I’ve entered my travel around the world blog (aka Everything-Everywhere.com) into the Blogging Idol 2.0 contest.
I was in the first version of the contest last summer as well and came in 3rd. The first contest was just increasing the raw number of RSS subscribers. The lack of rules sort of lent itself to people gaming the system. The nature of the contest is such that even if you don’t win, you can still win.
This time the contest is only 1 part RSS increase, 3 parts voting by the community and 3 parts voting by judges. I think I have a much better chance of winning outright this time for several reasons:
1) I have more RSS subscribers. On Nov 1 my subscribers showed 825. My peak was 850 about a week earlier. There is natural fluctuation in the number of subscribers Feedburner shows. A variation of about 5% from the peak number is very normal, and a 10% swing is possible on holidays. That means I got a free 25 subscribers which will show up at some point. Getting 25 subscribers is easier for a site with over 800 than a site starting at zero. I managed to get over 200 subscribers in the last contest. I’d be very happy if I were to do that again. Of the 114 sites in the contest, I’m #12 in terms of number of subscribers starting the contest.
2) I have the “that is so cool” factor working for me. If you look at the list of other sites competing, what I’m doing really sort of sticks out. Moreover, my contest really sticks out as different. If I can shoot a few more videos this month, that should draw even more attention. Most of the other sites are your tech, celebrity, and make money online blogs. If they do contests, they will probably give away the same old stuff.
3) This might drive me to start a newsletter this month. It is something I’ll probably eventually do, it is just a matter of when. The contest would be a good incentive to get it done. I just need to get my head around what it would be and how it would work. I’d be more comfortable with it when I get my site redesign done. A newsletter is something I never would have thought of myself, but the positive feedback I’ve seen from those who use them have me thinking.
