BizSugar interviews Bloggertone on Sugartone

(Editor’s note: Shawn Hessinger, chief moderator and blogger for BizSugar.com, your source for social news and networking, interviews Niall Devitt and Cindy King of small business blogging network Bloggertone about Sugartone, a blogging contest and  joint effort between the two communities running this week from March 15-19.)

Shawn: OK. To start, can we talk about what exactly Bloggertone is and how it got started?

Niall: Bloggertone is a place where people can engage with business blogging while at the same time having the support of a blogging community. The idea came about after I had invited other business bloggers to guest post on my own blog, and had seen how this resulted in more readers and a better business blog. The Bloggertone site went live on the 23rd of October 09 and we now have more than 50 contributing business bloggers.

Shawn: So, can you talk a bit about how the Sugartone blogging contest came about? What was the impetus?

Niall: BizSugar was a site that I had admired and used before Bloggertone, it’s an excellent resource and is very effective at getting Bloggertone posts to a much wider audience. Bloggertone and BizSugar compliment each so well that it seemed natural to run a joint event together. I’m delighted that Anita and the BizSugar liked the idea and wanted to get involved. The Sugartone blogging contest provides a unique opportunity for business people to promote themselves across the two sites with the possibility of winning some really exciting prizes.

Shawn: And how exactly do people participate? If I want to get started, what do I do first?

Niall: There are two ways to participate and win prizes – either write and submit a business article with a great title to Bloggertone between Monday March 15th and Wednesday March 17th or/and vote (sweet) and comment over as BizSugar between Monday March 15th and Friday March 19th.

Cindy King: Click here to read more about how to submit your articles.

Shawn: Can you talk about some of the prizes and other benefits of getting involved?

Cindy King: We decided to offer prizes for professionals marketing online, and came up with $6921 in prizes.

Prizes include:

• Lead Page Machine, a software to automatically generate squeeze pages so that you can use this to tailor your squeeze pages to specific audiences, to build your email subscribers and increase your sales conversions valued at $5200
• Animoto, a year’s membership to this easy tool which creates videos from photos valued at $249
• Traction Call, a 45 minute call with the Traction Coach Gary Barnes to help you to quickly get some “sand under your wheels” so you can move forward toward the life you want to live valued at $175
• ClickMillionaires, 2 x 6-month membership to Scott Fox’s social network helping business owners upgrade their marketing to make more money online. Valued at $174
• 5 Critical Tactics for Business Blog Success, this CD and report by Denise Wakeman reveals how you can easily make your blog a winner valued at $97
• Start.Grow.Run 8 x a software package with 45 essential tools and services for the 3 different phases of your business. Valued at $49.95 each.

Plus there are 2 books for both the winners of the Top 10 Titles and the Top 10 Commenters. And the books include:

• Wordtracker Masterclass: Blogging For Business 50 Steps to Building Traffic and Sales by Chris Garrett. 5 books valued at $39 each
• Sociable by Shane Gibson and Stephan Jagger. 5 books valued at $25 each
• New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg. 5 books valued at $16.49 each
• Guest Posting by Chris Garrett. 5 ebooks valued at $10 each

Shawn: Other details?

Cindy King: Both BizSugar and Bloggertone are great communities. This is why we expect the professionals participating in the Sugartone event to enjoy the experience and recognize the value of social business communities.

Niall Devitt is a leading Irish management consultant and a firm believer in the power of social networking to drive business. He is a co-founder of the Bloggertone blogging network.

Cindy King is a cross-cultural marketer helping businesses develop globally with international social media.