#BlogOff2 - Community Building Starts Today

Who will be Survivor, Lost or Biggest Loser?

16 competitors have tossed their hat into the #blogoff2 ring. Who will emerge with the most active community?

The Ground Rules
There is a "judging panel" that decides whether each competitor meets the requirements of #blogoff2, but you - the audience - are the true judges. The only way for anyone to succeed is by getting your attention AND your participation.

Here are the five tasks each blogger must complete:

1. Captivating blog headlines - how good are they?
2. Quality - what is the originality, depth and quality of writing?
3. Traffic - how many page visits were you able to generate for your content?
4. Dialog - how many people commented and how did you respond?
5. Length of visit - did your audience stay engaged?

The Judging
So let's start with this post. How good is my headline? How good is the writing?

You can see from the next three criteria that your participation is what will really show how good everyone's writing is. The more you Digg, Diigo, Delicious, Tumble, ShareThis or otherwise bookmark a post, the more traffic it's going to get.

It's natural that you're going to comment on a blog post you like, but will you engage in a conversation? This is a HUGE key, folks. Getting one person to comment is good. Getting two or three people to have  conversation is stupendous. Dialogue (or dialog) is where it's at.

And if you read all the way to the end, that's a whole lot better than hitting the back button during the opening paragraph!  ;-)

So support each blogger. Read the posts, make comments, and tell everyone what you like, don't like, want added or what you'd cut.

The Catch
Team up with me, and let's push each competitor to give us their best.

Think of me as the rabbit in a dog race.

My job is to push everyone to do their best. I'll write posts that try to connect what everyone is doing. Posts that link content from the competitors to relevant content from your blogs and other sources. So leave lots of comments that point to other sources. (I'll be posting just like every other competitor, but since I'm also a sponsor the prizes are off limits to me.)

Starting today, every competing blogger has just 12 days to post at least twice, and as often as 8 times. In those 12 days, they are looking to start conversations - and maybe some controversy. And you're the judge...

This is social media - you decide who should be Departed, who is living in their Field of Dreams, and who is Top Gun.

Comments

[Darlene Sabella]

Were off and running, thanks Conrad. My fellow writers are not making comments on my posts. I am follow them and making comments, not sure what I am doing wrong. Wish me luck.

[Sara Barton]

Welcome, contestants! Let the games begin!!!

[Sam Diener]

Cheers..... Here we go!