As you may know, we do organize blog contests here on FamousBloggers.net from time to time, it’s our way to connect business owners, developers and bloggers. We try to create a new business opportunity, engagement, exposure, web traffic and much more. All this plus great cash prizes for the winners. It’s a great deal for everyone who gets involved in our contests.
This is great, but managing a blog contest takes a lot of work and time. There are a few real challenges to face when organizing a blog contest that you have to think of.
Seriously, there are huge tasks and things to do! I realized this after launching a few competitions, and decided not to do it anymore unless I find a solution that saves me time and effort. I had to think of changing the way I manage contests and overcome its pain. But nothing that I know could help with that really!
So, I decided to make my own solution!
I’ve tried many times in the last 6 months to find a way out of this, especially because I like to organize contests on the blog, (actually my blog readers motivate me and ask me about new contests all the time!) So, I thought about developing a WordPress plugin that could help and reduce the required tasks. But, it’s something I really can’t do alone as I have tons of things going on all the time.
Finally, I talked with my partner Mohamed of BloggersNetwork.net about the idea, and actually I had to fly to California to meet him and brainstorm the idea!
And Yes!
Mohamed and I started to work together on bringing up a new freaking awesome WordPress plugin to manage blog competitions. With this brand new plugin, most of the pain of organising contests has now been taken care of.
We call our new plugin CompResult!
And, as you can see from it’s name, the ComPesult plugin was created to take care of all the dirty work, painful tasks, and boring stuff that you will have to do to launch a successful blog contest.
You Can Not Compete with Time, but…
CompResult Widget
There is a fact I believe in, you can not compete with time… But you actually can save some of it!
Take a look at this list of things that you must do to launch a successful blog contest:
- Make a plan
- Find sponsors
- Do a quick blog maintenance
- Put some pages on your blog
- Create some creatives
- Spread the word about your contest
- Reply to tons of emails
- Publish posts
- Calculate results
- Announce winners & deliver prizes
Cool! mmm…
Yeah, the list can be longer, or maybe you can shrink yours a little, but it is still a freaking painful job, and many people won’t believe it till they do it themselves or at least participate in a contest.
If you are planning to organize a contest or a competition on your blog, then you really have to think twice about how you will manage your time. Time is your main challenge, so you will need to save as much time as you can to do your other daily blogging tasks. I means it doesn’t make any sense that you will spend all your time managing a blog contest and forget about your business.
Yeah, I’ve used Excel spreadsheet, Google docs, main mapping apps, my calculator and even pan & papers!
But, honestly, it didn’t work!
Good News are Always Welcome!
The CompResult plugin manages your blog contest, however you still need a plan 
We are getting ready to release the new plugin, after testing it for the first time here on the blog. Check out the blog contests page to see it in action.
Here are some screen shots of the plugin admin page and post editor custom meta box that has been added, plus the results page that can be displayed using a simple short-code, and also the awesome widget that is customizable to allow you to display entries from the contest on your blog sidebar.
Create and manage unlimited contests:
CompResult Setup
Customize each contest blog the way you like:
Customize each blog contest the way you like
You can enable/disable results in table columns for each contest:
Enable/Disable Results Table Columns
CompResult Plugin is Almost Here!
There is a plan to give the new plugin a shot as soon as we have a beta release that is ready for testing. I must tell you that it will be released as a premium plugin with great support, not only for the plugin itself, but other things like helping you organize your contest by giving you great advice, and maybe send a few bloody awesome sponsors your way!
So, if you are interested in testing this plugin and/or planning to organize a blog contest any time soon, visit the plugin website and leave your contact. We can then notify you when it’s ready and pick a few bloggers for the test!
If you would like to be notified when we launch CompResult, just visit the site and leave your email address.
If you have any question, post them in the comments and I will reply to you!
John April 26, 2013 at 10:01 am
Any news? I’d (still) love to see this made available!!
Hesham Zebida April 26, 2013 at 4:57 pm
Hi John,
Unfortunately, the project has been on hold. I will let you know when something comes up.
Aaron August 24, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Abandonware? Original article in Dec of 2011 and here it is late 2012 and still nothing? Any updates? I was looking at Contest Burner and that has been abandoned, too.
Lance Clancy August 6, 2012 at 2:13 am
I am so excited about this Contest Plugin for WordPress. I have been looking for a good one and found none. Hope to be informed come launch time for this plugin.
Navin Kunwar May 16, 2012 at 1:20 am
Seems cool, its awesome idea to provide a WordPress contest management plugin . there are nothing more then comment counter.
Jamie Northrup from 514 Web Consultant February 7, 2012 at 7:53 am
Nice work Hesham, this is something that is much needed. I just signed up and can’t wait for it to be ready as I’m planning to run several contests across my websites in the next 2 years.
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Vernessa Taylor February 4, 2012 at 9:42 am
Hi Hesham,
Awesome idea to provide a contest management plugin for WordPress. It would certainly be worth paying for.
Just checking back in here to see if it is ready yet.
Ahhh, but looks like you guys have changed your mind about making this a WordPress plugin in favor of offering it as part of a Membership site. Is that the “final answer”?
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Hesham Zebida February 4, 2012 at 11:47 am
Hi Vernessa ,
We are still working on the plugin, it requires a lot of work, really!
To explain this, there will be a WP plugin that connects to our server where we store and manage the calculation process, this explains the paid membership.
Actually the idea is more complicated than that, it’s not just another plugin, we are having some nice plans, and because we want to make it awesome, we need more time!
I prefer not to share more details at this point
Vernessa Taylor February 4, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Hi Hesham,
Yes, I understand! In whatever way you implement it, the idea is solid and very welcome. Aha, trade secrets!! LOL No worries, we will all wait patiently for your big launch!
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Jeet Dholakia January 12, 2012 at 12:15 am
First of all congratulations on developing such excellent plugin and i checked out the site but its showing coming soon so i have to wait for that. pretty much exciting stuff for the blogger also who is conducting the contest. i would like to ask how can i find sponsors for this type of contest? because i want to provide some cool stuff to readers but not having that much fund to provide.
Nipon December 28, 2011 at 1:09 am
This plugin looks good.When coming for sell?
Diana Grant December 27, 2011 at 7:10 am
Hi Hesham! This is a great plug in! I must try this when it is launched. Thanks for the information…
Scott December 22, 2011 at 10:59 pm
Please let me know when it is ready. Awesome!!!
Thanks!
Scott
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Mani Viswanathan from Security December 21, 2011 at 10:03 am
Before I read the entire post, I thought this would be a free plugin. But after seeing the screenshots and the effort you both have put into it, certainly deserves to be a paid plugin. Hope the pricing is less so that by the time I host contests I can buy it
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Jane from blogging contest December 21, 2011 at 12:43 am
WOW, the backend area looks so cool. So we can manage everything with a few clicks! How cool. Who needs this plugin right now? You bet! Its me Hesham
Amazing idea and amazing product for sure.
Jane recently posted..Getting Your Blog Off the Ground
gautam hans December 21, 2011 at 12:10 am
I am really looking forward to this plugin and would love to buy it for my future contests.
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Azhar from medical billing services December 20, 2011 at 10:21 pm
In this post you are providing a guide line to your readers how to manage a contest on a blog.Nice post on blogging contest.
Brankica from Aweber or Mailchimp December 20, 2011 at 9:30 pm
I can almost bet you created this after that contest I took part in. Cause that one had to take days and days of your time to calculate results
Thanks so much for posting about this, I had no clue it was so detailed!
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Hesham Zebida December 20, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Aha, so true! I was having the idea, but didn’t get the chance!
If you think that participating in a blog contest is a lot of work, just try to organize one, it’s insanely painful that I won’t want to do it again.. ever!
But what to do, I am addicted
Nasrul Hanis December 20, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Wow.. and this is how you manage to handle the contest successfully! Because I always what type of system that you are using.
Thanks for sharing with us pal!
Hesham Zebida December 20, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Hehe we don’t have to do the same boring stuff every time we do a contest
Bethany December 20, 2011 at 11:08 am
One of the most economical ways to begin promoting a recipe contest online is to search out websites that specialize in promoting contests and sweepstakes. Most of these will add your contest to their lists at no charge to you, because having many contests in their lists brings their site more readers, which is where they generate revenue. There are at least two sites that specialize in compiling recipe contests. Many more exist that list both sweepstakes and contests of many types. Search for “contest lists” or “recipe contest lists” to begin discovering these sites.
Hesham Zebida December 20, 2011 at 9:40 pm
mmmm I see! Thanks for the info!
Tushar December 20, 2011 at 10:37 am
Such a wonderful review. This is a must use tool for every blogger who is thinking of holding a contest in their blog. I was so impressed with this tool when you used it in this contest. It makes things so easy for all the participants
Hesham Zebida December 20, 2011 at 9:29 pm
We are developing a plugin for production so it will be available for all bloggers who are interested in organizing blog contests, hopefully soon!
abhiz December 20, 2011 at 7:32 am
Interesting! These screenshot looking great. Admin can customize each contest and managing is a new idea.
i cant wait, looking to buy this plugin tool first
Hesham Zebida December 20, 2011 at 9:41 pm
I think we won’t sell the plugin, it will be a membership type as we host the brain of the code on our server!
abhiz December 22, 2011 at 6:50 am
Ohh! I thought its a premium plugin that developed for selling, Thanks for the reply,
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Amie Marse December 20, 2011 at 7:23 am
Very exciting! And you’re right – it’s always more work than we think. Looking forward to buying and implementing it
Ah the joys of contests…
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Hesham Zebida December 20, 2011 at 9:34 pm
Glad to hear that, we are working hard to get things done
Thanks Amie
DiTesco December 20, 2011 at 6:30 am
This is so awesome Hesham. My past experience with a contest has proved that a tool such as this one will definitely be indispensable and perhaps the only reason I have not organized contest on my own (yet) is because the part about keeping track and calculating results is a tedious tasks, and something that using excel alone can seriously go wrong. Off to sign up for your email over there… Nice plugin buddy, good job!
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Hesham Zebida December 20, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Thanks for sharing buddy, we also have a plan for joint contests , so maybe one day we will do a good one together