how do i go about . . .

[blueyes]

hi guys -

i'm thinking about adding a challenge to my blog. how do i get people to it, to post, and participate?

also thinking about offering a blog award --

it's all in the thinking stage -- would love to hear any ideas you might have!

thanks!

[mandypandy]

Most of the successful challenge sites have a group on the Design Team who offer their own take of the challenge and post it to their own blog to talk it up and get the word out.

I would start with some teasers a few weeks ahead to get people to want to check back to see what they challenge will be.

Some offer a blog badge to those who were the "favorite", others just post which creation was chosen…

Basically you can make it as structured as you'd like. Some are every week with specific criteria, others are more open ended.

I would check around to the challenge sites that you like to participate in and see what you like about those. Read the criteria (cards only, scrapbooking only, colors only, sketches only, a mix, 1 week, 2 weeks, once a month etc.)

Have fun with it!

[LaLatty]

I just started a challenge blog about 4 months ago and so far I think (or at least I hope) it's going pretty well. I'm learning as I'm going along.

You need to decide what sort of challenge blog you want to create, pick a name and see if that blog address is available. Then you'll need to decide what will you feature, when and how often will your challenges be, what your rules are, if you will have any prizes, and you'll need to gather a design team, create a linky list, create challenges, design badges, etc. You'll also need to create group site where you can upload your challenges and projects and such. I use Facebook for my challenge blog some use yahoo and so forth.

There's a lot that goes into creating a challenge blog, but honestly it only took me about 2 weeks to get mine up and running. You also need to decide how much your design team will be involved in creating, posting, and maintaining the challenges. Some DT members have access to the actual challenge blog and take turns posting the challenge and some others do not have that responsibility. In my case, I try to make it as easy for my DT members as possible and I handle all of the posting responsibility, but we take turns creating the challenges and leaving comments for everyone.

Have you ever been on a design team? I'm asking because it would be a big help to you if you have had some experience. If you have any questions feel free to send me a message. I not an expert at this, but I'd be glad to help you with anything I can.

Okay, now after I typed at that I just realized that you were asking about adding a challenge to your blog and not creating a challenge blog. Sorry about that. Well, that's another story. You would need to create a challenge, add a link list so that people can enter their cards and decide if you are having any sort of prizes. You could still have some sort of DT which would help in drawing traffic to your blog.

Hope I was of some help

[imthenoni]

Interesting idea, I've thought about myself. Thanks for posting.

[StickUps]

I've run a challenge on my blog for a few years now. It's a lot of fun. I do a LOT of things to get the word out. I have an incredible design team, I use Facebook/Google/Pinterest, and I submit my challenges to sites who list challenges, like Feline Playful (Feline Playful). Keep us posted on your progress so we can play along. :-)

[nuhddad]

I am also thinking of doing it. What I was thinking was to have a Pinterst Board just for challenges. They name there photo with the Challenge name and pin to the board in the comments they can add the link. Would that be doable?

Thanks.