Urgh, the awards season is upon us, no, not the Oscars, or BAFTAs, or EVEN the Mercury Music Prize.
BLOGGING AWARDS
Usually you’ll get some beggy Facebook Updates and Tweets, which is tolerable, and hey, we’ve all done it. But this year has seen an epic amount of twat badgery – it’s now all about SPONSORED begging in the form of Facebook and Twitter adverts. I’m being force-fed ‘Remember to vote for me’ over and over by those desperate for a bit of recognition. If your blog is that good, you’ll be on your reader’s mind if they choose to vote, screaming ‘LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!’ on everyone’s timeline is a pretty sure-fire way to piss people off.
I’m all for people using sponsored posts and tweet to push their writing, I’ve used it myself – I’ve been trying it a lot lately on Facebook especially. The way you can specify your target audience is brilliant, and I’ve seen an increase in traffic for it. Getting people to your blog and to enjoy your work is key if you want them to consider you when nominating, not clogging up their feeds and timelines with endless begs.
There’s also a swath of ‘Who I think you should nominate / vote for’ posts, bloggers giving a nod to those (usually popular) who they think *you* should vote for. I call bullshit on these posts, they are just hoping those they’ve recommended will vote for them or recommend them in their similar posts.
Winning an award is great, but with blogging awards, it’s pretty fucking impossible to do so – it’s *not* based on the quality of your content, or your brilliance at writing. It should be, but it’s not. It’s just a popularity contest, you need nominations, those with the most nominations get whittled (hah!) down to a voting list, then those with the most votes win. So if you’re not ‘big’, you won’t win, you won’t even get to the final rounds. I’ve written more about that here actually.
Winning is a bit of a hollow victory, you’re not REALLY the BEST Writer, Mummy Blogger, Daddy Blogger etc, you’re just the most popular, you’ve persuaded the most people to nominate you, and vote for you.
Well done you.
So, please, if you’re not nominated, or get through to the next stages, take heed in the fact that it’s not because you’re bad at what you do, or your blog is bad. You’re great at what you do, and your blog is awesome, there’s just someone higher up the food chain, with a bit more persuasion power than you. If you want a title, I hereby allow you to say that you’re all winners of the KIPS 101 Blogging Awards – pick a category, and you can be an ‘Award Winning Blogger’ too.
You’re welcome.
It is indeed a huge can of worms isn’t it and I agree that no amount of ads or invitations to vote would sway me whatsoever in who to vote for! But perhaps these posts are aimed at people who wouldn’t otherwise know about these awards and if they do happen to be a fan then they know they can vote for you. We don’t berate This Morning or Chatty Man for asking for our votes in TV awards which they often will. I do have a problem with differentiating me the blogger from my business which is the blog and at the moment as with last year I can’t bring myself to ask for nominations, which isn’t exactly business savy but then I ended up as a finalist last year after just ignoring it all so maybe it’s not such a bad none plan after all!
I nominate myself for Biggest Blogger Bore in the KIPS 101 Blogging Awards.
*nominates KIP HAKES in every single blogging awards in existence*
Kip, you’ve been nominated for a BUBA- Ukraine will be contacting you shortly…
and also a Russian UKBA.
well sorry to say youve just got my vote for best blog…I totally love your ‘giving it straight’ no bull style, if its shit say its shit!
Well put (although I think you mean “take comfort” and not “take heed” in this context).
Twat badgery is going to be my phrase of the week. I’ve never understood why people would pay to promote themselves across social media in the hope of winning an award. As you say, it smacks of desperation and is nothing more than a glorified popularity contest. Not bitter at all at not being nominated for anything, no, I’m definitely not bitter……Stephen