How to announce an award or a shortlisting
The award post is the purest status announcement there is: the fact contains no benefit to the reader whatsoever. It is still worth publishing, but only if something is attached to it.
The fact itself carries no reader benefit
Almost everything else here changes something for the audience. An award changes nothing. The reader's life is identical before and after, which is why these posts feel hollow even when the recognition is genuine and hard-won. There is a further problem specific to this category: readers have learned that many awards are paid, sponsored or effectively universal, so the announcement can actively cost credibility with anybody who knows the category. Both problems have the same solution, and it is not modesty. Attach the award to the work that earned it. What the judges examined is genuinely interesting and often something the audience did not know had been rebuilt, and the recognition becomes the occasion to describe it rather than the content.
The rule for this one
Say what was judged and what the judges singled out. If you cannot name either, the award is not worth a post.
What the category publishes, and what the rule produces.
The first draft is a composite written to match the register the ranking pages for this query actually publish. It quotes no company and no real post. The second obeys the rule above and nothing else, so anything that changes between them is the rule doing it.
The version everyone posts
We are honoured to have been named a finalist in the Best Emerging Tool category at this year's awards! A huge thank you to our incredible team and to our amazing customers who made this possible. We could not have done it without you and we are so proud of what we have built together.
The version that obeys the rule
We were shortlisted for a tooling award. Being honest about what that is worth to you: the judging looked at the export pipeline, which four people spent February rewriting, and the thing they singled out was that files come out at the size they went in. That is the part worth telling you about.
The whole post is gratitude. There is nothing in it a reader learns, and the thanks to customers who "made this possible" is a formula that works only when the reader can tell what they did.
6 of 10 measured dimensions moved.
Both drafts were read by the engine behind our free brand voice generator. It is arithmetic over the text rather than a judgement, which is the reason it is used here: every figure below can be checked by counting the draft printed above it.
| Dimension | Before | After | Moved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sentences | 3 | 3 | No |
| Words | 55 | 54 | Yes |
| Average sentence, in words | 18.3 | 18 | Yes |
| Longest sentence, in words | 19 | 39 | Yes |
| Contractions per 100 words | 2 | 0 | Yes |
| Speaks to the reader | No | Yes | Yes |
| First person (we, our, us) | 6 | 1 | Yes |
| Second person (you, your) | 2 | 2 | No |
| Vocabulary richness, out of 100 | 76 | 76 | No |
| Contains a stock phrase | No | No | No |
Read across all fifteen moments the pattern is sharper than any single page: the hub has the corpus numbers.
What earns the post
- The specific work that was assessed, described so a reader learns something about the product.
- What the category actually is, including how many entrants, if you know.
- Who did the work, by name, rather than a collective thank you to everybody.
When not to post it at all
Skip it when the award was paid for or effectively automatic. Somebody in the audience always knows which awards those are, and posting one tells them what your other claims are worth.