You may be (or may not be) aware that this time of year is the season for Blog Awards and specifically parenting blog awards.

Here at This Dad Does, I’m all about helping other bloggers and writers. So I’m going to share what I’ve learned from the ‘outside looking in’ on the UK Parent Blog Awards.

Everyone wants to win this prestigious accolade. But how do you go about winning one of the awards? And can anyone win one? And if you win one, what happens then?

1. Being in the Club

No, I’m not talking about the well known rap song of a similar name. Being in the club means that before you can even be considered for an award, you must be part of the group of bloggers and writers that qualify.

This means:

  • Signing up to one of the major ad agencies (Tots 100 or the inclusive sounding Brit Mums)
  • Displaying their banner ads on your dot.wordpress blog
  • Signing up for their ad or affiliate programmes (obvs)

Once you’re in this exclusive (there are over 8000 parenting blogs listed on the Tots 100 website) club, you will be bombarded by PR reps for eclectic products such as weight loss aids, mattresses and day trips out. Don’t worry, you’ll be paid for the posts they plant on your website.

2. Getting Nominated

Once you’re in the club and your home page is covered in banner ads, you can think about getting nominated for an award.

There are two ways you can do this:

  1. A few weeks before nominations open, bombard your social media followers and readers with requests for nominations. You can specify categories or just let them decide. You can beg, cajole or even pretend that you don’t really want to be nominated (when really you do). This is straight forward as most of your readers are other bloggers anyway so you can pay them back in turn with nominations – in different categories of course.
  2. Become a ‘chosen blog’ by one of the ad agencies who will select your blog as being most compliant with their marketing strategy and therefore the one they want to promote the most. That’s why you should agree to sell everything that you are approached to sell and always tweet about how you ‘Totally love the awesome people at Britmums #BritMumsLive2016’. These mysterious judging panels have the power to make you a parenting blog STAR. Ignore them at your peril.

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3. Winning a Dad Blog Award and Getting Votes

So the voting is less than simple – but hey! Who want’s a fair and transparent voting system anyway right? There is an element of public (other bloggers) voting however the final decision (and several of decisions before that) is made by the nameless and faceless ‘judging panel’ (see above)

Like I said, don’t ignore them. They have the power to make or break you.

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Just make sure that you’ve sold enough stuff, displayed the banner ads and worked your way up the blog rankings (also a bit of a dark art) and you’re in with a great chance of getting the tap on the shoulder.

4. Winning an Award

If you’re writing a Dad blog, you don’t need to worry to much about this. You probably aren’t going to win even if you are nominated. That said, you might win if you’re nominated in a ‘Dad Blogs Only’ category.

If you’re a Mum Blogger, you probably won’t have been nominated (remember 8000 blogs) so you don’t need to worry too much about winning either.

Say by some outside chance, you have won, you can now tout your blog as being ‘award winning’ on social meejah and on your home page. You will have to display another banner ad saying what award you won.

You might even be invited on to day time TV talk shows or morning radio to talk about ‘parenting issues’ or about how Dads don’t babysit.

It’s a small price to pay.

Summary: Why I’ll Never Win a Blog Award

So there you have it. Four steps to blogging stardom.

Simple? Not really. Worth it? I’ll never know.

Why?

Well I’m pretty sure that ship sailed around the time this post went viral. But that aside, I want to write a blog that is useful – not stuffed with ads, promotions, random product reviews (ads) and giveaways (more ads).

In fact the parenting blogging scene (with a fair few exceptions) smacks of being one big elaborate advertising campaign, run by faceless corporates in offices that can turn you into a winner if they so wish.

If that’s the path you’ve chosen, then more power to you. I won’t be reading your site (though you’re reading mine aren’t you?).

I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. It seems to be working.

My readership and subscribers are growing every month. I’ll raise a glass to you, Award Winning Bloggers. You’ve earned it. But at what cost?

 

 

About Neil M White

Neil has been writing for a number of years. He has worked as a freelance writer both in the UK and internationally and has worked on a number of high profile media projects. Neil spends his spare time hiking, in the gym or hanging out with his family.

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