What is the traffic breaker award?
As a blogger and blog tour participant, you are eligible for the traffic breaker prize. Anyone who takes part in the blog tour – either with a review, author interview, guest post or anything else – is eligible to win.
What is it all about? Well, the traffic-breaker award is our way of encouraging you to get more traffic on the days that you are hosting a tour author. For every tour, we’ll set up a poll with all the host blogs listed as possible response options. It’s up to you to provide your followers with the link to the poll and encourage them to visit it and vote for your blog.
Whichever blog gets the most votes wins the traffic-breaker award, which means you get a handsome winner’s badge and a gift card to Amazon.
What shall I do to collect as many votes I can?
Depending on whether you signed up for a traditional or a whirlwind tour, you either have 4 weeks or only 5 days to collect as many votes as you can to win the traffic breaker award (the whirlwind tour prize is $100; the traditional tour prize is $50). The competition can be tough, especially if there are a great number of participants, but it’s not impossible if you’re doing it the right way.
So how do you get started?
First off, post your tour entry on your blog. Make sure to add the tour notes we included in the email we sent you so that people know where they can vote for you. Let your readers know that you’re competing for this cash prize and you need their votes. Everyone can vote once only, but you can still ask your readers to help you spread the word.
Next, make sure to advertise your entry on as many social media websites as you can. You may post about it on your Facebook page, Google + or Twitter – whichever works best for you. The more, the better!
In order to get the most out of social networking, try to post frequently without overwhelming your followers. Make sure to post about the contest several times a day so that your post doesn’t just get lost on your Twitter timeline or Facebook wall among the thousands of other tweets and wall posts. You want people to actually notice it! However, you need to find the balance between posting a few reminders and spamming – if you keep tweeting the same message every ten seconds, your followers might be less cooperative.
If you’re taking part in a traditional blog tour, you may want to use a catchy but brief title for your blog post. Let your readers know that you need their votes – but they can win too! Encourage them to leave a comment on your blog post so that they have a chance to win the random commenter award (equal to $50) and ask them to vote for you in return. It only takes five seconds, after all.
In the case of whirlwind tours, you can increase your chances of winning by posting more than once. Remember, you may post any or all of the pre-written material we send you. So you may consider posting, let’s say, the interview first, the guest post on the next day, the excerpt later on, and so on. And, as always, don’t forget to remind your followers that you still need their help with voting.
You can also post a link to the traffic breaker poll in the sidebar of your blog so that new visitors can check it out without scrolling further down or reading some of your older blog entries. In addition, you can post a request for votes at the bottom of other entries you post on your blog during the tour – just a short reminder that they still have time to vote for you and each vote is very much appreciated.
Hopefully you’ll find these tips helpful – good luck!
