The first ever DNSimple blogging awards
Antoine Meunier
on
A few months back, we took on to improve our blogging game as a team where each of us would write one post per month about the topic of our choice.
Fun fact: this post is my contribution for this month. How meta, right?
The idea behind this effort is two-fold: practice our written-english skill and share some of our ideas and lessons learned outside of the company. Yes, this is also a content marketing effort but it goes beyond that. Therefore, we decided that its success couldn't only be measured in page views and conversions.
So, when the time came to discuss the result of our blogging effort during our quarterly meetup, Laetitia and I chose to deliver the results with a twist!
Since the retreat took place in the wonderful village of Pomas in the South of France, it made sense to adopt a Tour de France theme by awarding different jerseys for each winners.
Sad fact: we couldn't come up with the jersey in time for the retreat so the winner had to make with paper medals and candies.
With the whole team gathered in the garden, we proceeded—in true "DNSimple casual" fashion—to unveil the winners.
Unfortunately, this very first edition of our blogging award was plagued with several doping scandal as Italians on the team used banned substances to promote their post. 😂
(We realized that the performance of some posts skyrocketed due to other joint marketing efforts. In some cases, a post was also included in an email broadcast with thousands of recipients which gave no chance to a "normal" post to compete.)
Here are the official results of the first ever DNSimple Blogging Awards:
Maillot vert: the evergreen post
The maillot vert (awarded for the best young rider) was awarded to the post with the highest long term potential. In other words, an evergreen post that keeps bringing interest over time.
Winner: Luca's "Why we ended up not using rails for our new JSON API"
Luca's post on the code changes behind our APIv2 immediatly caught the community's attention and has been steadily attracting attention for the last couple months. 📈
Maillot à pois: the best (social feed) climber
Historically awarded to the best climber of the TdF, the maillot à pois was awarded to the blog post which climbed the social feeds with panache. In other words, the most popular post on social networks ranked with a mix of the engagement from Twitter and Facebook.
Winner: Sebastian's "How to write a comic"
Sebastian's post was, much like How DNS Works (the "OG" comic) an instant success. It quickly got picked up on social networks (specifically Facebook) and got it's 15 minute of fame. 🎉
Maillot d'étape: best individual post
The maillot d'étape usually given out for each stage winner was awarded to the highest performing blog post.
Winner: Luca's "Why we ended up not using rails for our new JSON API"
Again? Yes, again. Let's just say that the Tour de France theme may have its limitations and we might want to pick a different theme in the future that will highlight and allow for a wider set of winners.
Maillot jaune: best overall writer (highest average readership per post)
Finally, the winner of this edition, awarded the maillot jaune…or in our case, the candied apple was the author with the highest average readership throughout all publications.
Unfortunately, there was a snafu with the prize as it was shamelessly stolen by Amelia, who ate the pilfered award during her long trip back to the US so it would not be seized at the border. It was a delicious award indeed.
Coup de théâtre! We got a tie.
In all seriousness, having the whole team involved in our content marketing effort has brought value beyond expectations. It gave the opportunity to some team members to express challenges they faced. Others took the stage to promote activities and efforts that we've been pursuing behind the scenes. Much like a cycling team alternating leaders, it's the different skillset of each team member that helps us keep the momentum of the blog going strong. 💪
Antoine Meunier
cruising through #vanlife in a '72 VW bus.
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