Darnell Jackson of YourOnlineBiz recently announced the champion of The Second Annual International Blogger Championship Tournament (IBCT).
The International Blogger Championship Tournament is all about learning from the best of the best. It was created in 2012 to motivate people to learn about blogging in a brand new way that I call competitive comparative analysis.
The IBCT started with what Darnell felt were the top 128 blogs. He reduced that to 64 and then put them head to head in a tournament format. All of us who blog seek out the very best bloggers to see how they have accomplished what we hope to do.
Lists like IBCT are an excellent way to find the very best quality bloggers.
See the Top 128 IBCT Blogs and Bloggers here.
These are the bloggers you will want to follow on Twitter, connect with on LinkedIn and Google Plus, collaborate with and among whom you will find the mentors most useful to you.
I encourage you to seek out these top bloggers. They have invested 4-5+ years of their lives in what they’ve accomplished. You WILL learn much from them.
Many bloggers we have collaborated with for years were involved. We were first up against Ana Hoffman’s excellent TrafficGenerationCafe. We collaborate with and learn much from Ana.
In the second round, we were up against our good friend Kiesha Easley’s WeBlogBetter. Kiesha, Bryan Hollis of BlogInteract, and I are working on a major Joint Venture to roll out local geo-targeted group blogs later this year.
Ileane Smith of BasicBlogTips competed against her friend DiTesco’s iBlogZone in the regional finals. Both Ileane and DiTesco are long time collaborators and have extremely loyal and dedicated followings.
GrowMap was up against DiTesco in the quarter finals having edged out Social Media Examiner in the regional finals. There was no predicting who might edge out the other as the results are based on comments and shares by supporters.
From the start we all encouraged our friends, readers, and followers to feel free to vote their hearts with no hard feelings. We are all more about collaboration than competition. I am just as happy to have you vote for any of these fine blogs as mine because we are ALL winners due to working together.
In the finals GrowMap was up against Pat Flynn’s fine SmartPassiveIncome. While I have shared his content, we have not yet collaborated. Hopefully we will this year.
In the end, GrowMap’s supporters swayed the results in our favor, and GrowMap was crowned Champion of the 2nd Annual International Blogger Championship.
I share these results with you to show you examples of bloggers who stayed the course. They collaborate and promote each other selfishly. They are your role models.
I hope that you will check out the full list of 128 blogs. Select those that most fit your own goals and whose content appeals to you.
Darnell makes that easier through his interview series. Here are a few of his latest interviews with top bloggers:
- What I learned from Ari Herzog – Q&A with the founder of AriHerzog.com
- What I learned from James Chartrand – Q&A with the founder of Men with Pens
- What I learned from the Elite Eight bloggers of the #IBCT
- What I learned from Adrienne Smith – Q&A with the founder of AdrienneSmith.net
See all the Blogger Interviews here.
I have learned it is better to connect with a few deeply than try to keep up with many.
Choose several to maybe half a dozen of these blogs.
Subscribe to their content. Interact in their comments. Share their content on social networks. You and your blog will be better for the experience.
Special thanks to Adrienne of AdrienneSmith.net and all the others
who took time out of their busy days to support GrowMap.What Darnell did is a LOT of work. I commend him for
supporting all these blogs and the bloggers who in
turn supported his IBCT and each other.Want even more top bloggers to follow?
Use Topsy to find our collaborators.
Gail Gardner
Great and super informative blogs. Helped us a lot and provide ideas how to write an effective blogs for the people.
I’m a new to post about comments, and I am going to try to comment more often on the blogs once or twice a week. Some times its terrible to comment on blog!!
Yes same issue with me, in fact most of the blogs didn’t publish comments and its too much irritating.