Blog Carnival Tips

What is a Blog Carnival?

A blog carnival is sort of like a miniature online magazine. You submit blog posts to a blog carnival. The blog hosting the carnival then:

• Organizes the Submissions
• Deletes unwanted submissions
• Adds commentary and transitions to the Submissions
• Publishes the Carnival in a blog post.

This is a great way to be included with other articles of that subject matter. It is also a great way to increase the flow of traffic to your site. It increases traffic for two reasons:

1. You can take advantage of the host blog’s higher traffic ranking. If the carnival has regular readers they will likely be interested in your article and visit your site.

2. It provides a unique link to your site from the host blog. You can never have too many links in this world.

What should I look for in a Blog Carnival?

If you are looking for readers

I recommend first targeting the carnivals that are specific to your niche. They are the most likely carnival to send relevant traffic to your blog. If the readers weren’t already interested in your subject matter, they would not be visiting that blog carnival.

My second recommendation is to only submit articles that are relevant to the subject matter of the carnival. Don’t spam the carnival with unrelated material. That will only annoy them and cause them to ignore you.

If you are looking for unique links

I recommend targeting carnivals by deadline or scheduled edition. Make a list of the carnivals with upcoming editions and write articles to submit to those carnivals. The “other” category is a great place to find generalized off-the-wall carnivals. The other carnivals are usually more niche-specific but can still be very helpful if you are willing to write an article in that niche.

How many articles should I submit to a single Blog Carnival?

Try not to submit too many articles at once. I have a guy who has submitted like 13 articles to one carnival. He’s a great writer and I can’t say that I mind all that much. But he’s is ultimately creating a lot of extra work for me. I ended up scratching 10 of them judging by titles.

I would suggest submitting no more than 1-3 articles at the time or 5 at the most. I like having many different articles to choose from but sometimes it can be a little too much of a good thing. Remember the carnival isn’t going anywhere (in theory). You can still submit more articles in the next edition.

Can I submit the same article to different Carnivals?

The answer is yes, but I would recommend the staggering submissions. Submit different articles to both carnivals and then switch them for the next editions of the carnival.

Example:

One Edition

Submit Article 1 to Carnival A
Submit Article 2 to Carnival B

Next Edition.

Submit Article 2 to Carnival B
Submit Article 1 to Carnival A.

This is a good strategy unless your article is in a time crunch. If you just reviewed a movie or wrote an article on a story that just broken, you probably want exposure as soon as possible. Kairos is as important in journalism as it is in all things.

If possible try not to submit an article to more than one carnival in a given niche. I break this rule all the time as you probably will also. But as a Carnival Operator, I am always a little happier when I see that I am the only publication publishing that article. When I see the same article posted at the same time on another carnival, I am a little disappointed. It is a very minor disappointment however. I would still much rather receive the submission than not and I am also guilty of multiple submissions.

Tips for those who are thinking about starting their own blog carnival.

So you have decided to edit your own carnival. Well I have three tips for you as well.

Tip One:

Alphabetic placement in the carnival list is very important especially if you have competition. I am currently listed first in my category [film]. I think that this is a primary reason why I receive such a huge volume of submissions. Of course, I also attribute it to the fact that I have chosen a huge niche to write in. There’s probably room for twenty more film carnivals.

I would ask that since I have shared this information with you not to sidestep me in the carnival list. I have a nice title without exclamation points in front my carnival name. If you sidestep me I will just sidestep you one step further. There is plenty of film submissions for the both of us.

Tip Two:

Encourage people to link the carnival. It’s a needle in a haystack but every means of one-way link building is definitely worth a try.

Tip Three:

Establish a good rapport with your contributors. The thing I like most about operating the blog carnival is that I have found some really amazing writers that I would have never found otherwise. On a personal level, I really enjoy reading their content. On a business level, I know that strong writing is an asset to the quality of my carnival. If I can find amazing writers to regularly contribute to my carnival that is only going to make my blog stronger.