Not a sports fan? Don’t care about basketball? Hate the politics of college athletics? Know more about the Fantastic Four than the Final Four? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, you’re probably thinking that you can’t get in on any of the March Madness action. Well, you would be wrong.
In a nifty trick of blog marketing to bump up readership while cooking up some brand engagement, many top blogs are playing March Madness-type voting games with their readers – and getting winning results.
Interactive voting games are one of Blog Land’s oldest and most reliable tricks. It’s a pretty simple lure in appeal and execution; readers simply like to vote for their favorite things and get involved in the conversation. The highly devoured and digested food blog So Good is playing a tasty version of March Madness in line with its readers and brand. In 2009, Meat Madness reeled in meat-eater readers who voted for their favorite meat while last year’s Fast Food Bracket racked up 50,000 votes. So this year So Good is playing Snack Madness where voters can rally for their favorite treats. With a cookie bracket, a potato bracket, a cracker bracket and so on, matchups are made to see which snack food reigns supreme.
So Good isn’t giving away prizes or offering some sort of kick back for taking part in Snack Madness. It’s just giving readers a good interactive reading experience. The Consumerist, which was named one of the web’s best blogs by Time magazine last year, is also playing a Worst Company in America version of March Madness that is currently ending up in Twitter feeds and being closely watched by news outlets.
Fifty thousand votes is a lot for a little food blog – and it’s inspiring. We don’t have to wait until next March to engage our readers with content that makes them want to click, forward and start talking. Contests, polls and top 10 lists can happen every week on our blogs.
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