I am going to touch on a subject that in my experience is becoming a little bit of an elephant in the room.
Before I do continue, I want to make it quite clear, that what I am going to say on the subject is not in any way a criticism of those who do or do not accept awards. It is just my own experience having seen both sides of the issue and how I have compromised my position on the matter.
When I began blogging in earnest in November 2013 I did not know which end of WordPress was which. In all honesty with the latest tweaks and twerks by the Happiness Engineers, I am not so sure I am any more enlightened. In fact yesterday as my post lost all formatting when I popped into make a slight change to the Boop de Poop facility, I am even more mystified than ever.
That aside, one of the more pleasant surprises, was my first award after about six months of blogging. At the time I was still trying to impress my 70 staunch followers on a daily basis and keeping myself motivated by selecting the Afternoon Videos on YouTube. I did rather wonder, with only one or two views a day, if I was actually getting anything right.
The award was from Don Charisma and I was blown away that someone had noticed my blog after all. I immediately set about finding 15 other bloggers who I could nominate as part of the award acceptance protocol. It was not difficult to find wonderfully talented bloggers with fantastic posts, but it did take me a while to find those who accepted awards, as I wanted to respect the wishes of those who didn’t.
That award was one of several that I gratefully received and responded to over the following months until the middle of the year when our circumstances changed. We decided to sell up and return to the UK or Ireland but needed to do a major renovation to the house. At the same time I was finishing off two books and it seemed I also had a thousand other projects that took up enormous amounts of the day.
Then an award came in from a lovely blogger but at the time it was the proverbial last straw….. I declined politely and explained why, but when the blogger replied it was fairly evident that I had hurt her feelings, and it made me feel dreadful. To avoid offending anyone else I put up the Award Free sign in my heading and began to clear my decks.
Once I could see the wood for the trees at the end of last year I began to reassess my original decision and reversed it with some provisos.
1. I would politely decline if I was up to my hollyhocks in work that had to take priority.
2. That I would not give a blog award twice to the same person. To this end I keep a list of those I have nominated.
3. When I find new bloggers who are exceptional, I add them to another list. Along with their website address I add a few lines that describe their blog to make them easier to follow.
4. When I receive an award I will then visit my list and select the bloggers that fall into the various categories… Versatile, Creative, Mad as a Hatter etc. I then move them to the awarded list never to be visited again.
5. I usually offer an alternative and in the last six months I have added a bouquet, box of chocolates or now my own bottle of exceptional Smorgasbord red wine! If the recipient is not a drinker they can pass the bottle on.
6. I particularly enjoy promoting new bloggers just getting started. I remember the huge boost that getting that first award gave me. For other bloggers who have plenty of awards to whom I would like to show my appreciation, I will find another way to do so.
So why did I change my mind about accepting awards?
I reviewed why I was blogging in the first place which turned out to be a useful exercise. I began to blog as a way to build an Internet presence for my books and also for my eventual return to the UK, when I intend on picking up on both my nutritional and training consultancies. I also would love to go back to radio and certainly having a healthy social media presence, plus an extensive list of potential guests to interview will be an advantage. I also love writing and a blog post is short, sharp and instantly gratifying (well perhaps not so short!).
I have been an Indie author for 16 years and one of my aims with the blog is to promote other writers of every description whenever possible. Of course there are many other ways to recognise fellow bloggers on a daily and weekly basis. Visiting their blogs and sharing their posts on social media, commenting and reblogging. However from time to time it is a pleasure to do something special such as host them on your blog, do a review of one of their books or perhaps interview them. And of course when appropriate nominating them for a blog award.
An award not only promotes the nominees you have selected but also yourself. Not only in the award you have sent out, but in turn when those nominated respond and send out their own. If fifteen nominees reciprocate and nominate another fifteen you and your blog have the potential of reaching 225 other bloggers.
Four months after I made that decision to participate in awards again I have found that there is mixed reactions. I try to avoid those who have declared Award Free Zones but sometimes this is unclear which is why I offer an alternative. Some bloggers do not respond at all and I am not sure if this is embarrassment about refusing, or perhaps it is that they are time pressed as we can all be frequently.
Which brings me back to the time that is required to respond to awards. I have decided to slot the time needed into my marketing schedule. I do believe that a fair number of those that follow me, and particularly the 300 or so new followers to my blog this year so far, have resulted from the awards process. Certainly I have also seen an increase in book sales. For me that translates into time well spent. It also satisfies one of my other very important reasons for blogging in the first place. To help promote other writers in any way I can.
Everyone of course has their own reasons for blogging, accepting awards and how they show recognition but I would ask that if you are Award Free that you display this wish prominently.
Anything else that you would like to know about me is on the following page on my blog including book links and all my social media contacts.
https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/about-me/
Thanks for reading.
Sally Cronin
Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
Reblogged this on Barrow Blogs.
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Thanks for sharing Judith as always a huge support, hugs Sally
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Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
I love doing my blog posts and it is even more fun when someone asks you to pop into theirs as a guest.. Christopher Graham The Story Reading Ape kindly gave me access to the enclosure today and let me talk about the elephant in the room… Blog Awards..Thanks Chris.. big hugs
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Very welcome Sally – Hugs 😀
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Great post, Sally! The awards made my day, every time they came in when I first started blogging… though, like you, it was only after a good, long while! But I found that to show the thanks and respect I wanted, each award was taking a huge amount of time to respond to properly.. time I simply didn’t have, between writing and caring, when at one point there were several a week to respond to. These days the Award Free badge is on the site and I don’t usually accept, though I will if I can squeeze the time out of the day 🙂 But I’ll always respond! An award from fellow bloggers still always lights up the day.
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Thanks Sue.. and I think that a simple ‘thanks for thinking of me’ is all that is necessary when busy and I still do that if I really do not have the time. I do however pop in to all the other nominees and follow them and I have discovered some great new blogs that way.. You are generous in so many other ways and obviously so busy that nobody is offended.
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I agree, I’ve found some fabulous blogs following the lists of nominees when they’ve gone up.
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This is great advice. I’ve just gotten back into blogging and haven’t encountered too many awards yet :(. I feel like that is another plate I need to get spinning.
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Perhaps a place to start is to look at the people you follow you and if you like them follow back.. Then find those that you really enjoy and nominate them for one of the established awards yourself.. if you google blog award images you will find them all available and most are self-explanatory. Or you can design one yourself.. You do not have to nominate 15 blogs – start small – I think that rules should be short and sweet.. For example.. Write a paragraph about who you are and your work. Pass onto up to 10 nominees, respond by mentioning the person that nominated you and their blog address. good luck.. best wishes Sally
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Thanks for the advice. I’ll try that.
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I am new to this blogging thing and have received several award nominations (which is so cool of these bloggers to even think of me). But I am in a bit of quandary – because I received them during the A to Z thing, I really felt like I was in college again writing a paper every night and so I didn’t get to them right away. And I am not even sure who to nominate because I know everyone is busy and I don’t want to burden anyone, but at the same time I don’t want to ignore all these kind nominations. It is such a complex problem for a new blogging person such as myself!
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It is tough in the beginning but there is no time limit on responding. If you do have the time you can always do a global response and thank you for the nominations that you have received with the person’s name, their blog address etc. Go back to them and make a comment saying that you will respond in due course.. As to who to nominate, look at those that you follow and pick the five or so that you visit the most often..when you do your first award state that you respect that they are busy and hope that they take this nomination in recognition of how much you appreciate their blogs and that there is no pressure to respond. Over time not only will you find more great blogs to follow but more will follow you and share your hard work. It can be fun..honestly……
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That is such great advice. Thank-you. I think I will do that this weekend, because the people that nominated me are some of my favorite blogging friends and I would like to show my appreciation for them thinking of my blog and taking the time to nominate me. Thank-you!!!!!
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Glad you found useful.. don’t forget blog awards come with rules but they have a certain amount of flexibility so that you can compromise when you need to.. enjoy the process.
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Thank-you!!!!!
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Great post, good points. I’m happy to accept awards but sometimes struggle to accept the ones I’ve received previously. What You say though re promoting makes so much sense.
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As I mentioned above if you have some awards pending then do a post thanking them all with a link back to their blogs and explain you have been extremely busy but appreciate their gesture.. If you can follow their nominees as this will widen your audience as they reciprocate.. and then start with one award and make a point of responding to one a week or one a month even and label it ‘blog expansion programme’ have fun.
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I did that the last times. Your post just confirmed that I did the right thing and I appreciate it!
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Thank you for this great post, Sally! I also keep a list of people I previously nominated for awards. When I nominate people, I always mention that if they don’t do blog awards, they may simply consider it a token of appreciation, so if they don’t do awards, it’s okay. I have discovered bloggers thanks to reading award posts so I am always curious about these. 🙂
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Thanks Natacha, Recognition is actually one of the most powerful customer service and marketing tools. Millions of us are working in isolation on our writing, blog posts, photography, art and music projects and we hesitantly open this up to the world when we blog. And wow, what a feeling when someone says.. you are amazing and I love what you do. Yes, money in the bank would always be a great result but when someone appreciates the work that you have put into that post then it is fantastic. You are obviously doing all the right things and others enjoy seeing people receive recognition which is a recommendation for them to follow and enjoy that blog.
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It’s good to read your thoughts on this, Sally. I admit I’m a klutz when it comes to the protocol of blog awards. The one time someone proposed an award for me I had a hard time finding other bloggers to nominate — not because there aren’t a lot of great blogs, but because I wasn’t following as many then, and I was a bit hesitant to lay the responsibility accompanying the nomination on others. It reminded me of a chain letter! I’m impressed that you have thought this out so thoroughly and explained it in your post.
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Pleased that you found useful Audrey and as I have mentioned simply start small – you don’t need to find 15 to nominate, begin with five and keep it simple.. it is the act of recognition that is important and it you make it clear that there is no expectation of response but you simply wanted to let them know how great their blog is you will find that they will appreciate that hugely.. enjoy.
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Great post, Sally. I certainly appreciated when you first reblogged me and that led to my first award and I was absolutely stoked. I still need to follow up the last award you gave me, which arrived during the A-Z Challenge. Must get on with that because it really does make an impact. xx Rowena
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Thanks Rowena and there is no expectation of an immediate response and in fact it is a good idea to time to a specific event either on your blog or writing process to bring attention to it.. After all at the end of the day apart from a way to say thanks to a blogger that brings you pleasure it is also a marketing tool..
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Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.
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Thanks for sharing Viv.. you are a star.. hugs
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