2015 African Blogger Awards deadline extended

The 2015 African Blogger Awards is extending its deadline and will now accept entries until 16 April 2015. The competition is aimed at African YouTubers, Instagrammers, Twitter and Facebook influencers.

The awards aim to expose “truly exceptional African content creators and their unique story-telling approaches”.

“Our aim is to broaden the industry for bloggers in Africa and allow brands to see the value in blogging as a marketing platform,” the organisers say.

The top five categories in these awards are for Africa’s Top Instagrammer, Top Twitter Profile, Top YouTuber, Top Blogger and Best Facebook Page will be awarded to entrants who stand head and shoulders above others in these categories.

“Hundreds of entries have streamed in since we announced this year’s awards in early February. The additional week gives those who’d still like to enter an extra bit of time to do so,” says Murray Legg, co-founder of the African Blogger Awards.

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There are, in addition to the top five categories, an additional 36 sub-categories. These categories include Lifestyle, Travel, Finance, Entertainment, and Technology and Gadgets. All of these all each have their own awards.

Applicants are required to register their blog, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook page or YouTube profile on Webfluential. Winners are chosen based on the algorithm by Webfluential that measures blogs traffic and engagement and compare it to others in the same category. The organisers explain that their reasons behind not going with a voting system “Our purpose is to avoid bloggers involving their readers and followers in the voting process, and to keep the judging process as fair as possible. The best way to do this is by minimising the human element. We simply want influencers to keep doing what they do best – blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming, and YouTubing.”

Winners will be live tweeted in 5 May 2015 and can be followed on @African_Blogger, from 11h00 GMT+2. Winners in each category will, the organisers say, receive a customised African Blogger Award website banner that can be personally leveraged by each winner, and a commemorative trophy.