest will increase their traffic and particpation, but you need to promote your conest in order for people to find out about....and to me the methods of promoting a contest are the same as promoting a site/blog...so why bother? you could simply promote your site and take out the middle man (contest)

I'm not saying i don't like contests - they definately have their place and can be fun (i'm open to having more here) but don;t believe they are that usefull as a traffic generating tool (unless you do somehting very unique/special). If you simply want greater participation form your existing traffic i would spice up your content...get contreversial or adopt some sort of "whacky" personality or post fresh info not found anywhere else...then comments should roll in

just my 2c

I wasn't going to get involved in this thread because it started off sounding like a scene from the Dr Phil Show.

But, if you want people to comment on your blog, you have to give them a compelling reason to do so...not bribe them. I don't know how yours is set up but you must make it easy for them to leave a comment...I hate having to open an account somewhere before I can leave a comment - I'm out of there. Using image verification is fine.

I'm glad Nic mentioned Controversy as it is the biggest crowd-puller on my forum...a very wise person once told me that it is good to have a fight break out about once a month...forums are of course a lot more interactive than a blog, however the concept definitely works.


*If you want people to comment...you must also ask them questions?


Have you thought about running surveys?

Most people love to give advice and ideas...(why do you think we are all here)...well your customers are no different.

You obviously need to ask a question specific to your field. I looked at your blog and couldn't work out what your DIRECTION is so I'm unable to make suggestions for specific survey questions to ask...but I'll give you an example of what draws in the biggest crowds.

A car website could ask, "If you could own any car in the world, what would it be and why?"
A survey question just recently that got an enormous number of responses was, "What self development book has had the most impact on your life and how?"


People also need direct instructions for what to do - a call to action.
One of my blogs has over 320 comments and it's only been online for 3 months.

Hope these ideas help,

Elizabeth Richardson

Excellent suggestions everyone, thank-you very much. 

A couple of comments:

1) The "purpose" of the site -> I'm actually directing my attention at promoting other "sites"..well not really sites, but other smaller blog entries that others have created.  But I'm not saying my motivies are altrusitic.  I want to show the folks that swap articles with me, that the my sites does have value to them and is usefull so they will continue to come back.  The theory is that I am helping myself by spending my time helping others. There are thousands of site out there that send "crappy" meaningless traffic to others..I know because I've fallen victim to it myself in the past So I'm trying to find ways to drive meaningfull traffic to others sites hoping that 'sharing the love' will come back to help me in the end.  Hope that makes sense.

2) I didn't think of my contest idea as 'bribing', but thanks for pointing this out to me, it gives me a better perspective, and I look forward to trying the other suggestions as well.

On an on related note...Dr Phil is cool..don't you think ;-)

Your last post gives us a good example of where you're going wrong:

1) The "purpose" of the site -> I'm actually directing my attention at promoting other "sites"..well not really sites, but other smaller blog entries that others have created.  But I'm not saying my motivies are altrusitic.  I want to show the folks that swap articles with me, that the my sites does have value to them and is usefull so they will continue to come back

What?
the purpose of the site ---> THEN LOTS OF BABBLE.

Get to the point.

My Point?

This is where you've gone wrong. Reading the contest announcement page, You list the Prize and it's value, then list it's value again, then go on:

Blog it: You don’t need to be a blogger to enter, but it's great if you are! If you blog about articleswap.biz and/or this contest and link to any part of our site you get FIVE entries into the drawing. Limit one blog article per blog, but if you have mutiple blogs you can get multiple entries for each of your blogs so long as each entry is unique.

whereas:

Link to this blog and get 5 FREE entries into our super prize draw!!!

not only would have done it, but it would have got the little feckers excited.
"I can do thatI could win!"

Leave a comment: Leave a comment on anyone of the articles that ArticleSwap.biz refers to on the blog. Click to visit the blog entry, and leave a comment on that blog owners blog. The comment can’t be a generic “Cool Idea”, or or “Please Pick me”. You have to write a relevant comment about the article and choose www.articleswap.biz/blog as the referring website in the comment. Each comment you leave during the month is ONE entry into the contest. You can have multiple entries but each must be a seperate comment on a seperate blog

whereas:

Post your opinion on any article on ArticleSwap.biz and we'll give you one FREE entry into our mega super-duper prize draw!!

Again would have got the gash frothing.
"I've got an opinion, i can type, I might win!!"

But then it gets worse, you've put Paypal buttons in there too.

"Damn, do i have to pay to enter this draw? Where's that black X?"

Most people skip read, so the trick is to 'skip type'. Don;t write an essay unless your readers will be expecting one.

The reason I've joined in with this thread is that I'm doing a very similar thing on one of our sites.
It's been going for a year (1st sept) and we wanted to thank our members for making it successful.

We created a prize draw where the only thing you have to do is run a search through our Yahoo search box. This forwards straight to Yahoo natural search (not overture), makes us nothing, but it gives each member an entry to win the draw (on 1st Oct)
See the main draw info page: http://www.quids-in-uk.co.uk/Birthday_Competition/

Notice No bollox.
Just Win this, win that, or win this.

Keep all terms and condtions in a set Terms and Conditions part of the page RIGHT at the bottom.

Now, all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning one of these fantastic prizes that are sat next to me as I type, is join our website and run a FREE search.

see what i did there? Sold it again!

So that's what Ive done elsewhere. Ive been on relevant forums where I know our prospective members hang out. Ive posted that we're having a free draw and anyone can win as long as they're a member and have at least one entry by 30th sept.

Got just over 6000 entries so far
Had about 140 new members since we started the draw.


also, gotta agree that $15 isn't gonna set the world alight. £7 in real money.
That equates to 20 regal King size and a cheapo lighter.

Work out how much each member/visitor/link is worth to your business and create a prize that will give you around 400% return on investment at least.
Remember, the bigger the worm the bigger the fish.
If the worms all manky and dead looking, the fish'll go elsewhere for a bit of sweetcorn

Wow griffinsbridge...what an insightful review.

Thankyou...I have learned an enormous amount from what you have written and appreciate your clarity...

..for once I am speechless,

Elizabeth Richardson

Knickerless and speechless  - what a day! 

matte wrote:

Knickerless and speechless  - what a day!  ;)

Yep...and it only gets better from here!

Thanks for noticing that I've been around Matte

Elizabeth

P.S. Actually JPRuss, I think you might have been involved in some of those conversations...have you got the answers to the questions you asked at the beginning?

Yes, thank-you.

I look forward to trying some of these ideas for my next contest.  In particular tying to make it less "wordy".  Though I must admit this might be hard for me to do ;-)