Joining a blog carnival is a lot simpler than you might think, and a great way to promote your websites and blogs while attracting the readers YOU wish to reach. Joining a blog carnival sure increased my readership back in 2008!
A carnival is basically an alliance of blog owners who agree to host their own blog carnival every month or so. Each member contributes their best posts to the weekly host in ‘blurb’ form with links back to their blog, thus promoting each other’s blogs across a number of different but often similarly themed blogs.
For example, I am the administrator of the longest running Boomer Blog Carnival on the Internet. The Blogging Boomers Blog Carnival has been running uninterrupted for over 270 weeks now. As the head, I send out a blog carnival schedule to all of our members and they take turns hosting by requesting entries from all other members and then posting their own unique blog carnival.
It’s best to have at least eight members in your carnival, and then you only have to run your own carnival every eight weeks.It may sound like a lot of work, but it can be quite stimulating and fun putting together your own blog carnival. Add cool photos and follow current topics from the news that fit into your theme area. Be creative!
How it works:
At the beginning of each week, one member acts as the host by asking for entries for their new carnival from everyone else in the group by email. Then members choose the blog post they wish to feature, and send a copy of a live link (the complete URL) and a short blurb or summary to the acting host.
Each member decides the wording they wish to use to promote their own site and post, and sends that back to the host by Friday night. The person running the carnival then takes all of those entries and creates a unique post including links back to all other sites, and posts their carnival by Monday AM.
After she posts their carnival, they then send each member an e-mail with the correct link. After the carnival goes live, all members create a very short post on their blog, announcing the latest group blog carnival to their readers and provides a link back, creating lots of linky love between all members!
Blog carnivals are an inexpensive form of marketing which build business networks, and they can also be creative and FUN. Please let me know if you have a popular Boomer blog you would like to promote by joining our blog carnival.
About the Author
Laura Lee Carter, MA Counseling Psychology, is the founder of the blog MidlifeCrisisQueen.com, which is dedicated to helping others turn their own midlife crises into opportunities for personal change. Besides her work as a psychotherapist, Laura Lee has authored a number of books about midlife. Her latest is: How To Believe In Love Again. Follow her on Twitter: @midlifequeen
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net