Getting Your Community Talking With Contests By Larry McCullough At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Are you trying to increase the amount of comments your visitors leave on your blog? One of the most frustrating scenarios for a blogger is to know that his or her blog is being visited by many people, but that no one is bothering to leave comments. After all, it is the comment and the community that builds within a blog that truly helps the blog become successful. Therefore, if you have the traffic but you are missing the interaction, you might want to consider hosting a contest on your site.

Of course, if you want to use a contest to help increase the amount of communication taking place on your website, you have to put some careful thought into your contest and how you will implement it.

The first step in hosting a successful contest is to come up with a prize or prizes that would be attractive to your target audience. If your blog is experiencing some success already, you may be able to talk a company into providing you with the prizes for free. If not, it is a worthwhile investment for you to purchase an item that would excite your target audience and make your audience members want to participate in the contest.

Once you have determined the prize, you need to find a creative way for your readers to win the prize. Some ideas include:

Giving the prize to the person who makes the most relevant comments over a certain number of days

Giving the prize to the person who posts the most recipes, tips, photos, etc over a certain period of time

Giving the prize to the person whose recipe, tip, photo, etc is voted number one by your community

When determining how the contest will be won, be certain to keep the content of your blog in mind. If your blog is about being a homeowner, for example, you might ask your readers to post cleaning tips, home improvement tips or even money-saving tips. If your blog is about baking, you might ask readers to post their favorite cake recipes.

By having your community members vote on their favorite entry, you can further get your readers involve in the process. Just keep in mind, however, that voting on things such as which recipe is the best can be difficult because you may get dozens of entrants and your community members won't have time to try them all before the contest ends.

Hosting a contest on your site is not only a good way to get lurkers to start leaving comments, it is also a great way to boost site traffic. After all, as word spreads about the great contest you are having, more people will decide to visit. If you do a good job of posting interesting and relevant content throughout while the contest is in effect, you just may be able to hook your new visitors into coming back even after the contest is over.

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