The first session I went to was about Hosting A Virtual Challenge. I didn’t really think I would be too interested in this one because I never planned on holding a challenge but I found it extremely interesting! I was so happy that I went!
Amanda from Run To The Finish lead the session and did an awesome job!
She started with some good tips!
-Buy your own domain name! It makes it easier for people to remember your website!
-Share your logo for the virtual challenge with people to share it.
Then she got right into it. Talking about the benefits and the drawbacks of hosting your own challenge.
The one thing that stuck with me was when she said that she does challenges on topics that she wants to try when she knows that 200 other people are doing it with her it gives her more motivation to stick with it!
Next she shared with us some lessons that she has learned along the way.
Now lets back up a little if you are planning on hosting a Virtual Challenge there are some things you have to think about first.
Planning- What is your challenge going to be?
Duration- How long are you going to do it for? 30 days?
Participation Method- How are people going to participate. Are they going to check in using a spreadsheet? Send you weekly photos… or maybe have a blog link ups.
-Google Docs
-Social Workout- A website that everyone signs up under and then they can see
how they are doing compared to others.
Rewards- How many are you going to have? How do people win? How do you get their contact information?
-Make a list of what you love and use all the time. Contact those brands.
-Look through your contacts. Reach out to them. Ask friends.
-Look who is already doing giveaways on your friends blogs and contact them.
-Send them an e-mail, keep it short with a description, 2-3 sentences who
you are, how will your challenge promote them.
-Create a disclosure policy. Give people that win 2-3 days to claim the prize.
You also want to make sure you stay connected to your participants.
If they are using a hashtag to log in you might want to get HooteSuite where you can follow certain #’s.
If they are using instagram you can use the website Statigram. That site makes it easy for you to comment on peoples photos.
If you are using pinterest you can type pinterest.com/source/(your blog name) {so mine would look like pinterest.com/source/itsaharleyyylife.com} and you can see who is pinning your stuff.
If you need to send out a newsletter or a reminder to everyone you can use Mail Chimp.
Other Helpful tools you might want to consider:
BeFunky.com
PicMonkey.com
Snagit.com
bit.ly
Google Analytics
Frametstic {iPhone App}
Label Box {iPhone App}
To see more of the live tweets you can go here!
Question: Do you already use any of these tools in your everyday life?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
wow! thanks for all this info about challenges!! that’s awesome. i never knew how people got those up and running even though ive always loved the challenges people host! hope u have a happy tuesday! spalove!
Great summary–I also loved this session! Amanda did such a great job explaining the process from start to finish, also providing those helpful websites. I still have to check most of those out
glad you got something out of my talk and thanks so much for sharing!
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