Carnival
There is so much information on the Internet, that readers are having a hard time finding quality articles about their interests. A Blog Carnival is through its focus a splendid opportunity to learn what bloggers are writing about a particular topic or related topics under a common theme. If you are blogging on that topic or theme, a carnival is a great place to share your work with other bloggers and readers. Moreover is it an opportunity to recognize each other’s efforts and improve the overall level of quality and community in the Blogosphere. By participating you will thus make it easier to find the information people are looking for while receiving recognition for your work. In addition will you get more visitors, get to know new blogs and bloggers and get more involved.
The Carnival of Bloggers Helping Bloggers is a particular Blog Carnival celebrating contributions, connections and collaborations and not least the combination of the three within the Blogosphere. The mindset behind Blog Carnivals and the philosophy of this site makes this a perfect fit. Reading the About page will give you a better understanding of what this site is about while reading How Blog Carnivals Boost Communities and Make Dreams Come True (@ Circular Communication) offers additional insights and information about Blog Carnivals in general. The Carnival is ongoing and aim at publishing an edition at least twice a month.
Writing (or having written) a great article following the guidelines below is the first step of participating, but it should be followed up by engaging with those coming to your site as well as reading, commenting and linking to the other participants to bring you the greatest rewards. That way this isn’t simply about one site linking out to many sites linking back, but ideally many sites linking to many sites. In essence is this about bloggers helping bloggers through blogging on blogging. About highlighting the best and help improving the rest. About celebrating contributions, connections and collaborations.
These are the subjects (in no particular order) that you can write about: Blogging, Collaborating, Connecting, Contributing, Quality, Circularity, Starting out, Interaction, Growing, Promotion, Community, Monetization, Design, Content, Linking, Strategy, Optimization, Entrepreneurship, Presentation, Motivation, Productivity, Branding, Marketing, Corporate Blogging, Reviews, Interviews, Recommendations, Purpose, Possibilities, Announcements, Guest Blogging, Profiles, Questions and Answers, Competitions, Blog Projects and Carnivals. Feel free to interpret and combine them however you like. Bear the overall theme in mind so you don’t get completely off topic. As long as what you write is helpful to others blogging is it thus appropriate.
To give you a few examples could your article be about how you connected with new people through your blog, what blogs you particularly like reading and why or how to start a blog and why it is worthwhile doing so. You can also get more specific if you like and give concrete advice of how you tweak a theme, monetize a niche blog or how companies should approach blogging as a way to communicate directly with their customers. Asking your readers for questions, interviewing other bloggers or guest blogging and submitting your guest post to highlight both yourself and the blog is also ways to participate. Applying the theme to one or more topics is in other words what you should be going for.
In essence the guidelines below decides who makes the cut and how they are highlighted. Each edition will include links to all accepted articles. Please read the following carefully to avoid misunderstandings, confusion and disappointment:
To be considered for the Carnival your article must meet these qualifications:
- The article has to be in English as most readers here are English speakers.
- It has to be clearly relevant to at least one of the subjects as well as the overall theme.
- Only one submission per blog and/or author will be accepted per edition.
- The article has to have been published no more than a month before being submitted.
To be featured (and highlighted) I recommend that you follow this advice:
- Put in the time and commitment to write something well worth reading.
- Try being bold, inquisitive and creative while keeping your readers in mind.
- Aim at writing a lengthier article rather than merely a short post.
- Take great care when writing your headline as that is the first thing people see.
- Try applying what you write about to how you write (circular communication).
- Make it obvious that you have something at heart and/or something on your mind.
- Don’t publish and submit your article right away, but let it rest before you publish it.
- Make sure your blog makes a good first impression when people visit.
- Spread the word by talking, commenting and posting about the Carnival.
- Please tag your article “Carnival of Bloggers Helping Bloggers”.
To participate you publish your article as you normally would and then submit it here. The Carnival is published Wednesday evening. Your submission has to be in before midnight (regardless of your time zone) on Sunday to be considered for the following Wednesday edition. Submitting it before a given deadline does not guarantee inclusion in the next edition as a cut off point have to made to ensure the quality and variety of each edition. That means that when there are too few accepted posts the edition will be carried forward and when the number of accepted submissions go beyond the cut off point they will be carried over and appear in the following edition.
When the Carnival edition with your article is published is it your responsibility to link to it as soon as possible. Whether you do this by merely highlighting your own inclusion or by presenting your personal favorites is up to you. Just remember that the more you give the more you get. My personal experience is that listing your personal favorites - especially if you do it properly - not only gets the attention of those you highlight, but that of several others as well.
If you have questions or suggestions please Contact me and we will sort it out.
