Two Reader Appreciation Initiatives Compared
Today Darren Rowse of ProBlogger announced an anniversary giveaway of $54,000 in prizes. The Blog Herald reports that it’s the biggest giveaway on the blogosphere in quite some time.
Today also marks the day that Vivien from Inspiration Bit published the results of her second group project concerning 33 time management techniques.
Darren has over 31,000 feed subscribers. Darren is ranked 19 on Technorati with an authority of 8,610. And he makes over a 100k a year from his blog.
Vivien has 399 feed subscribers. She is ranked 9,326 on Technorati with an authority of 404. And she makes nothing from her blog.
Darren has gathered 115 sponsors who will dish out prizes ($54,000 worth) over the next few weeks in hopes of some exposure from ProBlogger’s readers.
Vivien has gained 33 participants in her group project. She was also one of the winners of Daily Blog Tips group project and has pledged to give all of the money back to her readers.
Darren’s Approach
Darren is in an enviable position where he has a very loyal reader base and also a queue of sponsors willing to give out prizes in hopes of gaining exposure on ProBlogger. Darren realizes the potential of his readership, and today he has announced that sponsors are willing to pay $54,000 in prizes. He’ll get hundreds (if not thousands) of readers to write posts in group projects. The sponsors may get a good return on investment, and some lucky readers get prizes.
Vivien’s Approach
Vivien is also in an enviable position. She’s a natural at relational blogging and has a small, but very loyal readership. She doesn’t have any fancy prizes to offer her readers for participating in a group project, but her readers are just as willing to write posts without any promises. And after being at Vivien’s blog for a while, it’s amazing how many of the entrants I recognize.
The Initiatives Compared
Both Darren and Vivien are great bloggers. I have had interactions with both, although I know Vivien a lot better. Darren is on the “pro” spectrum of things, while Vivien is appreciating her readers on a more personal and relational scale. Both, in my opinion, are going about it the right way. The two bloggers are just taking different approaches.
I’m sure some of you out there have started your own reader appreciation initiatives and with a giveaway such as the one ProBlogger has announced, it’s hard to compare. But sometimes you need to stop comparing, and appreciate your readers nonetheless.
inspirationbit says...
$54K in prizes - that borders craziness, and of courses rushes adrenalin to pump up the blood… oh, wish I could give away 10% of that on my blog. oh, well… maybe in a few years
thanks for the review, Ronald, although the comparison between us is like comparing Earth and Sky. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out who’s in the sky here
Simonne says...
If we divide the prize value by the number of feed readers, it comes to $1.74 in Darren’s case. This doesn’t maken his initiative less great, it’s just a way to see that Sky and Earth are closer than we think. And it would take Vivien only $700 to equal this
Besides, not everything translates into money. There was a commercial for Mastercard: “there are a few priceless things in this world. For all the rest, there is Mastercard”. I like and I read both blogs, and to me they are equal, regardless any numbers.
Ronald Huereca says...
Simonne,
That’s a very interesting approach assigning a monetary value to each reader and then comparing it to what Vivien would have to put up to equal the same amount. If you look at it that way, there’s not too much of a difference.
I suppose the point of comparing the two blogs in this post is just to show that comparing numbers is not too important.