MelvinBlog

A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.

Contest

Fan My Blog & Win Exciting Prizes

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To kick start this year, I had some mini contests idea in mind and also some huge ones which will happen sometime in March. And so for today I thought I would launch this one for all of us to have fun and excitement on the way.

Postnote: Sorry for the delay, the contest winners are the ff: Joseph, Dana, CredFollow, Neil, Simon. I’ll be contacting you soon with your prizes.

The Facebook Fan My Blog thing has originated since mid last year. Some of the bloggers have really made the most of it. So back to the days when I was thinking about the blog redesign, I had included it in my plans. As you can see below the blog only has 12 members as I haven’t made a huge marketing push yet.Β  So how about this contest for my marketing strategy? πŸ˜€

Ok, this contest works very easy. All you need to do is complete three steps which are all required. Don’t worry it will not cost you a tooth and nail to do both.

Step 1

Fan MelvinBlog.com on Facebook – Just follow this link, fan my blog and you’re done with this step.

Step 2

Tweet about this contest – Click the retweet button above or copy and paste the text below to your Twitter account.

“Fan MelvinBlog.com on Facebook and win amazing prizes RT @melvinblog http://bit.ly/6eUHar ”

Step 3

Put both your Facebook name you used and the link to the Twitter status about this contest in the comment form.

Example: “Hey I just entered your contest. My facebook name is James and my tweet can be found herehttp://twitter.com/melvinblog/statuses/7773505186“

Mechanics & Prizes

On January 25, I will pick five winners via Random.org. The first five persons who will show up in the random listings will be the five winners who will win the following (forget the value!):

So the winners will choose their own prize. If you are the first one to show up in random.org then you will have the privilege to pick first!Β  Hoping for a fun and exciting contest and good luck to all participants. Cheers!

ο»Ώ

Win a 40″ Samsung HDTV

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Am on a short travel today until tomorrow maybe. Will get back to regular posting soon. πŸ™‚

Well anyway here’s a quick post about a contest held by Blackhat marketer Nicky of Nickycakes.com. The contest basically gives a 40 inch Samsung LCD HDTV to one lucky winner. Everyone in any part of the world is qualified for the contest. The mechanics of the contest is pretty easy as well and would probably just take you 20 seconds to do so.

For those who are not aware of him, Nicky is an affiliate marketer who’s become famous for ridiculing people. LOL, but the truth is that he’s really helped a lot of newbies start making really good amount of money w/affiliate marketing (including me). He’s been always speaking at some major conferences and is an authority in the industry.

Anyways, nuff said! Join his contest, and you never know! πŸ˜‰

The Birthday Bash Contest Winners

The Birthday Bash Contest Winners

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As usual I am again late in issuing contest winners. I was very busy with my personal life and I’m very sorry for having this one a little late.

Overall the contest got about 25 participants for 12 prizes up for grabs which means the odds for winning is very very high. Anyway I have used random.org for the results and here are the screenshots (the first three are the winners):

Feed Winners

feed-winners

Tweet Winners

tweetwinners

Stumble Winners

stumblewinners

Blogroll Winners

blogrollwinners1

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Again the first 3 people listed in the screenshots are the winners. Just respond to this comment form to confirm your winnings. After that I would hook you up w/the sponsors of the contest and they will send you the prizes directly. DON’t contact me! for the sake of life If you don’t respond in comments here for the next 2 days, I would pick another winner. Again I would like to thank the sponsors, if not for them our small contest wouldn’t be possible. I would also like to extend my hands to those who have participated and hopefully you don’t unsubscribe in the near future. πŸ™‚

MelvinBlog Dot Com’s Birthday Bash

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Well like what I mentioned in my last post there is going to be a ‘lil’ contest here in my blog because I just celebrated my birthday yesterday. πŸ™‚ Anyways the contest is more of a “giving away” thing rather than the usual month-long, so many requirements type of contest. So quickly I’ll start explaining the mechanics.

The contest would run for only 10 days (which ends at May 1 2009). The contest is very easy, for you to win you just need to do the following:

  • Subscribe to RSS via email – This one is open only to new email subscribers so if you’re kinda an old subscriber unfortunately you are not qualified. Why? It gives equal chances to everyone. New subscribers would have an easier time winning because they don’t need to slug it out against the other one who subscribed before.
  • Follow me at twitter and retweet “β€œI just entered to win prizes from MelvinBlog.com! You can too, just follow @melvinblog and retweet http://xr.com/melvinblog” “. – This one is open for everyone. If you’re following me for a long time all you have to do then is retweet and you’d be fine. For new ones it’s easy as well. Again just follow me and retweet.
  • Blogroll Me! – If you can put me in your blogroll, then thats another way to win. Everyone is welcome to do this but there are restrictions. Your blog must have at least 20 rss subscribers and must be at least 3 months old. This prevents retards from creating a new blogger blog just to put my link there and gain an entry here.
  • Write a short review on my blog on Stumbleupon – Well its easy, all you have to do is click this link and write your brief review about melvinblog.com. It could contain constructive criticisms and anything that doesn’t contain slang terms. πŸ™‚

Are you required to do all? No, but of course if you can do most then it could be better. There will be 12 prizes up for grabs, 3 for each category and while I did say this is a small contest, it doesn’t mean the prizes are crappy ass. I would rather show it to you rather than put the $$$ value here Look over:

Twitter Contest

Feed Contest

Blogroll Contest

Stumbling Contest

Flip Ace

$10

Flipping Sparks

$10

Work Smart, Get Rich

Flipping Sparks

Ultimate Blogging Theme

Flip Ace

1000 Entrecard Credits

1000 Entrecard Credits

Work Smart, Get Rich

1000 Entrecard Credits

So to add, everyone is eligible for only one prize per category meaning you can’t win twice in stumbling contest, but you could win twice or thrice in the overall contest. All entries would be drawn using the ever famous randomizer but don’t worry, this blog isn’t shoemoney or chow’s blog so the number of entries wouldn’t be so high whch means you have bigger chances of winning something. The prizes are listed in order so you’re not allowed to pick your own prize. Now as I promised the prizes aren’t crappy. Here’s a little bio of what the prizes are and the one that gives it:

  • Flip Ace (e-book) – Everyone who reads this blog knows Jason Pereira. He is the former owner of The University Kid and he’s been knownΒ  well to produce high quality content for the blog and for the info products that he sells. Now he runs Make Money Dynamo where he know shares some of his secrets in making money online. Flip Ace is basically an info product about creating and selling websites.
  • Work Smart, Get Rich (e-book)- The creator of this one is the pal of the former one, Jim Reagan. Jim is the owner of the famous Net Fool which blogs about making money as well. Don’t get him wrong, his blog is followed by a thousand of readers who were obviously satisfied by his works. His ebook is about making money online by working the right way.
  • Flipping Spark (e-book) – Flipping Spark is an ebook covering site flipping from Desmond Ong. He blogs at DesmondBlog.com where he shares his knowledge with site flipping. His latest achievement was selling his former site for $2000 for a very little work on his part
  • 2 $10 – Is sponsored by your one and only Melvin, the owner of this blog. I could’ve had certainly sponsored more if not for paypal limiting and locking my account.
  • Ultimate Blogging Theme – UBT is just simply the theme of the ever so famous Kid Blogger Carl Ocab. Carl ranks good for some really competitive keywords and he’s one of the younger bloggers that earns so much with his blog. Valued at guess what? πŸ™‚
  • Entrecard Credits – A lot of people think Entrecard is useless but its not. Well how would you like a PR2 link for some credits eh? I have over 10,000 credits in my account and there’s a reason, for sponsoring contests. Glad we have blogtactic, contesthunter to sponsor some of their wealth here.

The sponsors of the contest are those reputable people that I have known for quite a while. Trust me, each of their info products are the ones that could very much help you start making dimes on the internet.Β  The contest goes as easy as that. No worries about needing to blog about me in your blog or stuffs like that. To add some more excitement, three lucky readers/commenters would be able to get free text sponsorships each (worth $30) for one month. The text sponsorship is in demand in this blog and maybe there’s a reason. πŸ˜‰ Anyway for commenters, you have to specify the account you used in joining in your comments. Here’s an example:

Bilo: Hey dude I joined your contest. here’s my twitter account: @bilo, my stumbleupon username: bilo.stumbleupon.com, the email add I used to subscribe: bilo@bilo.com, and the site where I have placed the link: bilo.com

Well I guess everything has been explained well and good luck to everyone. Questions?

March Traffic, Earning Details & Announcements

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So it’s been a long time since I have done this one here so I will be writing one now. The reasons why I don’t do the usual monthly recap are:Β  1) my blog isn’t really wrecking high revenue numbers, 2) I don’t have the time to do this. But now I have the time so I just thought I would put an effort to do a recap of what has happened the past month. So here it is without much further fluff:

Traffic & Growth Related Details
  • Alexa Rank – 144,726
  • Technorati – 55,363
  • Average Uniques – 220
  • Average Pageviews – 620
  • RSS – 150
  • Pagerank – 0

The blog stat-wise has actually declined from almost everything except feed subscribers. I’ve been working so hard on getting returning visitors by forum interaction and commenting around. The pageviews is more than 2 times of what the average unique visitor is. Maybe it’s because of some folks who keep refreshing the page because they are waiting for a new post, LOL> πŸ™‚ As usual, Pagerank is still 0 as I just implemented the canonicalization thing last month and I am hoping that it would get something on the next update.

Blog Revenue Details
  • Text, Sponsored Links – $30
  • 125X125 Banner Sponsorship – $80
  • 468X60 – $50
  • Paid Reviews – $50

As usual the blog almost had a sold out advertising spot (despite me refusing to

blog-earnings

use OIO). The text links are so cheap ($5) that a lot of dudes on digitalpoint forum don’t even ask for stats. πŸ™‚ The popular banners at the sidebar is sold out as well. The premium banner at the top has 2 rotations each up for $25 and fortunately it’s taken also (thanks to the reverse funnel guys, πŸ˜‰ ). I got 2 paid reviews this month and I gave discount on that one. Yes, I give discounts! The economy is tough so I understand that a lot of marketers are skeptic to spend. As much as possible, I give them 10-50% on the first month so they could decide whether the exposure fits well. Don’t be a moron dude, don’t sell your ad spot for $40/month if your Alexa is over 500,000 and you just get 1-2 comments per post.

As this blog is relatively small, I don’t spend much expenses here more than just the hosting and the flip-flops I use while typing here. πŸ™‚ Unfortunately I have 5-6 other websites that aren’t making any revenue as of now so the income is good to cover up other expenses from failed investments startup investments.

What’s up this April & May?

Well I have done a couple of guest posts on different types of blogs w/different types of audience. I conclude it’s doing good actually because it kept my traffic steady while my blog is in lull. I still have about 5 more guest posts to issue so just look around me on other blogs. Also, you may want to greet me. πŸ™‚ April 21 is going to be my 18th birthday and I am planning to hold a small but very nice contest here in Melvin Blog wherein everyone can almost win! Watch out for that! Anyway if you would like to send me something, like a car or a yacht just use a contact form. But don’t worry I accept small gifts like shirts, usb drives, steaks or any tangibles. LOL, just joking. You’re presence is more than enough!

MelvinBlog Dot Com’s Contest Winners

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Edit: Didn’t really like to repeat it but again if you read the original contest page, you’ll see that anyone can win more than one. Another thing is that the list is in order, which means the no.1 guy would pick first his prize before other could, then no.2, then 3 and so on. So let me restate, don’t contact me I will contact you instead so that I can remind you the prizes that are still available.

The contest winners that should’ve been released last Feb.26 or March 3, but because of “uncertainty” of things, it has been released just by now. πŸ™ yea, I know I sucked owe you an apology. I know most people waiting for the results would just read the title of the post and scroll directly down to the winners so what’s the point of making a long paragraph like this? πŸ˜‰

Overall there are 40+ contestants and I believe 40 for 18 prizes isn’t bad! I mean even if another 20 still entered the contest by now, the chances are still very high. Anyway these are the lucky winners (in order) courtesy of the Randomizer:

  1. Cuntest
  2. Hussein
  3. Jan
  4. everbright
  5. twittrblog
  6. Cile
  7. hussein
  8. topen
  9. Indocontest
  10. dawn hansen
  11. lisa s
  12. da daeng
  13. louis
  14. Indocontest
  15. Suwari
  16. twittrblog
  17. allcontests
  18. cile

That’s it. I actually planned to post a video on randomizing each winners so that the result would really look more transparent to everyone. But since my connection is a complete crap, I wasn’t able to do it.Β  Congratulations to all the winners. I shall be contacting you (or if you can, contact me!) to ask you for the prize you want. Or you may also leave a comment here of your desired prize. Then I’ll hook you up w/the sponsor. Again I would like to say thank you to all of those who participated. I can conclude this is a successful contest and look more for it in the near future… πŸ™‚

And again to the sponsors. If not for them, there would be no contest like this one and I am really thankful to them. Another mention on them wouldn’t do no harm eh? πŸ™‚

I would like to post more on how I learn through these contest, how it increased my traffic/readers/SERP and etc, but I guess my professor in Project Management is now waiting for me in school so I’ll do it someday. Again thank you and God Bless to everyone. πŸ™‚

MelvinBlog Dot Com’s 2009 Contest

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So just want to apologize for not posting for quite some time as I was pretty much overwhelmed with this trimester’s schedule for college. For Mondays and Thursdays, I have to go to school 7 am up tp 7 pm and I usually come home 8 pm and I’m wasted then. I also am adjusting to it and now I find time so I might as well post this one now rather than later. πŸ™‚

Now I am proud to announce The Melvin Blog’s 2009 Contest wherein their is over $700 at steak stake! Yes and its not just “$700” in some unrealistic sense of matter. It’s actually $700+ in real prizes from real marketer who really knows a lot about making money online. Actually some of the prizes there are priceless. I mean other sponsors just told me the quality of what they are sponsoring is enough rather than mentioning how much it actually worths.Β  So again here they are and they’re prizes:

Contest Mechanics

Basically it’s based (anew) on pointing system. The higher the points, the higher your chances would be. It will be drawn at the end of the contest which is February 21 2009. There would be 18 winners and winning a prize doesn’t mean you can’t win another so it speaks about volume and of course luck. I wanted to make this contest as transparent as possible but enjoyable as well. You couldn’t game this contest too so its kinda sad for gamers. πŸ™‚ Interestingly I am giving everyone their choice for a prize. Let’s say a guy named Stephon Marbury ended up being drawn first so basically he has the choice for a prize. Why am I doing this? Simply because all of the prizes have almost equal value. Some may prefer paypal cash or maybe some just want shirts. So that’s why!

How to enter:

  • Comment in this post – 1 point
  • Subscribe to my RSS via email – this accounts 3 points. Only one email address per human
  • Follow me at twitter – equivalent to 2 points.
  • Add me to your blogroll – 3 points
  • Digg this post – 4 points
  • Blog about this contest – 5 points or 10 points. 5 points if you actually give this post a small mention in your post. I understand blogging for a contest is lame so you can just give it a mention. 10 points is for a full post with all the sponsors listed. Anyway I contacted some A+ bloggers and they suggested me to do a filter about this. So basically a blog has to have 20 or more subscribers to qualify for this one. This prevents assholes from creating a blog just to write a contest. Am I understood? πŸ˜‰
  • Keep following this blog. – Apparently, I want it to be more enticing so there would be what I call secret entries. Basically there would be some posts in the future that would get you more points than those above so watch out! Why doing this? It’s because people just do all of those and leave and later unsubscribe and it sucks.

Final Words:

Basically I am open to some more suggestions. But I believe this is an exciting one to come. I still have a lot more surprises for you related to this contest in the future so keep reading. Again I also wanted to thank all the sponsors for giving something and maybe I can do a video post someday for you guys. What are you waiting for? It’s damn easy to win.

Chill!