We doubt that anyone on the social media team for US Airways will be winning any awards anytime soon (unless there are awards for the most spectacular way to get fired). However, a number of brands did recently walk away with Shorty awards at a ceremony in New York on April 7.
The Shortys are the Oscars of social media. They honour "the people and organisations producing real-time short-form content across Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram, Vine, and the rest of the social web."
The joy of the Shortys is that they are open to anyone – you don't have to be a celeb (or tweleb) to be eligible. If people like what you're tweeting, posting or gramming, and they nominate you, you're in the running. The categories are broad, ranging from the socially-conscious to the downright silly. For example, here is the winner of the "GIF of the Year" award (and we know a thing or two about GIFs at Flow):
There is also a separate category of the Shortys that awards brands for great social campaigns. Since that's our business, we thought we'd highlight some of the winners here:
Best Brand on Vine: General Electric
For a 122-year-old company that sells fridges and lightbulbs, the social media presence of General Electric is great. Along with posting stunning pics of jet engines on Instagram and sharing cool infographics on Twitter, the company has embraced relative newcomer Vine, the six-second video sharing platform. Its #SixSecondScience campaign has created impressive engagement with the brand.
"By embracing the platform early, GE has gained more than 130 unique articles of earned media in major publications like The Atlantic, Yahoo! News, and Fast Company. To date, GE’s Vine account has amassed nearly 100k followers and 1.25 million organic engagements (likes, comments and revines), becoming one of the top 20 most followed brands on Vine (and one of the top three excluding entertainment and sports brands)."
Best Facebook Page: GoPro
With your cameras in the hands of some of the craziest stuntpeople and extreme sports enthusiasts, you're bound to end up with a load of great content to use in smart, engaging ways.
"Every day, GoPro's online audience grows by thousands of new subscribers and the customer-centric content programming receives extremely high engagement. Additionally, incredible brand enthusiasm fuels a cycle of content sharing and drives camera sales. These combined successes make GoPro one of the most admired consumer brands for its social media strategy and ongoing community engagement."
Best Twitter Campaign: #SFBatKid
You may remember this feelgood story from last year. With massive public participation and a perfectly-executed Twitter campaign, the Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish-Foundation turned one five-year-old cancer fighter's dream into a reality, transforming San Franscisco into Gotham City for a day and allowing young Miles Scott to become a superhero.
"From November 5 to 16, Clever Girls Collective has tracked over 500 000 individual tweets using the official #SFBatKid and the unofficial #batkid hashtags, generating over 1.7 billion impressions."
I love this picture of the #BatKid along with BatMan. Saving Gotham must have felt awesome #SFBatKid. pic.twitter.com/YLb7GqnXyU
— Ravi Jay (@Ravi_Jay1) November 16, 2013
Best Use of Social Media for Travel: WestJet
Here's another campaign that you may have seen around Christmas time. It was a viral video by Canadian airline WestJet showing what happened when their passengers were treated to a very special Christmas surprise.
"The viral campaign garnered international attention and became one of the most viewed and shared viral ads of 2013 in the world. It increased WestJet’s sales by 86% compared to the same period the previous year. The WestJet Christmas Miracle video increased brand awareness and loyalty opportunities from within and beyond North America, as evidenced by video views and overwhelmingly positive media and consumer feedback, all celebrating WestJet’s caring culture."
There are loads more categories over at the Shorty Awards website, so check it out if you're interested in how social media can help your brand. I'd love to see South African individuals and brands walking away with a few Shortys (not the kind in da club) in the future.