In this post I will share some thoughts with you about organizing online contests. Blogging contests are an exceptional way to have fun while working online. They are great for making new friends, increasing blog traffic, and provide tons of other benefits to every one involved!
Plz, make sure to read this post if you are participating in our blogging contest. If you are not participating (yet) we have some news for you.
Organizing online contests is not that easy!
Before talking about anything, I would like to make sure that you fully understand that organizing such big contest is not as easy as some of you might think!
Organizing contests takes a lot of time and effort. There are many tasks that will keep you behind your laptop working from dealing with sponsors to participant’s issues to interacting with bloggers during the time you’re running the contest. Basically, even if you do not count the time spent planning, just running the contest means a whole two months of hard work! And oh, yeah! … Don’t forget about your other offline and other life/personal stuff that you have to stay on top of like you usually do while you’re busy running the contest!
So many people are Asking “HOW we did it?!”
I have received a few emails from my blogger friends in the community asking for advice while they are planning their new contests. They asked me how to organize a successful blogging contest and get benefit from it. I have only one simple – but very important- word that answers this question perfectly! It’s “partnering”!
Yes, having good and strong partners will 100% assure you will be successful! You don’t have to think alone; you also don’t have to work alone – especially when it’s about blogging in the very high competition niches we are involved in! And I am going to repeat this forever: Blogging is not a single player game! Why compete with each other when we are in the same boat!
Are we Making Any Money from organizing contests
Yes, we have made a few bucks while running each contest we have run. We do NOT receive money directly from our contest’s sponsors (note: we are sponsoring the contest as well) because we prefer to keep it all for the winners at this point. We depend on increasing FB traffic so we can sell more advertisements and increase our affiliates sales. We have a very special page that has all the services and products that we recommend for bloggers. Using that page is safe because we personally are using/testing almost 90% of these services and products, and the other 10% were recommended by our very close blogger friends. This means everything is recommended 100% by serious, trustworthy bloggers.
Knowing which hosting companies have been tried and left behind and what solutions every one of us ends up using for everything from mailing list management to autoresponders to WordPress Themes to Premium Plugins can save you a ton of time, money and aggravation!
Maybe it’s a good chance to give you a hint, we really appreciate if you take a look to our affiliate page and at any time you want to buy one of these service or products we are recommending then go a head, click on the banner.. do the purchase and we will be glad to receive our commission from it! It’s actually the best way to support famous bloggers without having to pay anything directly to us.
And as you can see, we are making money indirectly from running online contests, also we are increasing our guest blogging activities, and this means more satisfied bloggers in our blogging community as we always hope.
Back to our Blogging Contest stuff
I see that a few bloggers were able to get 100+ comments on their entries in a few days from their publishing date! But what does that mean?
To me it means that they have more blogger friends now – and I have no doubt they have increased their own readership!
To participants? You have probably made a lot of new blogging friends and are enjoying their company on your blog. The contest made you more active, and you have learned at least one new cool tip from it 
To other bloggers? Much of the reason I published this post is to talk to those bloggers who are not yet participating. We were thinking today about extending the contest article submission for one extra week because we are out of time. (The original deadline was July 7.) We mentioned at the beginning of the contest that we might extend the deadline and that is actually what is happening now. We need an extra week to accept more articles and also to have a chance to publish what we already have in the draft and pending section of ComLuv.com and FamousBloggers blogs!
What about the Shy bloggers? This is another chance for them! I hope they wake up from their deep heavy sleep
Plz, read Gail’s post at ComLuv for more information and tips about how to promote your article in the contest and how to get help on that!
Extending the contest article submission.. why?
We have a few articles which are not published yet. We are doing our best to give everybody more time for article promotion and getting more comments by spreading out the time between each article being published on both blogs!
We could just publish all articles at once and then we will be relaxing and you are the one who will suffer, but that would not be the right way to do this. If you articles disappear from the home page quickly it will not get as much visibility and we would not have as much chance to help on articles promotion.
So, this is why we decided to extend the article submission for another week! The new end date is 14 of July 2010 which we believe is best to make promotions fair for everybody!
Prizes Distribution
Gail wrote about the prizes distribution in her twenty winner post at ComLuv.com, but maybe you missed that post, so here is our prizes distribution again:
- First place wins $750
- Second pays $300
- Third $200
- Fourth through Tenth place prizes – seven of them – of $150 each
- Eleventh through Twentieth place winners – total of ten – $100 each
I wish you good luck!
Feel free to share your thoughts – and if you have any questions I will be glad to answer is in the comments!
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{ 51 comments… read them below or add one }
(8 comments) July 16, 2010 at 7:10 pm
I occasionally pick stuff which is popular and in demand.. The idea is to increase the readership and more over most of them have affiliate program and this helps me make some sales…
A contest is the best way to boost your readership…
Harsh Agrawal @Wordpress SEO´s last blog ..Retweet and Comment to Win Complete ThemeJunkie Wordpress Premium Theme Package
(6 comments) July 11, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Well, I have entered the contest. A bit nervous about it but still, wanted to participate wholeheartedly! I do look forward to the next endeavor, and please, be sure to email me next sponsorship round!
AIDY@ AIDYs Poetry Blog´s last blog ..Migration nightmare
(286 comments) July 10, 2010 at 8:44 am
Just submitted my article Hesham, hope I the article still have a chance to live online
Don’t worry about supporter brother, I always support this awesome blog, even I’m not buy anything from service or affiliate links from here I have my own way to support this blog.
I thing blogging is about fair competition by supporting each other and support the other contestant is really show you are a gentleman
Latief@AnotherBlogger´s last blog ..Things To Avoid When Create A Website
(112 comments) July 8, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Let’s hope you make all sorts of money on the latest contest. I know there is all sorts of time involved so a nice reward at the end is nice.
Colleen@Kennewick Real Estate´s last blog ..Teen Adventure Challenge at Columbia Park Trail Ropes Course
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 7:57 pm
We are doing great, thanks to you and all other sponsors!
I have a small gift for you as appreciation, will be contacting you soon
(10 comments) July 8, 2010 at 8:17 pm
That’s very kind of you Hesham, but the exposure has been our reward already!
Colleen´s last blog ..Teen Adventure Challenge at Columbia Park Trail Ropes Course
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 9:34 pm
There is always more for those who support us! I have just emailed you now.. I hope you will like what’s on that email!
Thank you for everything!
(235 comments) July 8, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Good luck to the contestant this seems a pretty awsome contest Hesham and i know you are capable of pulling this one off. Thumbs up Brother
lawmacs´s last blog ..Links for 2010-07-04 delicious
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Thank you Lawmacs, it’s a real bloody hard work contest lol!
mmm.. I thought you will participate, but I am not sure about your time, give it a try if you can!
(4 comments) July 8, 2010 at 2:12 pm
This is only the second blogging contest I have ever seen that I believe was really successful. (That does NOT mean there are not others – only that I don’t move in whatever circle they are in to have seen them.) The other one is a contest popular with Mommy Bloggers called BlogMania.
Most bloggers would not be able to pull off a contest like this for several reasons:
1) They don’t have enough visibility and subscribers – FamousBloggers is a multi-author blog supported by powerful bloggers like Hesham and Kristi and ComLuv is PR6 and has 24,000+ registered blogs and over 1 million plugin downloads.
2) They don’t have the connections to get sponsors to put up the kind of prize money this contest received.
Most bloggers would be much better off getting involved in the next FamousBlogger CommentLuv contest in any capacity than they would having their own contest.
I’ve tried doing contests and even with giving away $50 gift certificates to any blogger for the asking they never got off the ground. Stephanie’s entry in this contest mentions a contest that only got five total comments. That is not her fault – it just illustrates how challenging it is to get a contest off the ground!
Any blogger who wants to benefit from a contest would be much better off being a sponsor or contestant or judge in an already-popular contest than trying to launch their own.
We are recruiting judges now who did not enter this contest and from the start we have discussed making these contests quarterly. They are such a huge amount of work they might end up being twice a year instead – unless we bring in more assistance to run them.
If our first contest has $3550 in CASH PRIZES and will probably have about 35+ entrants do you realize how large subsequent contests on a regularly scheduled basis could grow?
What do you all think? Should we aim for quarterly or go easier on Hesham, Andy and myself and do them twice a year instead? Before you answer realize that having four would provide twice the benefits of only having two.
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Thank you Gail, I think your comment is suitable for a blog post
I will discuss this with you and we can publish some nice post to get feedback!
(10 comments) July 8, 2010 at 11:56 am
i always look the blog contest a way to get popular instead of getting cash…infact i do not think that any blogger organize contest for money….
Tushar @ BloggersPassion´s last blog ..How to Put Your Money in Blogging in India?
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 1:46 pm
This is true Tushar, money will come latter, and this is why we are sponsoring this contest as well, but probably there will be some changes depending on the sponsoring budgets! I mean if we are able to run another successful contests in the future at least we will not put cash into it, we will probably depend on our happy sponsors, and by this way we will save something in return as we put too much time and effort in planning, organizing and running the contest!!
Just thoughts!
(246 comments) July 8, 2010 at 10:10 am
I agree with Kristi. I’ve run some big(ish) contests myself in the past and it is a huge responsibility. Kudos to ya’ll for pulling it off so smoothly!
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..Have You Written Any WordPress 30 Feature Posts
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Thank you Dennis, and yes buddy.. it’s a huge responsibility and we better deal with it like having a fun time not to get stressed lol!
Thank you for sponsoring the contest!
(246 comments) July 10, 2010 at 8:28 am
Anytime my friend.
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..Have You Written Any WordPress 30 Feature Posts
Thanks for giving more chance for those new published articles to be promoted by the author.
How I wish to join this contest, but it seems that my time was so very hectic this time, because I accepted some outsourcing offers from various products and blogs.
If I submit a new post today, I think it won’t be publish because their are still many posts are in queue.
Felix Albutra´s last blog ..The Ultimate Blog Marketing Techniques
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Hey Felix, we are trying to do the best for everybody!
Submit your post and don’t worry about that, the end of article submission is not the end of promotion, we will make sure to give time, and probably you can see that the prizes are good and chances of winning are incredibly high!
Thanks for the encouraging me Hesham. I will do my very best to share information not because of the contest but for the benefit of everybody.
Felix Albutra´s last blog ..The Ultimate Blog Marketing Techniques
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 11:42 pm
This is much appreciated Felix!
Online contests are good for improving popularity.
I have organized some of them and i have alwary receive some advantages
Alex@Applicazioni iPhone´s last blog ..Waze – Bon sbaglierete mai strada grazie al vostro Iphone
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 1:38 pm
We have experienced great results with contests because we try to organize the work and take the contests to higher levels!
Good to know that contests worked for you Alex, and thank you for your comment!
Hi Hesham,
Personally, I don’t think if there is anything wrong with making money by starting a contest. After all, you are putting in efforts and, hence, you definitely deserve something in return.
All I want to say is… Keep up the good work Hesham.
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 1:36 pm
You are right Shaukat , there is nothing wrong with making money from contests, and this is why I like to share everything we do with my friends bloggers!
Thanks!
(9 comments) July 8, 2010 at 4:24 am
This is a great way to stir up the buzz and interest for your blog Hesham. And the guest posts I have seen have been top notch, especially Kristi’s one
Jorgen @ Personal Branding´s last blog ..Name Recognition is Your Personal Brand Awareness
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Thank you for stepping by Jorgen!
No doubt that Kristi is doing an excellent work, she is the best and will be always my favorite blogger!
This contest is actually a part of a bigger plan, so.. let’s hope the best for everyone!
You said it right hesham, Blogging is not a one man game you need support and you should also support others. It’s kind of like karma we say, what you give out is itself is drawn to you.
However i am quite new in this blogging niche and i haven’t written any article or guest post yet. so this is obvious that i don’t have much friends to promote my entry, what will you say about that?
Vipin@Romantic SMS´s last blog ..Romantic SMS 29-6-2010
(2694 comments) July 8, 2010 at 1:31 pm
I will say .. take an action, get in.. guest post on FB and get friends!
Hey Hesham,
Nice Post. You guys are really doing awesome job here.
And that’s awesome to hear about contest.
Thanks for extending the fbcl contest man.
~Dev
Dev @ Make Money Blogging´s last blog ..7 Guaranteed Ways to Reduce Your Blog Bounce Rate
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 8:49 pm
You are welcome Dev, I hope this will give you a good chance to promote your article! god luck buddy!
(4 comments) July 7, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Hi Hesham, Our friend Andy over at CommentLuv has some deep pockets
I remember when he made the video announcing the contest and he was sitting there holding all of that cash. He’s a great person to partner with, and don’t worry, I’m not going to overlook you. Andy is lucky to have YOU as a partner on this contest too! I mean who else could pull something off like this. My head is still spinning from the fancy “link wizardry” you surprised us with on your first post announcing this contest. Oh well, I’ve gone on long enough. Where’s that affiliate link….
Ileane @ Ms. Ileane’s Blog´s last blog ..CommentLuv Gives Your Blog Heart
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 6:28 pm
lol! Actually Andy is a very comfortable guy to work with no doubt!
I am thinking about my next surprise, it should be awesome like this one
The affiliate link.. yeah! that’s an excellent choice lol!
(312 comments) July 7, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Pretty cool. I am glad you gave people more time to submit their articles. I think it’s a good move. You probably still have a lot of articles that need to be published don’t you?!
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Yeap! we have about 7 or more non-published articles, and probably we will get more because I notice 4 or 5 people registered today!
(2 comments) July 7, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Great! I thought that today is the last day of submission and i’ve just discovered this contest.
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Hi there, thank you for registering, I will email you in a few!
(25 comments) July 7, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Man first prize winner is going to take a lot of cash. Lets see who get it.
I need to promote my submitted post more. Time to do some marketing.
Agent Deepak@Blogging, Marketing & Success´s last blog ..Blog Monetization & Top Commentator Contest
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 3:42 pm
It’s cool prizes, and it worth your time! I wish I can enter the contest lol
Good luck!
(92 comments) July 7, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Hesham,
You are making money from it and there is problem about it. Hwy u are the one that is able organize such a huge contest, so you should get something in return for it and if anybody has a problem – that is because he/she is jealous of you. That is a good thing, because it shows that you are becoming popular.
Gautam´s last blog ..5 Reasons Your Blog Isn’t Growing
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Probably you know that Andy and me started the contest by sponsoring it, Andy put $500 and I put $150 and this is an amount of $550 that we are paying to sponsor the contest!
Generally speaking, sponsoring means you are putting money in the contest, so it doesn’t make any sense to earn from it directly, and this is why we didn’t allow sponsors to participate in the contest! I mean you sponsor a contest and then participate and maybe earn more than you put to sponsors it?! it doesn’t look good to us!
But, I agree with you that because we are ORGANIZERS then it makes sense to earn from it, but didn’t and will not change the plan because we really want to help bloggers who participated and give them the max we can because we are doing this for the community before anything else! and this is how we explained to our sponsors, so basically when you have a deal it’s not good o change the way it is just to get a few extra bucks!
If you want to know how much FB have earned from the contest so far, then (I won’t share numbers) I will just tell you that we are earning respect which worth more than any money!
If someone is jealous of us because any reason, then this his/her own problem, this won’t stop us from growing our community, I am sure there is a lot of people who like to be part of it!
I want to thank you for been a great help in this contest Gautam, and I really wish you good luck!
And.. oh! yeah.. Thanks for the inspiration buddy
This has been a great experience for me, I have had some personal family issues that have kept me from promoting it as often as I would like, but the support has been amazing!!!
evelester´s last blog ..Guide to Using Cufón for Custom Fonts
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 1:51 pm
This has been a great experience for all of us I guess!
Sorry to hear about the family issues, it’s happening all the time!
Everyday I discover new power signs of the blogging community! I think you have another chance of promotion now Eve! we still have time to do that!
(77 comments) July 7, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Putting together contest like has truly added more value to the blogosphere and the kudos goes to you and your partners.
I believe the date extension will help many others put in their own posts. I submitted my about five days ago but has not been published I look forward to seeing it online.
Just an aside here: is the new date 14th June or 14th July? I think there is a mix up there!
Chadrack@Home Business Marketing´s last blog ..Internet Business Startup Failures: How To Avoid Being One!
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Chadrack, when we was planning this contest.. Andy, Gail and me .. we were thinking about how to really make a change! how to make this contest unique and add a fingerprint to history of blogging!
The date extension is going to help in so many levels, it’s a chance for bloggers to join and at the same time a good chance for us to take our breathes to deal with the next steps of running the contest as the work is not finished yet!!
The end date is 14 of July! thank for noticing this, it’s bold and styled now
(2 comments) July 7, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Hesham, you won’t ever get a gripe from me. It looks like you guys have put alot of work into this. And with all the craziness going on with the contest and all of what is associated, I can see how yo guys might just get a bit miffed at folks yourselves.
Keep up the great work building the community, one blogger at a time…..
tonyknuckles´s last blog ..Time To Bone Up For Cardiac Exams – Echocardiographer Testing Soon
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Tony, it’s all about planning and management, there is nothing challenge a person like Time! and we are talking here about dealing with daily emails, preparing and publishing content everyday to keep everything going!
We maybe got little stress at the end of the contest, but we need to breath so we can deal with the rest, the unknown part now is dealing with entries and find judges
to take care of results, and oh! this is another story.. I may share some fresh thoughts about it latter from the land of reality!
Thank you so much for your kind words, and I wish you good luck, I got your entry today!
(71 comments) July 7, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Thanks Hesham for writing a post in detail all about contests!
I actually asked how contests help the blog owner few weeks ago, and I was still curious. But now you have cleared it all up in this post by giving all information. You have given the true picture of blog contests. I never knew you guys put so much time and work in these contests!
I wish you success in your contests and future endeavors!
Kindest,
Nabeel
P.S. Typo in post:
“we was (were or are) trying out (our) best to give everybody more time for article promotion”
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Thank you Nabeel, I try to respond to every question at the first chance, so.. sorry for the late answer!
And, yes.. we have to put a lot of work on contests in a try to make everybody happy with the results, and actually one person can NOT do the whole work!
P.S. thank you for letting me know about the typo, I always write my posts at the end of my day 3 -4 am .. so I believe that all my posts has some typos
The three of you behind it all have been putting a lot of work into this… a lot more than I think most people realize. It’s good to know that you are getting the benefits to your site as well (with traffic and ads) while being able to provide bloggers with such a great contest plus chance to network with other great bloggers, and provide sponsors with more exposure to their sites and links as well. You are all doing a great job – no one really has right to complain about any little snafus as, unless they have run such a huge contest with so many sponsors and entrants, they have no idea how much it takes to keep things running smoothly!
Kristi Hines´s last blog ..Article Marketing Promotion with Blog Commenting
(2694 comments) July 7, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Thank you Kristi for your understanding, I don’t like it that much when people complain or ask so many questions because they simply didn’t read, but so far no body complained, everybody seem to be happy with the contest, and this is so cool!
Also, I found so many cooperation signs between bloggers, I love it when I find the participants commenting on each other posts and promoting each other with high spirit! This is really impressing!
I see people promoting the contest and share it with their readers even with out participating!
Even the sponsors, they are so very kind and understanding people, they are just amazing!
I got feedbacks, no complains… I got a lot of feedback about the contest, advices and much more since we started! and I must say it a GREAT community we have here!
By the way, I have updated the post with the prizes distribution!
Yeah, the blogging community is a lot less competitive and more supportive than most. You can see that in the fact that many people are commenting on and tweeting other entries, which is giving them points but also showing how awesome bloggers really are!
Kristi Hines´s last blog ..Article Marketing Promotion with Blog Commenting
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