Blog Carnival Tips

Some of the first blog carnivals had a broad subject matter.  Since “carnival real estate” was wide open, general-interest carnivals could stake their claim without displacing anyone.  When one looks at the money and finance carnivals at BlogCarnival.com there are a couple of screenfuls of money and finance carnivals.  The first of these (as far as I know) was the Carnival of Personal Finance, with the premier edition hosted at its creator’s website, Consumerism Commentary.

This carnival enjoyed a few months by itself before a troublemaker (I won’t mention any names!) cut his own slice of the blog carnival pie by creating the Carnival of Debt Reduction, which was aimed at highlighting personal debt reduction stories.  The initial posting of the guidelines and schedule for the Carnival of Debt Reduction acknowledged the existence of the Carnival of Personal Finance with the hope that things wouldn’t get too crowded:

Why start up one [carnival] on Debt Reduction when there’s already one [carnival] on Personal Finance, you might ask? Debt reduction is part of personal finance — no doubt about that. It’s a very important part of personal finance, though — important enough to have its own carnival. Successful debt reduction stories and good debt reduction advice needs more exposure, and people need to see that debt is not forever. Many inspiring debt reduction stories make their way into blogs, and it is encouraging to everyone involved — bloggers, carnival hosts, and readers — to have their successes and insights highlighted on a regular basis. It is my feeling that there’s enough room in the blogosphere for both a Debt Reduction carnival and a Personal Finance carnival. We’ll see!

In short, I felt there was enough room for a blog carnival that was a sub-topic of an existing carnival.  A year and a half later, the carnival still has regular contributors and people still are interested in hosting.  Also, the Carnival of Personal Finance still thrives, and if anything, gets more posts than it did before!

Following this carnival there was the Carnival of Investing and the Festival of Frugality, which arguably are also sub-topics within personal finance.  And more division of personal finance, like the Carnival of Taxes.  Then, there was even more specialization of investing, like the Festival of Stocks and the Carnival of Real Estate Investing.  Today, there are four other real-estate-related blog carnivals listed, and four other blog carnivals specializing in credit and debt.

Once one gets a foot in the door, lots of others can get in.  But the more that come in, the more specialized they have to be.

While the new specialized carnivals have to struggle to find enough posts to piece together a decent edition, the older, more general carnivals run into the problem that there are too many posts for each carnival.  The specialized carnivals have to define themselves, whereas the older carnivals may have to re-define themselves to avoid becoming unwieldy.

Blog carnivals are a great way for newer blogs to gain some exposure, and having a highly specialized blog carnival that is directly related to the content of the post may be just as effective in gaining exposure than if it were submitted to a bigger, but less specialized carnival.  This is because the readers of the specialized carnival are more targeted than the readers of the broader carnival.

I think if one is going to participate in blog carnivals, submitting to the more general ones and more specific ones is a good idea.  And if an appropriate specific one hasn’t been started up, maybe it’s time!  As the blog carnival scene evolves, odds are someone will take it upon themselves to fill in the vacuum.

Filed under: Commentary