Happy New Year! 
I hope that you’ve had a wonderful, relaxing break, and are coming back refreshed, and ready to take on the world!
To kick off the new year with a bang, I’m excited to announce the finalists for the Awesome Engagement Strategies Contest. There were *tons* of great submissions, and choosing finalists wasn’t easy – but did it, and now I’m very happy to present all fifteen bloggers who are going to teach and inspire you this month.
They all worked very hard to write amazing posts about innovative ideas that you can use to create, nurture and enhance audience engagement – something that you know we take very seriously around here!
So read on to learn what’s coming for you this month, and how you can cash in on some of the prize money, too! 
Contest Details – and How You Can Cash In!
First of all, a quick reminder about how the contest is going to work.
After each post goes live, we’re going to be giving it five days to gain as much traction in the form of comments and social shares as possible. So if you read a post that you really like, share it, comment on it, and send it out into the world!
By doing so, you’ll help your favorite entrants win their share of a prize pool adding up to over $2,000 in cash (and direct access to Danny).
But remember, the contestants aren’t the only ones who can win…
You can win, too!
During the contest, we’ll be on the lookout for particularly excellent comments, and our five favorites will each get $100 cash.
So by all means, engage – if you see something you like, then let us know in as much detail as you can – both to help your favorite contestants win, and so that you can, too!
Now, without further ado – let me present our finalists!
Awesome Engagement Strategies Finalists
We started this contest because we wanted to give our readers and community members a chance to share their experience and know-how with you.
The result is even better than we expected, and you’re going to be able to start this year off with over a dozen brilliant, highly effective ideas to improve your engagement. From in-person meetings, to live video streaming, from traffic explosions to single person focus, these ideas are as varied as they are bound to be effective…
- January 2nd, Rita Schulte - Pop Your Brand, How to Start a Radio Podcast to Amp up Your Exposure When Things are Getting Stale
- January 3rd, Cindy Brown – Will You Marry Me? Engagement Strategies that Work!
- January 4th, Lindsey Rainwater - Doing What Scares Me
- January 7th, Tom Treanor - The Secret to Fantastic Engagement
- January 8th, Neal Abbot - I’m Selling my Chops, But Giving the Gravy Away for Free
- January 10th, Natalia Goloskokova - Mastering Success on Facebook – Setup Your Unexpected Victories
- January 11th, Tommy Walker - 3 Live Video Broadcasting Formats that Will Captivate Customers and Make You More Money
- January 14th, Murray Gray - The Single Video Strategy
- January 16th, Carmelo Bryan – How to Engage your Readers by Revealing your Royal Screw-Ups
- January 17th, Laura Leigh Clarke - How to Generate a Stream of One to One Clients
- January 18th, Fiona Prince - Bridge the Gap
- January 21st, Carol Ross - How Dinner in Chicago Engaged Others
- January 24th, Tom Bentley – Flesh and Blood
- January 25th, Tea Silvestre - Gamify to Tighten Up Relationships and Create a Close-Knit, Highly Engaged Tribe
I have every confidence that among the ideas that you’ll read about this month, there will be at least one (if not many more!) that are absolutely perfect for *your* business.
So stay tuned, because it’s going to be an amazing month! 
Megan Dougherty has been with Firepole Marketing since 2010, first as Danny’s Assistant and more recently as Content Editor and Assistant Instructor. When she’s not working with wonderful students and readers here, she’s building her own audience based business helping the young and underemployed handle their money at Paying For Life.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Happy New Year Danny!
Glad to see you back into the slew of things
Congrats to the participants!
We’re glad to be back Samuel!
This sounds very exciting and I cannot wait to read it all.
I’m in a position to confirm that the posts are very exciting!
Heh, heh, Megan!
Wow! This is fantastic! Looking forward to reading all the brilliant ideas and applying them. Great way to start the New Year…one of my theme words for 2013 is engagement and firepole marketing is my go to source!
So glad to hear that Sheila! Let us know which strategies you are going to try – and don’t forget to comment on and share our favourite posts.
Love reading Tea Silvestre! Looking forward to seeing how all the finalists do.
Me too!
Wow, this is really a great way to kick start the year with a bang! Happy new year!
Thanks Chadrick! We think so too – and right back at you!
It’s going to be fun! Thanks for putting this all together Megan and Danny (although I’m sure that Megan did all the work!
)
And I’m quite happy to be chosen as a finalist. It means I get to share my idea with a great group of readers and achievers. More than anything, I hope it helps!
Happy New Year everyone and may it bring your dreams to fruition!
No problem Carmelo – and I will neither confirm nor deny who did all of the work!
(jk: team effort!)
I’m happy you’re a finalist too – I think it will help tons of people.
Happy New Year!
OMG – they all look exciting… can’t wait to read more.
Great job doing the selecting Megan
Thanks, it was no easy task, I tell you!
It’s cliche, but hey… I’m gonna say it anyway! It’s an honor just to be chosen as a finalist! Thanks for including me. I look forward to learning some new engagement strategies, even though I’m already married. I love my husband, but I think my blog might possibly be my mistress. Manstress? Blogstress? Whatever. ;0)
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