MelvinBlog

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

Search Results for: feed

Joining Blog Contests, What’s Your Motivational Factor?

by ·

Contests or specifically blog contests are a great way to attract a huge number of people from a wide variety of demographics. Not only because its full of hype, but more likely because almost everyone joins it.

I’m sure you’re aware that I join as much contest as I can and bragging aside, I usually win a lot. From the simple, “subscribe to feed, comment here” type of contest to the harder affiliate marketing competitions, I probably had participated in all of those. Joining contest is really fun in the sense that if you lose, then you lose. I mean people don’t grudge when they lose in contests, instead they ponder on how it’s super fun and how they learned a lot. Another benefit is that it really brings you closer to other bloggers.

I know like me, you also like joining contests probably for the same reason and amazingly for me I don’t just join contests giving iPads or whatever gadgets, I literally join each and every as much as I could. Even if the prize is a Flip Mino or a simple quality eBook or even just a template, I am usually urged to participate.

I love Competing

This pretty much sums it up. I’m a gamer and I’m ready to compete all the time and every time I look back I always see this as a determining factor. I joined a lot of affiliate marketing contests by Market Leverage and I won I think 3 of them. For me it’s just nice to compete with all these people around the world doing the same thing with me and proving them something (I’m sure they’re proving something too!).

When I join contests, I don’t just carry my name and my blog but also my country. Philippines is a third-world country but what a lot of people don’t know about us is that we’re good. I mean again bragging aside, we’re good. There are a lot of marketers here who literally kill it with whatever business model and I know a lot of bloggers here who are really well-known internationally.

They say competition is always good because it just means there’s money in it. The same goes with contests. When you see you’re up against someone, you have that determination inside you to win it all. And the best thing is that you don’t treat others as a competitor, instead you treat him as a peer.

Feeds our ego well

If you’re winning, it satisfies us ego-wise. Who doesn’t want to get recognized as someone who emerged victorious in a contest? It helps you build your online portfolio, your image and you get more chance for people to visit you because you won the contest.

A good example is Lyndon Reid who won the shoemoney’s gambler contest. He won the contest so he got the prize of attending the summit for free and an additional cash but on a side note, he received so much traction because big blogger like John Chow blogged for him as well.

Prizes are good, too good to be true

In one of my old posts about how to make money outside internet marketing, I mentioned that joining blog contests is a good nice way to go. I mean seriously, how hard is it to actually tweet something or blog about it? Is it hard to write an entry to a contest? Seriously, oftentimes its just so worth it.

John Chow has had a post about this entitled “Are you scared of success” in which he pointed out how people are scared of joining contests. That is so true and I think there’s another factor that hinges with that and its a word called “laziness”. That’s a good point too since most people want to succeed but almost none can move, no one can really do anything.

What do you think? What’s your main driving point on why you join contests?

$2000 Blog Marketing Contest Recap & Announcements

by ·

Update: Super sorry for a 5 day delay in the drawing of this contest. Was super busy with work. All in all there were 10 entries so great odds for everyone. The winner through random.org is @danalingga. Contact me on how to claim your prize. 🙂

So the first two weeks of the MelvinBlog’s Marketing Tip Contest w/c does have $2000+ of prizes at stake has ended and today I’m going to make a recap of  the entries thus far. If you haven’t joined yet or it’s your first time to learn that I have a contest, make sure you join now.

The contest itself has received so much attention (and traffic) from the blogosphere but I’m quite surprised that less than five people have so far joined. As expected (like in any type of contest), most bloggers who say they will join NEVER really join (or haven’t yet). It’s expected considering the contest will still run up to July 15  and most of the entries will come as we approach that date.

However like I said, joining today is by far the best way. Remember each participant can write up to 5 entries and with that being said, I’m sure some of the contestants who started out early will have a decent advantage over those who will wait, before they write.

Anyways as for the recap, I’m really happy with the turnout. The entries that I’ve received so far are good entries and reading comments from their audience I know that it has become so beneficial them. As I stated initially that’s really my goal, to give good value to the blogosphere through this contest. And for the entries thus far, here they are. Be sure to check them out and give feedbacks if you like their articles.

As you can see, only three people have participated in the contest yet with a total of  4 entries. (If you had written your entry and wasn’t mentioned here, feel free to shoot me a PM). There’s really no risk in this contest so if you have the best marketing tip then just throw it in.

Like I said, it’s people’s mentality to wait for the last minute before entering but if you do yourself a favor and actually start right now, you’ll be getting much higher chance of winning. Remember we will only have 3 winners for this main contest with each winners receiving prizes not less than $200 worth of good products from good people.

Surprise “Side-in” contest

As I’ve said, we’re going to make this entire celebration more special by having in more “smaller contest”. In short, its contests within contest and for this post, I have made this really easy for you.

So for this mini contest, all you have to do is follow me on twitter and retweet this statement:

Reading MelvinBlog’s Best Blog Posts from his blog http://bit.ly/bestbloggingtips  RT @melvinblog

That’s it! At the end of 21st of June 2010, I’m going to randomly pick a winner which will get $10 paypal cash straight to his account.  Remember, you have to follow me first on twitter and then retweet the statement. You can do it just once or it depends to you. There will be only one winner and since this is not really the biggest blog in the universe, your odds of winning is really high! Easy eh?

That’s for now, see ya soon!

Things I don’t Like with Guest Blogging Contests

by ·

Every summer it’s noticeable that contests spring up like mushroom as you can almost find them anywhere. In fact, here in this blog there is a current contest running that started this June. That being said, we can conclude that summer is contests season.

Anyways, the days where the contest is all about subscribing to feed, blogging about it, digging, stumbling it are probably gone. What you’d notice today is that a lot of bloggers have become more creative in creating their own contests. What’s in today is guest blogging contests which at the same I’d like to talk about.

The latest is the one that Smartbloggerz is currently running while the other same type of contest can be found here and there. That being said, guest blogging contests is something that will happen more in the future as its becoming the newest trend for contests.

Guest blogging has really exploded for the past 2 years now as evident with the whole scene. In fact some bloggers like Carl Ocab and even Problogger have already let the guest posters post majority of their content. Back to the contests, I can say I’m not really a big fan of those although I participate a lot into it. For me it’s kind of like ruining the whole guest posting strategy and here are my thoughts.

The Goal Becomes Different

People would argue about it since in order to win these contests you have to write good content right? The problem with this is that your focus shifts from reaping the benefits of a guest post featured to winning the contest all out. I mean normally with guest posts what I usually do is make sure the readers of that post will be catered as much as possible to my blog, get replies for their comments and me tracking numbers, optimizing whats working out and what’s not.

With contests, it becomes really different. Instead of doing things I listed above, I would then focus more on writing more and more guest posts for that contest, observe where am I currently standing, do I have a good chance of winning or not and things like that. Nothing really bad about but its like the true essence of doing guest posts diminishes.

Readers’ interaction Differs Considerably

Another thing I don’t like with it is that its really hard to reap the same benefits from it as oppose to writing a guest article for the sole purpose of making a guest post. I was tracking my stats (again my fave hobby, lols) and what I found out is that not a lot of people really read the article and go to your blog. For instance I wrote a guest post before and it gave me like 35% bounce rate to my site which is an exceptional rate. After quite some time I did another guest post with the same blog but this time just got a 69% rate. Of course things could vary depending on other factors but I’m sure the “contest” factor is one of the bigger factors.

When guest blogging becomes a contest, most of the consumers of the post becomes the contestant and oftentimes they are just lurking there to see and track how other contestants are doing.

Lesser Traffic

This is the obvious disadvantage of this. We, as guest posters will receive lesser traffic and obviously lesser bang for our efforts when we guest post more for the contest than for the intrinsic purpose of it. I mean if you see an awesome guest posts and then you saw a note saying “this is an entry to blah blah, join now and get a chance to win $XXXX”. I mean what would you do? Naturally we will participate. There’s really nothing to blame. You can’t blame the owner who hold the contest nor you can blame the sponsors that made that pot got that high. There’s no one  to blame because its human nature, you see a contest related to you, odds are high that you’ll join it.

Overall, if guest blogging contests keep on growing more and more, it will definitely have a big impact on how traditional guest blogging works. With things I mentioned, it can be hard to really see the essence of doing guest posts aside from targeting those contest prizes.

But then I don’t have any problem with that  (or just a small problem), in fact I’m even one of those who are competing to dominate win it. But still at the end of the day, you’re still gonna wonder where all of these things head into. What say you?

Best Blog Marketing Tip Contest Updates & Clarifications

by ·

So last week I launched probably one of the biggest contest in blogging history and so far I’m receiving awesome feedbacks and some suggestions as well. As I’ve said, no contest is perfect and suggestions like this can only improve the contest and make it much more enjoyable.

In a span of a week, the contest official post has become one of the most viewed pages in the blog for this year!  It’s amazing that it even got retweeted by big bloggers like Neil Patel and John Chow.

But that being said, there is only a couple of entries yet for the contest. In my opinion, I think it coincides with the fact that the contest will run still up to July 15 and most “wise” bloggers would prefer to observe and speculate first before joining. While it’s a wise and clever tactic, I may have to say that starting the contest early is still the BEST way to get it done. Why? Because by doing it early, you will get more traffic, more social media exposure, more retweets, comments and more importantly you can still improve your article based on feedbacks. But then still its up to you.

Another issue I’d like to clear is on whether traffic from blog is a huge part or not. Actually its not. It accounts for less than 30% and I did that thing because I know there are many blogs out there who don’t have that much traffic, yet are writing good content. Remember that we have judges and 70% of  the criteria is about the quality. I know most of the recent contests give emphasis on promotion but as I’ve said, the goal of this contest is more on giving back to the blogosphere.

Second, I usually receive the question “What if I don’t have the best blog marketing tip?”

To be honest, is there really is? Perhaps yes, but it’s really all about trying to become creative and intercepting that and the need of your readers. If you can do that I can pretty much guarantee that it is going to be a recipe for success.

You see blogging is not new anymore. You can find soooo many marketing topics already covered around the internet. I’m not saying you should read and rehash those articles, what I’m implying is that you have to be innovative. For me most of the articles on the subject is either incomplete and unclear or is badly outdated.

It’s like essay, give your best shot because there’s no best answer. That’s why we have judges.

And lastly, it doesn’t have to be a walkthrough. I know most of us are psyched that long article means good quality. It is, but that doesn’t mean that you have to write a 2000ish word article to qualify. If a 500-word article can do it, then Im fine with that. Right now most bloggers are not newbies anymore so if you can eliminate all the super detailed noob info stuffs, then good.

And here’s the FAQ I set up specifically just for this one:

The contest will run for how long?

It will run from June 1 up to July 15 12 AM ET

Is there any requirement aside from writing articles?

You have to link back to the contest post so I can track your entry.

How if a trackback isn’t generated?

That happens in rare cases but if it ever does, just comment on my blog or hit me up personally.

Any hardened-fast rules on the article where going to make?

None. Just make sure its your best blog marketing tip. 😉

How many winners are going to be selected?

There will be 3 winners from the main writing contest and 10 winners on the retweet contest. As said in the contest post, there are going to be mini contests in the middle of the duration so watch out

Can I bribe a judge to make me win?

Yes, if you know them. 😉

Do I have to comment on the post?

No, its not required

Is retweeting a mandatory condition to win the contest?

No. It’s another contest.

If I don’t like the prize can I convert it to cash?

Essentially no. But the safer answer is it depends on the sponsor.

Can I make a series post instead of the usual one long post?

Yes. Whatever you want it will be just fine

When is the deadline for submitting entries?

July 15 12 AM Eastern Time

Do I have to link out to all the sponsors?

Definitely not.

If you have any more concerns, do so here in the comment form. All relevant questions will be added in this FAQ page


Bloggers, Its Time To Forget those Metrics

by ·

Each and every blogger who is just getting started is usually being taught about the different metrics and how each of those play a certain role on their blog. The metrics I’m pertaining to are: the Google Pagerank, the Alexa rank, the Technorati authority, the feed subscriber count, and even being included in those top 100 lists. From a hindsight, isn’t  it exciting to witness each metric of your blog improve and attribute it to your blog’s growth?

Well, we cannot dismiss the fact that these metrics change as our blog’s popularity change but we should always not be too concerned with that or else we are going to harm our blog. I remember when my blog was just getting started. In 2 months I received a  pr2 ranking and was like jumping up and down with excitement. I was really really ecstatic back then and thought I was hardcore.

Not too long after that, the blog was slapped back to pr0. I remember I even did a rant post claiming that Google was making a mistake of slapping my rankings. Funny enough the reasoning behind that was simple. I was selling links, doing black hat type of stuffs and just being bad. In short, I was not complying with Google”s guidelines.

Today I no longer care with Metrics

I bet that even people tell they don’t care that much with those ranking stuffs, they are still baffled. That was what I was like back then. I mean I was puzzled why these blogs have good Alexa rank yet they receive very few to no comments at all. Why is mine just in the 200k?

The main reason I actually stopped caring about those things is that its not helping me and my blog at all! I mean instead of focusing on producing good content to my readers, I would instead search ways on how to game Alexa or instead of marketing my blog more, I would research on why my blog is pr0.

Eventually I said “buggy this, I would stop being concerned with all these stuffs, instead I would just do what I would need to do”. And that was like the turning point for me from being an overly-conscious metric guy to being a real blogger.

If you’re still unaware, it’s about building relationships.

I always like to tell newcomers in blogging that its about connecting to your readers, building that relationship. It doesn’t happen overnight but instead on focusing on useless things, we as bloggers have to focus more on making that bond with other bloggers.

The thing about blogging is that it is such a friendly atmosphere. In fact we treat other bloggers as peers when in fact they are our competitors. That doesn’t happen in real world businesses.

So that’s the main  point of this post. the metrics are good, sure it can feed our ego well, we can boast it in forums claiming ‘hey I have a better pr than you” or whatever. But at the end of the day, blogging is a person-to person relationship, not technology and script driven activity.

Can you sell your own product just because you have a high Alexa and pagerank? Does it mean you’re credible just because you’re in the top 500 list of some random guy? Naah! But when you build those relationships with your readers w/c are your potential customers, you don’t even need a thousand of people a day. All you need is a fraction of that. Believe me.

LogoBee Review – Another Logo Design Company

by ·

This is a paid review sponsored by LogoBee

Probably right now, it would be overkill for us to open this blog post emphasizing how important a logo is for branding of websites and blogs. Heck, I covered that here and here already. If you’re not contented you can do a Google Search and find so many articles covering why a logo is a must for every business.

That being said, not having a logo is just a mortal mistake for everyone not just doing online business but any type of real offline business as well.

LogoBee Introduction

logobee review

Here comes another logo design company LogoBee. According to their site, LogoBee is an award winning logo design company that has been in this business for 10 years. Their core focus is creating custom logo designs although they also do some other stuffs like stationary designs, business cards and etc.

They have several packages to choose from. They have Spring Sale Package which does have 3 classifications. The special package worths the cheapest starting at $199 while the Golden Package is priced at $349. After the spring sale, they have 2 more ‘premium’ packages, one is the Express package priced at $499 where you will get a logo design, stationery design, Word template. Their most expensive package is the BundleBee which costs well over a thousand dollar each. It is actually just the same with the express package except for the fact that it is bundled with a free web design into it.

If you’re main concern is just the logo, then I suggest you pick up the Spring Sale Package You can choose from 6 logos, which contains 6 revisions. The only problem here is that they don’t offer a money-back guarantee which actually most logo design companies offer.

The Process

Like any other designing work, LogoBee follows this step by step process which is located in their site as well but for the sake of the readers here I might as well put it here. Here are the step by step process according to them

  1. You can start by visiting the prices section of our web site to find a list of our Logo Design packages.
    Select one which best suits your needs and click on it. You will be directed to a secured online logo design order form. The first part is a personal information questionnaire. Please fill in your name, the company’s name, as well as your email and mailing address.
  2. You will then get a chance to process your payment in real time by using Visa , Master Card AMEX, Discover or PayPal.  You can also send a check, money order or wait until a representative calls to get all the needed information.
  3. After your payment has been received, we will begin working on your logo design project.
    You will be notified by phone or email, and will be given a web address for your own private web page. A team of 2 to 4 designers will collaborate on each logo design project. In 2 -5 business days we will present 6 or 8 initial logo designs (depending on the package).
  4. Your input will be processed accordingly.  We will begin working on your revisions immediately. Simple changes will be completed in one business day.You can take your time on viewing the designs – there is no time limit on any of the packages and unlimited changes apply to Silver, Gold and Express packages.
  5. When all the changes have been completed to your satisfaction and you finalized your logo design, a logo kit will be prepared. You may be asked for stationery information, depending on the package you chose. Your stationary design consists of 1 set of business cards, envelope and letterhead designs. Up to 6 names on the cards are included. The layouts will be viewed and approved on the same private web page and unlimited changes can be applied to your stationary design.

Clients

LogoBee boasts wide variety of clients. In their testimonial page, they have about 6 pages of positive feedback from their clients. Aside from that they’ve also done logos for big companies like Heritage Education Funds, Greenpeace and even some prominent people like Kendra Todd, winner of NBC`s hit show “The Apprentice” and Clinton Hart of the San Diego Chargers.

As with any business model, having clients who are prominent figures always help in terms of boosting credibility in a certain field.

Crowdsourcing vs the Traditional Design Process

I am fortunate enough to have my own sets of designers who do this work for me so I really haven’t done any logo contests projects before. But if you’re starting out from scratch, meaning you don’t have any connection, it would be a little bit tough to find a designer willing to do work for you. In fact, most of the designers that you can find through forums are the crappy ones as most of the premium ones aren’t usually available for work.

LogoBee falls into the traditional design process type of company and Im sure they are in an uphill battle against crowdsourcing sites in which a lot of people are more enticed with.

Final Thoughts On LogoBee

Overall LogoBee is a decent custom logo design company. If not, they probably wouldn’t land a review on this blog. They’ve been in this business for long and they have already that good reputation considering they’ve handled more than a thousand clients.

The downside of course is that it is expensive. A lot of small businesses could easily just head out on forums and find equally talented designers for almost half the price. But that would be another thing since in my opinion LogoBee is targeted to a more established and bigger companies which have bigger funding for these types of work.

Now over to you guys? have you ever had any experience with this team from LogoBee? If you do then I would very much like to hear experience from you. If not, then please check them out at LogoBee.com

Upcoming Blog Contest & Call for Sponsors

by ·

Hey you!

It’s been a while isn’t it?

Times flies really quick and I can’t believe this blog is turning 2 years old already. If you remember, there was a huge contest here in this blog last year in w/c it really got a lot of traction. It also attracted enormous prizes from sponsors which are mostly reputable marketers and bloggers in this space and some of the best affiliate networks.

This year I am looking to start one, actually its getting closer. I’m sure you’ve been noticing there has been a lot of contests going on right now with exceptional prizes as well. That alone urged me to start a contest for this blog, considering its turning 2 years now so why not celebrate it with a bang?

It’s gonna be a writing contest

The days where a contest is composed of subscribing to feed, following on twitter, doing this thing, blah blah are all long over. I mean those contest don’t really add that much value both the blogosphere and to the sponsors (guilt kill 🙂 )

So I don’t really want to disclose as much details right now but rest assure it’s a writing contest. Nope its not the “in” guest blogging contest thing. Its more of a creative writing contest, or not really creative. 😉

The reason I chose that is because I want to give back to the blogosphere more than I want to get more exposure for this blog. I mean, this blog has almost 5000 comments, 100 some thousand pageviews and made me good money so why not make a contest where everyone is a winner?

Be one of the Sponsors

That being said I’m looking for quality sponsors. I already have a couple of high-profile marketers who generously sponsored something of good value. But I’d like to get as much as I could and so i am reaching out here in my blog.

I’m looking preferably for cash sponsorships via Paypal but if you have a good (reputable) product/tools or service you are offering, I might consider that as well. Again I’m looking for quality ones, I’d like to be fair since some of the sponsors really gave good ones.

There are three sponsorship packages, the gold sponsor, silver and bronze sponsors. The package you are gonna get into would largely depend on the perceived value of the price of the prize you are sponsoring. Let’s say LeBron James sponsored a shoe and D-Wade sponsored an underwear. Definitely the former one would be presented as a gold sponsor while the latter one, a bronze sponsor.

Here in MelvinBlog, I just don’t link back as a main exposure for the sponsors. The blog receives quite a good consistent traffic but I want to reach out more and give better ones. The sponsors are the main and sole reasons why contests happen and if not for them we, small bloggers couldn’t really afford to do it all. Here are the descriptions.

Gold Sponsorships

  • Better brand awareness by having their company logo’s on the contest page and on the blog’s home page and subpages. The logo would consist of an image of their company/blog/website.
  • Dofollow link back to the site both on the contest page and on the announcement of the winners page.
  • Short description of what the product or website is
  • Inclusion of the logo on Twitter Background

Silver Sponsorships

  • Inclusion of the logo on Twitter Background
  • Dofollow link back to the site both on the contest page and on the announcement of the winners page.
  • Short description of what the product or website is

Bronze Sponsorships

  • Dofollow link back to the site both on the contest page and on the announcement of the winners page.
  • Short description of what the product or website is

As you can see, each sponsorship opportunities yields different exposures that you can get from the blog. So the better the prize, the better exposure. 🙂

There ya go! Of course you are my reader, so I would always be open to your questions, suggestions, criticisms and etc. Fire them away!