By far, the majority of questions we receive are related to the Best of Hudson Valley. Here are the answers to your burning questions:
How does a business win a Readers’ Pick?
Readers vote for Readers’ Picks via an online ballot. This year’s ballot was active from February 1 through March 22. For Food & Drink and Health & Beauty, we take the top five vote-getters in each category and have another round of voting. These elimination rounds took place between March 26 and May 6. The venue with the most votes wins. If there is a tie, they both win. This year we had 241 readers’ winners, with 12,010 total votes in the first round and 22,271 votes in the elimination rounds.
Can I vote more than once?
The rules on the ballot clearly state that you can vote only once. You may vote once per each subsequent round of run-offs, however. We discount multiple votes by the same email address.
Can businesses tell people to vote for them?
Yes, by all means. The more votes the better. Incentivizing votes with discounts, giveaways, etc., however, is not permitted. If caught, you will be sent a warning and may be disqualified.
How do you come up with the categories for the Readers’ Ballot?
We review the list every year. If a category did not get many votes, we will remove it and add a category that may not have existed a few years ago (or at least wasn’t popular enough to include), such as “lash studio” or “vegan café.” We also take suggestions from readers prior to the ballot going live.
How do we get nominated for an Editors’ Pick?
These are based on our experiences. The editors keep running lists of “bests” throughout the year and we ask for suggestions from the entire staff and our freelancers. We vet and sometimes debate these suggestions; not everyone ends up a winner. In fact, this year we tried to make our Editors’ Picks more exclusive than ever by narrowing it down to our top 100. But making that cut was too difficult, so we ended up with 104.
How can we get on your radar to be considered for an Editors’ Pick?
Let us know who you are and what you do. You can do this in a variety of ways:
1. Fill out a form on our “Contact Us” page on our website: www.hvmag.com.
2. Send an email to edit@hvmag.com or to individual editors using first initial, last name @hvmag.com.
3. Connect with us via Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
4. Come to the Best of Hudson Valley party on October 11 and stop by the Hudson Valley magazine table to meet us.
Hope to see you at the party!
