BAKE Awards 2017 Entries Now Open

The dates for the 2017 BAKE awards 2017 are out.

Activities leading to the Bloggers Awards 2017 begun today, the 9th of January, and will end on May 13th when the gala event will be held.

The event brings together the blogger community and it seeks to honor and recognize the top blogs in Kenya.

These are bloggers who educate, entertain or share experiences that impact people’s lives in one way or another.

Below are the timelines and activities under each:

• Submission phase-January 9th 2017-February 10th 2017

Bloggers or their readers can submit blogs for consideration. Submissions from different categories are eligible and this year, a new category dubbed ‘Best Lifestyle Blog’ has been added.

Last year, a total of 4,899 blogs were submitted and more than 500,000 votes were registered.

BAKE has also introduced a new rule; three-time winners cannot compete in the same category. This decision was arrived at after the suggestion was made by the blogging community.

• Judging phase-February 11th 2017-February 28th 2017

The judging panel will have a sitting in which the 5 best blogs in each category will be selected.

The list of Kenyan blog is submitted selected is then released to the public for voting. As is the norm, the panel is comprised of bloggers and media experts.

The selected blogs will qualify for the next online voting phase.

Judges consider factors such as relevance and usefulness of content, writing style, consistency, and language use.

They also consider how nominated bloggers market their content.

Kenyan bloggers on Facebook and other social media networks market their work through these platforms and this has proved to be effective.

In 2016, judges were Ahmed Salim, Mikul Shah, Muthoni Maingi, and TerryAnne Chebet.

• Online voting-March 3rd 2017-May 1st 2017

In this phase, the ball is in the public’s court. The nominated blogs will be presented to the public or online community so that they can vote for the best or favorite blogger.

To ensure transparency, an audit of the BAKE awards voting platform is done.

• Winners gala event-May 13th2017

This will be the heyday. Winners will be announced at an exclusive event to be held at Radisson Blu.

BAKE Awards 2016

In 2016, there were several women winners.

These included Jamila El-Jabry’s blog (lifeinmombasa . com), Maryann Waweru (mummytales . com), Lucia Musau (luciamusau . com), and Diana Kaluhi (kaluhiskitchen . com).

Many Kenyans took note of the emergence of women bloggers and their prowess. We can only hope that 2017 will continue this trend.

In the male category, bloggers who emerged winners are Jackson Biko (bikozulu . co.ke), Ernest Wamboye
(ernestwamboye .blogspot .com), and Ben Kiruthi (benkiruthi .com).

Jackson Biko took home two awards and his blog received an overwhelming number of votes. He bagged awards for creative writing and overall blog categories.

His is one of the most interesting Kenyan blogs with a large following.

Last years’ BAKE Awards were held on May 14th at Radisson Blu and it was attended by notable figures such as Dennis Itumbi, a senior government digital strategist, Boniface Mwangi the activist, and Sam Gichuru, Nailab CEO.

The awards were sponsored by Safaricom, Coca-Cola, Samsung, Kenya Bakers Association, Intel, Uber, Xpose, EatOut Kenya, and Metta.

The 2017 blogger awards are about two months away; hence, it is important to take note of the dates. This event is important as it showcases the best Kenyan blogging talent.

It will be interesting to see winners in the Kenyan Fashion bloggers category and Kenyan politics bloggers owing to emerging fashion trends and heating political temperatures.

The awards also consider Kenyan gossip blogs.

In case of any changes, we will let you know.

Read also: List of the Best and Interesting Blogs in Kenya