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9 Examples of Organizations Using Social Media for their Awards Programs

Published July 22, 2014 in Leadership

When companies, institutions, and brands run an awards program, they want to make sure that their recipients are recognized by as large a number of the target constituency as possible. To that end, these organizations use social media in order to get people engaged and involved. In most cases, organizations that have success create websites dedicated to their events as well as corresponding social media profiles. To get a better idea of what this might look like for a real awards ceremony, 9 examples of organizations using various social platforms to get the word out about their awards.

1. The Fox Teen Choice Awards

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Fox uses Facebook to build buzz for its awards. Although the main site is a standard website, the show’s dedicated Facebook fan page has attracted 776,000 fans and features constant engagement on their posts, ranging between 160 and 440 interactions. Fans are encouraged to vote for their choices. Fox uses Facebook here to promote the event and a vote on the individual stars.

2. The Adobe Design Achievement Awards

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Adobe uses a dedicated Facebook page to promote its award program. As is the case with most programs, Adobe has a website that is used to address the topic. However, the fan page is used to communicate with the community of fans which numbers in the range of 27,000. Adobe uses a photo post here to promote the concept of creativity on their Fan Page.

3. The Shorty Awards

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The Shorty Awards, a program designed to acknowledge those who use social media creatively, primarily uses Twitter for its promotion. A standard website is used in order to create continuity of content. When the show is not in season, the Twitter account is used to engage industry influencers and leaders.

4. The Webby Awards

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The Webby Awards is an event held to promotes excellence on the internet. The program makes liberal use of social media using its fan page, YouTube channel, a Google Plus profile, a Pinterest profile, Tumblr and Instagram. Using it’s YouTube channel, the Awards ceremony is promoted months after the event, with key scenes and poignant moments.

5. The iPhone Photograph Awards

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This award program is designed to highlight user-generated entries of photography taken on iPhones. The program uses a fan page and has approximately 30,000 fans. The awards program is administered primarily from its website. Photos are often posted directly to the fan page, to attract more fans and keep people engaged.

6. The CSS Design Awards

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The CSS Design Awards program is administered from a dedicated webpage connected to its Facebook fan page. The fan page has about 139,000 fans and primarily shares the company’s blog posts. The company’s engagement averages about 110 interactions. The company often shares examples from their website which visual demonstrate the potential of CSS.

7. The Vijay Awards for 2014

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The Vijay Awards are interesting in that they have only been held since 2013. They are presented by a well-known Sri Lankan television star named Vijay and honor excellence in cinema created in the Tamil language. Fans use Facebook to vote for their favorite stars. The fan page has 37,000 likes, and gets broad engagement when one of it’s posts are shared.

8. Australian of the Year Awards

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The National Australia Day Council is a non-profit organization who has awarded Australians who achieve social excellence since 1960. Although the awards program has a website, its fan page is used for its primary promotion. The awards program is also promoted using YouTube and Twitter. The fan page has approximately 14,000 fans who engage with an average content interaction between 20 and 40. YouTube videos are used broadly for engagement, as they are broadly here to promote the nomination process.

9. Houston Based 40 under 40 Awards

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A number of local business organizations conduct “under 40” awards. Most, if not all, use social media to promote their awards. For example, a networking organization in Houston allows individuals to be nominated and voted for on their Facebook fan page, and a website houses its central content. Since the organization is small like most local organizations, it has about 2,000 fans. This local organization shares a number of it’s Instagram, posts on it’s Facebook page to build engagement.

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Timothy Spell

Timothy Spell co-founded OpenWater in 2007 with the goal of helping organizations tackle and better manage the oftentimes overlooked awards and contests industry. As an author and speaker in the awards industry, Timothy provides unique insight on how to use awards to boost membership, social media followers and search engine traffic.

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