It’s dark and storming in Troy, NY, which naturally means I woke up entirely too grumpy for my own good. Luckily, there are two things helping to put an immediate smile on my face.
- In two days I get to leave the cold for some fun, old friends and (hopefully) sun in California.
- The SEMMYS announced its list of 2010 finalists and Outspoken earned quite a few nominations. You like us!
This is where I say ‘thanks!’ and ask you to take some time to participate in the SEMMYS because it’s an awards event that recognizes something I really care about – good content.
With the demoralization of Web content and blogging as writing, I can’t help but feel like it’s more important than ever to pay respect to the people and the sites that strive to produce quality content on a consistent basis and recognize the articles that have had an impact over the past year. We’re very lucky to exist in a world where we have people like Michael Gray, Aaron Wall, Mike Blumenthal, David Mihm and Dan Zarrella who take time out of their ‘real jobs’ to share information and strategy, to shed light on real problems, and to start conversations that others back away from. We’re also lucky to have people like Matt McGee and his team of secret squirrels that take time to pay it forward each year.
Other awards recognize great and influential people. The SEMMYS recognizes influential content. Stuff that’s not auto-generated or scrapped from somewhere else.
Outspoken was very lucky to be named a finalist in several different categories, with Rae, Rhea and myself all being individually recognized. If you’re interested, we’re nominated in the following categories:
- Blogs and Blogging: 10 Things to Do Before Launching Your Blog (I wrote this post for SmallBizTrends, not Outspoken Media.) [vote on this category]
- Reputation Management: Online Reputation Management Guide [vote on this category]
- Small Business: Why Yelp Is Awesome for Small Businesses [vote on this category]
- Google: Google Enables Real Time Spam and More [vote on this category]
- Rants: Ignore the Silly Man, SEO Still Matters For SMBs [vote on this category]
I don’t really care who you vote for. Just go recognize the content that helped YOU this year. Chances are there’s an article or two that made you stop and think or that helped you try something new. If it’s nominated, give it a vote. I voted for Matt McGee’s post If I Were Launching a New Small Biz Web Site Today in the Small Business category over my own. I loved that post and I know lots of other people did, too. It deserved the vote.
As a person who writes content for a living, it’s sort of sad to constantly hear about how machine-generated content and Web sites are “good enough”. Because they’re not. There’s a difference between real content and what people try to pass off as content. The SEMMYS supports the good stuff. Support it back.
Voting ends Friday, Jan 29.
[In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve been a SEMMYS judge since it started a few years ago. This year I helped narrow down finalists in both the Copywriting and Viral Marketing categories. I do it because I value what the SEMMYS is about.]
Update (2/1/10): Thanks to all your awesome votes, Outspoken Media won SEMMYS in both the Rants and Google categories. Thank you. You guys ROCK! – Lisa
