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5 Examples of How to Use Twitter for your Awards Program

According to Twitter, there are 316 million active users on the platform every month. Chances are, your organization is one of them. And while you may be fully optimizing your Twitter profile for your organization, are you doing the same for your program?

Even if you do tweet about your awards, it may be hard to know exactly what to say besides encouraging your followers to submit an application or nomination. The truth is, there are a lot of things to talk about in a lot of different ways. Here are five examples of programs that are doing it right.
1. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences

This tweet is great, but not just because it’s a picture of four amazing actors (though that’s really cool too). Even though the Oscars makes the list of the top most recognized awards in the world, the Academy is still making sure they’re optimizing their presence on Twitter.

The great tool they’re using in this tweet are hashtags. #tbt (Throwback Thursday) and #nbd (No big deal) are very popular hashtags that are used by countless people. So not only are their followers identifying with the image and a hashtag they themselves use, anyone searching for that hashtag will come across this picture. They’re engaging the community and getting people interested without even having to talk about themselves.

2. The Tabby Awards

I love this tweet. You should definitely announce your call for entry when it begins, but this is even better than the typical announcement. Calling attention to the first submission really does make it feel like the race is on, as they put it. Without asking people to apply or anything, they’re drawing followers in. They’re telling you “Hey! The race has started, so get going before you fall behind!”

It also shows that they themselves are excited about this program. It’s always great to let your followers know your organization’s Twitter is made up of real people tweeting who can get just as excited as you.

3. WOMMA

This tweet has just about everything: it’s short, pithy, and has both a link and an image. It’s a good, effective tweet because it’s announcing the call for entry without telling anyone to enter. Instead, it gives a brief explanation about what makes a good entry for this program along with an image of the trophy.

This non sales-y approach to an announcement piques the interest of the readers without pressuring them. It allows people to think about whether their work is “WOMMY worthy” and make their decision on their own time. This type of tweet is definitely something to keep in mind when you’re planning your tweets for your program.

4. TPAS Awards

Retweeting your followers is just as important as tweeting your own content. Primarily it shows engagement: your followers are interested in you and you’re interested in your followers.

Interacting with people who mention you makes them and others relate to you better because it shows that what they say and do has an impact on your organization. Retweeting also creates buzz around your program, showing people that this is something cool that others are talking about and they should be interested in too.

5. FPRA

Anyone active on social media, especially twitter, knows the importance of hashtags. They are used as search terms and to group conversations on certain topics, for example.

FPRA does a great job of utilizing hashtags for their benefit. While the hashtag “#thinkFPRA” is not necessarily specific to their program, it is being used to encourage engagement with the organization. And if you look at the history of the hashtag, you can see it’s working! People are using it and interacting with the organization.

Creating such a hashtag for your program can engage applicants and followers and allows you to create interest around your program and monitor what people are saying about it.

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To learn more tips on how to use social media for your awards program, download the free guide!

Miriam Hancock

Miriam Hancock
Miriam is the Marketing Coordinator for OpenWater. When she isn't writing and designing content she paints and cooks for her own personal blog.

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