Award statues for Aksharaslokam competition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When I first started my ad agency years ago, I would enter many award competitions. Not necessarily the prestigious, well known ones, because I realized there were no categories relevant to the smaller clients we were accumulating. But I was getting emails from competitions, which, though I had never heard of them, seemed to have categories more appropriate to my early client list. Which I thought might give Porte Advertising a little more creative credibility. So I entered. And often won!
But it turned out that for the most part, the competition was really to see how much the judges could get me to pay for my trophy, statuette, or embossed certificate of wonderfulness. Because I never entered without winning something, and then being invited to purchase something to proudly display my achievement. (With an additional copy to the client, of course.)
Cynical of me? Perhaps. But it was how I felt, so I stopped entering. And I have always taken with the proverbial grain of salt any accolades coming my way. But I was delighted to receive word that my blog was listed in Blog-rank as being in the top 100 of small business blogs.
Now, is this truly a meaningful honor? Are they promoting something for themselves, be it expertise, credibility or larger fan base? Judging by the names of other winners, they seem to be legitimate, though their parent company is selling website optimization But aside from my deciding to give them a little virtual ink, they are not getting me to buy anything.
So check out the link, and visit the other blogs. Especially the ones that ranked higher than I did!
Got the idea?
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