B is for Blog Hops

Blog hops are fun and challenging and you meet many people, so participating in them may not feel much like marketing. But exactly because you meet many people - people who are actively seeking new relationships - blog hops are an excellent way to build up your followers.

Now I must state that the number of followers you have does not actually mean as much as the quality of engagement you have with your followers. You can have a thousand followers who stop by one time and never again. That's not really useful for you as an author.On the other hand, you can have one hundred followers that will tweet, facebook, and blog on your behalf at the drop of a hat. Followers become great marketing tools when you know them well enough that they stop by often, comment often, share your news/posts with others, and are happy to guest on your blog or vice versa.

Just to be real clear, followers are people not statistics. They are opportunities for engagement. If you don't engage, the number of followers you have means nothing.

But because it is an easy number to monitor, we are going to look at my follower numbers to show how much a blog hop can change the opportunities I have for engagement. As I schedule this post to run, I have 331followers. Let's see where we are at the end of the month, shall we?

How have your followers jumped since you started this blogfest?

300 Follower $15 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway!

I never thought I would reach 300 followers, let alone 300 AMAZING followers.  You wonderful, supportive peeps deserve to be rewarded.

So I am holding my FIRST EVER CONTEST. The winner will receive a

 $15 Gift Card from Amazon. 

All you have to do to enter is enter the Rafflecopter info below and leave a comment on this post. You may also tweet and blog on your own blog to get extra entries. Contest opens today and runs through 3/8/12.  I'll announce the winner next Friday, March 9th.

Thank you, Fabulous Followers! a Rafflecopter giveaway

200 Followers!

Oh me, oh my, I reached 200! I'm really truly honored and ecstatic to have you all. You truly make this fun, fun, fun! (That's a lot of exclamation points. But I mean each one of them.)

In celebration I'd like to give away an e-book, but first, if you are following me and I am not following you back, leave me a comment and I'll get over there. But also, please look at your profile and make sure you are linked up to your own blog. Most of the time that little detail is what prevents me from returning a follow.

And now, the book I am giving away is Kristen Lamb's Are You There Blog? It's Me, Author. I have to say upfront that while I don't back up everything Lamb has to say, she makes a lot of excellent points and at least she gets authors thinking like marketers. It's an essential read if you are a serious author blogger.

Okay, drumroll, the winner is....

Alex J.!  

Alex, I will be emailing you with your prize.  Thanks for following, all of you!! Let's celebrate with a whole bunch of exclamation points!!!!!

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

You get a bonus post from me because we are celebrating! I have noticed my followers creeping toward 100 and have been checking periodically - okay, obsessively - to see the magic 100th follower.

And guess what.

I missed it. The last time I checked I was at 99 and then this time, I was at 101!

So in honor of this special event that is literally only made possible because of you AWESOME PEOPLE, I have randomly selected a follower to receive a prize.

First, the prize:  A pdf version of legendary author marketing expert Kristen Lamb's book "We Are Not Alone.: The Writer's Guide to Social Marketing." Kristen says it all better than I do, which I shouldn't tell you, otherwise why will you return? Seriously, if you don't follow her, you should.

Now for the winner.  Drum roll please...

Sharon Bayliss of The Blue Word 

I will email you, Sharon, with your prize. I hope you learn lots. But still come back and visit me :)

Thank you so much, everyone, for following! I have truly enjoyed the journey to this point and can't wait for the next 100.