Hi Guys,
It was the moment of satisfaction as well as gratefulness as Dr. Michelle announced my name as the #MissionSamsung Bloggers Challenge Grand Finale Winner. The Grand Finale was telecast live on SABC3 TV at Expresso Morning Show on 25th May 2015. The host of the show along with Dr. Michelle from Samsung was the smart and dashing Katlego Maboe @KatleGomaBoe. He surely is the coolest guy I ever met if you have seen the show you will know of this fact.
Mission Samsung Blogger Challenge was launched last year in June 2014 with a great idea which was implemented very well by Samsung, @SABloggers, Webfluential and most importantly @EpicMSLGroup. The idea was to select Top 10 bloggers for 6 challenges and introduce them to the latest Samsung Gadgets for some weeks (1-3) with some set series of tasks to be performed using the same devices. I was not amongst the top 10 chosen bloggers in the first round and really felt very bad for some days. But then after the chosen ones were given devices to review, Samsung launched a Community Challenge for other bloggers who applied and was not selected to be in the top 10.
I immediately grabbed the opportunity as I always wanted to be a "SamsungBlogger" as similar contest was launched in India before I started blogging in 2011-2012 and I knew of some winners who used to get all the Samsung devices and gadgets to review even before it's launched in the market. I thought this to be a wonderful opportunity for me to showcase my skills. The theme of the community challenge post was to review Samsung NX300 mirrorless Smart camera. I immediately checked the Samsung website for the product and instantly fell in love with the design and capability of the camera.
On a Saturday afternoon, I sat with my laptop and started to work on the post. Ideas started flowing to my mind as I continued to write and review the device to show my relationship with the cameras I have used before. I was satisfied with the blog post and send the links to the respective parties. The results came on 7 July 2014 and I was announced the winner of the Community Challenge along with "Wild Card" entry into the finals and this amazing device called Samsung NX300 be me mines forever. I felt awesome and at the top of the world! Hurray! Also my interview was published on We blog for love.
I still wanted to participate as a Top 10 bloggers because they used to get some awesome #MissionSamsung branded stuff like tshirt, stationery, mugs, water bottles and flasks, caps etc. I tried for the next few rounds but never made it to the top 10 till the time of Challenge 5 to review Samsung Galaxy Note 4 in Feb 2015 and received #MissionSamsung tshirt, cap and flask. I felt great and did some amazing work with the post and the phone. Check it out as this post is the top 3rd post on my blog measured in pageviews and going to take 2nd position by next month and I almost thought that I will win in this category.
Finally, I started waiting for the finals to start which was scheduled to start end of April 2015 and somehow the event did started in May first week but my name was missed and it was a broken dream for me. I immediately drafted an emailed and waited for their response. They gave me 4 hours of time as a "Wild Card" entry in the finals to write the Final blog post with 20 words that needed to be incorporated. I am really grateful to Samsung and Epicmsl Group for giving me an opportunity to contest with other finalists for a chance to be in the Grand Finale.
I started writing and several themes came to my mind - one was being a lone traveler through South Africa but the other idea was able to incorporate and convince all the Samsung provided 20 keywords fully. The topic I chose for my final entry was my honeymoon to South Africa which I really loved writing about. Check it out as it helped me to be in the top 4 Grand Finalists.
The day arrived when it was all set for the Grand Finalists to appear live on Expresso Show and I flew a day earlier to Cape Town in the evening. It was a fight amongst #Johannesburg vs #CapeTown bloggers as I was the only one from Johannesburg and rest 3 were from Cape Town. The program started and we were using Samsung S6/S6 edge devices as our buzzers. It was a series of questions and I was able to give the final answer after being tied with 2 other contestants. It was at that moment I felt so grateful to everyone and couldn't believe that finally my dream has become a reality. I am the Top blogger for #MissionSamsung Challenge 2014 and the very first one to win a grand, big and awesome 65" Curved UHD TV which will soon decorate my home.
I am so thankful to Almighty Lord for giving me this opportunity to start my own blog and then pouring my heart out in words which works for me and the brands who loves me. I am greatly thankful to Samsung SA for making me their top blogger and I am looking forward to cover their various launch events and review their amazing products.
So this is my story which I have been working towards since the first day I saw the tweet when Samsung asked people from all major cities to look forward to a blogger challenge way back in May/June 2014. If you have big dreams in your eyes and work towards them with full dedication and commitment, you will sooner or later achieve the same. I felt great to achieve this dream of mine and now need to start dreaming of something else so big that it should not let me sleep till the time I achieve the same.
Cheers!!!
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