This post is probably only of interest if you blog...

...so if you don't, and are still reading, don't say I didn't warn you.

It's over.  That children's story competition I entered, I mean.  Needless to say, I didn't win, and that's fine; I enjoyed writing the story and learned a lot about how to use Facebook in the voting process (in itself, not before time, I might add), so it definitely wasn't a wasted experience.  I certainly don't expect to win any competition that I enter; to do so would be nice, but there are plenty of writers out there who are far more creative and imaginative than I am.  I know that, and am OK with it.

However, I learned something else apart from how to use another type of social media as a result of this particular competition, which is that in future I won't be entering any contest in which the winner is decided not on the merit of the entry, but on number of 'likes' their entry gains on Facebook.  In hindsight, I should have spotted from the start that this was not a good fit for me; I don't 'work' Facebook the way some people do, never have and probably never will (although after this I do now see the benefits of it in a way I didn't before), so going into battle with only 50 or so followers for my (assumed) name was probably never going to be a success.

This type of mechanic is always going to be more of a beauty contest than about which was the better story.  That is not, of course, to say that the story which won was not better than mine; it's all subjective.  I prefer the story I wrote, of course I do, but the winning entry is very different to mine and if the decision had been made by a panel of judges, they may well have reached the same verdict that the voters on Facebook did.

However, the fact remains that it was not an objective group of people reaching the decision on which was the best story so much as individual bloggers mustering support through their readers, family and friends and asking them to visit the relevant page and hit the 'like' button.  And then how motivated their supporters were to do that.   And then, about the entrants tweeting, posting, and re-tweeting pleas for support until we (or at least, I) felt sick of the whole process and painfully aware of how this type of mechanic cynically exploits our individual will to win to drive traffic to the relevant site, whilst simultaneously spreading the name of the competition sponsor across the web.

You may wonder if this post is the result of sour grapes on my part.  Would I be writing this if I had won the £500 prize?  Honestly?  Probably not.  But I do think that the ultimate outcome - that I won't be entering any more competitions which select winners based on the number of Facebook 'likes' received  - would be the same.

I suppose that ultimately I'm writing this for two reasons, the first of which is to suggest to PR agencies that they may pull writers in once to do this, but are unlikely to get the same people interested in doing it a second time.

But mainly, I think I'm writing this to share my experiences and to open the debate for bloggers as to whether this type of subjective popularity contest is really an effective use of their time and creativity.  Because I know I've got better things to do than post and tweet 'Vote for Me!' - and I'm pretty sure that you have better things to do than to read those posts and tweets...

Answers on a postcard (or in the comments box), please...