Dust off your finest gown and drop that gorgeous cocktail dress off at the dry-cleaners, it’s that time of year again – awards season! The awards season is definitely a marathon rather than a sprint, with the Globes, SAG, Oscars and BAFTAs coming up in short succession. All eyes are on the red carpet to dissect the attendees sartorial choice and decide whether they were a hit or miss. Over the last couple of weeks though, the spotlight has been on bloggers. Two major weekly glossies have announced their shortlist for fashion and/or beauty bloggers. How exciting for those who have made the cut; time to rally up the troops (readers) and get your hard earned community to vote and spread the word, right? Actually, you might want to think twice about that.
Most of the bloggers who have made the shortlist have been around the blogging block for a couple of years. They have paid their dues and managed to walk the fine line between having a real, offline life and being a blogger – harder than it sounds. If they’re anything like me, days are extremely long and blogging is a part of daily life rather than something they do a few times a month. So it’s great to get some recognition, right? Yes. Although most of us are in it for our own satisfaction it’s lovely to feel appreciated, especially by a major glossy. Those 19 hour days suddenly don’t seem so bad; the frustrations with Blogger/Wordpress are a little more insignificant and balancing your camera on a book…on a box…on a chair for an outfit shot seems less ridiculous. The upshot from being shortlisted is sure to give you a boost in traffic and hopefully some new readers, the kudos from being crowned the winner…well, it would be amazing.
Now before you start pimping out the ‘vote for me’ links (they are always voted for by the public), take a look at what prize is actually up for grabs, the tangibles. One of the glossy mags generously allows the winner of the best blog categories to write an article for them while the winner of the best Twitter categories get to guest edit their Twitter feed. So your prize is working for free. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like such a good deal to me. I haven’t been blogging for four years to become a lacky, have you? The other glossy is slightly better, offering a feature in the magazine for the winner – great for getting your name out there and potentially tapping a whole new readership.
Still, weigh up the intangible “prize” with the time and effort it takes to blog/tweet/Facebook/harass your community into voting for you. Personally, it’s not really worth it for me. The lack of thought into the prize coupled with the careless approach to compiling the shortlist show that they don’t really “get” it. A useful prize like a paid column or a DSLR/tablet would show an understanding of what bloggers need. The nomination process could also do with some work, one glossy asked for bloggers to nominate themselves or get nominations from their community (again with the voting) while the other put together a really shabby shortlist with some blogs in there twice or with two different URLs and several inactive blogs making the cut.
I’ve spoken to a couple of my blogging peers to see what they think:
Muireann from Bangs and a Bun: I mainly think that these are first and foremost, a cheap tactic. While bloggers are gaining in popularity and working our asses off to gain an audience, the reality is, mainstream national press coverage is still seen as quite a coop. I understand why people want to enter them. Let’s be honest, blogging is an egotistical industry and we want the recognition! However, these awards do far more for the magazines than they do for the blogger.
Reality check: magazine sales are slumping. Online media is thriving. So sure, while us bloggers may not get as many hits as the big mags, our readers are fiercely loyal. They trust us and our motives and viewpoints more. With every blogger tweeting begging to win votes for an award, all that happens is we see the mag’s name more and they get more hits.
And when the ‘prize’ is to win the opportunity to write for them, for NO PAY? Get outta here! Where is the benefit for me? I take what I do seriously. It’s my business, it’s my job. If they valued what we do at all, they’d run a competition for a blogger to have a paid monthly column on their site or something.
The way most of these are currently set up, I see very little benefit to the blogger. But it has to be said, until bloggers see the value in themselves and what they have to offer, it will continue. Unless we’re all united in saying this is nonsense and we deserve more, we will continue to be treated like to sappy little sisters of mainstream media.
Jenny from The Style PA: By and large these campaigns provide a lot more for the magazine than they do the bloggers. Bloggers have to badger their audiences for votes which may in fact put readers off their blog, rather than turn them on to it. I don’t like the idea of begging for clicks or votes, as much as I’d love to win a prize. The prizes should be worthwhile too, a top of the range digital camera or holiday seem to be easy to negotiate for reader giveaways, why not do that for the bloggers who are being advocates for the magazine’s brand. Work experience is all well and good, but it should be paid. Running a competition shouldn’t be an opportunity to save of contributor fees.
Don’t get me wrong, blogger awards could be great and very beneficial for the winner and nominees but at the moment, the glossy mags are the real winners what with the increased traffic and social media buzz. I remember the days of old school blogger awards; made by bloggers and given to a select five whom you usually knew well. They were heartfelt and genuine, which is exactly what we need from magazine blogger awards. I’ve been shortlisted for a few of the awards and of course I’m incredibly flattered but I’m not going to canvass my community for votes. But that’s just me though, major props to those who have been shortlisted and best of luck. But before you drum up support from your lovely community, just think about the prize and whether it’s all worth it.
You deserve a standing ovation for this post Reena!
I somehow agree with you 🙂
I couldn't agree more. Giving a prize that would actually benefit the blogger would make it all the more worthwhile. The way they are currently run, I really don't think there's much benefit to a blogger being nominated. Both lists you're referring to have a strange list of blogs included. One list I saw recently had a category for best photography… but the range of photography went from someone who used their camera phone to others who were clearly on a professional level. I think the blog awards are embarrassing for many of the magazines that take part in hosting them because they show a blatant lack of understanding of the blogging world. xx
Great post, Reena! I was shortlisted for the Cosmo Blog Awards last year and have been nominated for Company Mag's version which is running at the moment. In both instances, I only asked for a vote once or twice. I tweeted about it, mentioned it on the blog and then it's done. I don't believe in harassing your readers – they don't come to your blog to be badgered into voting for you. When it comes to the value of these things, it's a tricky one. The Cosmo Blog Awards have been pretty beneficial for me purely from an SEO perspective – getting a link from a big website like that really helps visibility. I personally wouldn't support anything that offers free labour as a prize but I can understand why something like that would be useful to anyone trying to break into journalism, or those who've just started blogging. I think what MC missed when creating a prize for their awards was that many bloggers are successful in their own right, with good careers and a loyal readership. They don't need to use the mag as a platform.I totally agree that many of these blogger competitions miss the point, but what's more worrying is they pit bloggers against each other. Our community is one of our strongest factors – blogging competitions take that away and encourage competitive behaviour, which can often turn nasty.
Interesting post. I had a friend who did a very, Very slight bit of badgering when she (or her friend, I believe) were nominated for an award of some sort. I remember her putting a button in the sidebar so that people could just click & vote for themselves, granted you scrolled down far enough to see it. But after that, she didn't really give two hoots about it.I still don't understand people who would enter for the '15 Minutes', when it's a little more than a full century for mags. But whatever. Maybe I'm just jealous & waiting for my day to come 😛
This is very worrying. As Jen mentioned there was a time when Blogging Awards were set up by other people who blogged and were passionate about blogging and winning actually meant something. You didn't get a prize but what you got was exposure and merit from the blogging world but now what we have are a bunch of flagging magazines trying to increase their readership by jumping on the Blogger band wagon. Not good – for blogging and for bloggers. Not only are demeaning the art of blogginng by treating the awards in a very amateaurish way they are also depreciating the art. As Style Crusador pointed out, a few of the categories are a bit off and some of the shortlisted blogs have been listed twice. Appalling behaviour frankly and shows that they themselves do not take blogging seriously.