Why the Hot Blogger Calendar is Hot Among Bloggers

Authors of popular blogs probably get daily link requests. Maybe once a month someone offers to send them a free book to review. Once a quarter they might get offered tickets to an exclusive event. And then there are the interview opportunities and product samples.

All good stuff really. All tactics we recommend in blogger outreach. Hey, what good blogger would not want to share good content with readers, try out a relevant product or attend an exclusive event? But, it's all been done before.

Introducing the Hot Blogger Calendar.

It all started with a Hottest Male Blogger contest that I first found out about on Twitter. Then I saw Peter Shankman (the eventual winner of the contest) cover it in a HARO email. The contest was so popular that Jane from Mom Generations and Sarah Morgan expanded the contest to be a calendar and created guys and gals divisions.

In the past week 8,300 bloggers have blogged about this contest. Bloggers, blogging, about a hot blogger contest, that started on a blog. How web 2.0 ish can you get?

The reason I love this campaign? It is destined to create great word of mouth online. Bloggers, by our very nature, love to communicate. We love to talk. Yes, we like to talk about books and products and content. But we kind of like to talk about ourselves too. If a blogger has been nominated as a hot blogger, you can be darn sure they are going to blog about. Reason number one I love this event?

1. Every blogger who is nominated is going to blog about it on their blog. (yes that includes me,). The more nominations a blogger received by August 25th at midnight, the more likely he or she is to make the final cut. So...all of us nominees are blogging about it! Did I mention that includes me?

Reason number two I love it:

2. Online and traditional media also love, and will continue to love, this event. It involves blogging, it involves hotness. Only an Olympic and Vice Presidential Candidate angle could make this story more appealing.

Reason number three I love this event:

3. Bloggers who aren't nominate will ask people to nominate them. This creates awareness for the event, drives site traffic and creates links.

Okay a few other reasons I love this:

4. It's an easy concept. Vote for a blogger. Who is hot. They get on an calendar. Simple, no hoops. You can communicate it in seven words.

5. It's fun.

In the week or so the nominations have been going on the site has earned about 250 links. Did Jane and Sarah do a bunch of manual link requests? Did they send a canned press release to an unqualified list? Did they buy links, placement and publicity? No. Did they create great, fun, interesting content? You bet.

Comments

[Lara Kretler]

You've got my vote, Bill!

[whall]

I was nominated and am not hot. However, I plan on getting the sympathy vote. Or, maybe people will vote for me because the other actually hot bloggers all need someone "non-hot" for comparison purposes.

You know, kinda how like Molly Ringwald, Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver are seemingly popular actresses. We all know they're just there to make the other "real" actresses look better.

I don't mind being the hotbloggercalendar's Sigourney.

[BlondeBlogger]

Umm...I am the one who nominated Mr. Whall and so I am qualified to say that he IS hot! He will be the Angelina of the calendar, not the Sigourney (and Bill you're not too bad yourself, heh)

[Bill Balderaz]

Thanks for your support Lara. If elected, I promise to support all the ideals of bloggitude and consistently vote for issues of hotness. And Mr. Whall, you have nothing to fear--I was once told I have a face made for podcasting.

[Liz]

I got nominated and all I can say is that I'm glad I'm not down at the bottom of the voting results.

Superficial popularity contest? Yes, but everyone still wants a few votes for themselves.

[Erika - Technology Goddess]

Hi, yes I was nominated and am in the running currently. It's one of those "all in good fun" kind of things and good for all- the host site is getting some great links, the nominees are getting some new readers and traffic and everyone is buzzing about blogging. I wasn't expecting the amount of traffic actually, and have been keeping an eye on the bandwidth all day.