Winning awards in the Best Use of Social Media Channel category were the Belfast Giants for Best Use of Twitter; Cool FM for Best Use of Facebook; and the Bearded Candle Makers for Best Use of Instagram.
The PSNI picked up two awards – Social Media In-house Team of the Year and Best Social Media Campaign in Public Sector for its No Grey Zone initiative which aimed to raise awareness of what sexual assault is and what sexual consent is. Northern Ireland’s largest independent hotel group, Hastings Hotels, also won two awards for its 2018 Christmas Gift Card campaign – Best Social Media in Hospitality and Best Use of Social Media in Hospitality over a 10k following.
Local tailor, Chris Suitor of Suitor Brothers won the award for Best Use of Social Media in Retail in the over 10k following with Halo Healthy Kitchen winning the award in the under 10k following category.
Social Media Personality of the Year went to Harlso the Balancing Hound, an Official Guinness World Record Amazing Animal, whose skills have earned him over 50 million views on his social media channels and the IFA picked up the Best Overall Use of Social Media award.
Speaking on behalf of the judges, Mark Wright, BBC Apprentice Winner and director of the UK’s fastest growing digital marketing agency, Climb Online, said: “Congratulations to all the finalists for getting shortlisted and to the winners of each category. We had a very hard job selecting the overall winners as there are so many businesses, organisations and individuals across Northern Ireland excelling in social media to achieve their goals.
We were very impressed by the clear strategies in place to engage with audiences to keep them coming back; the impactful social messages to achieve standout in a crowded marketplace and those individuals delivering excellent results for their clients. Unfortunately, there could only be one overall winner in each category, but every person here tonight is definitely winning at their social media.”
Founders of the inaugural NI Social Media Awards, Niamh Taylor of Digital 24 and Caroline O’Neill, owner of DIGG For Success and DIGG Childrenswear added: “We were truly overwhelmed by the response to the first year of the awards and would like to extend our congratulations to the winners and finalists. Thank you to our fabulous sponsors as the awards wouldn’t have happened without their support and to our expert panel of independent judges for giving up their time to go through over 300 entries and selecting the stars of Northern Ireland’s social media marketing.”
Individual category sponsors include Bellamianta Luxury Tan, Tayto, Boost Drinks, Íon Distillery and BNL Productions.
For the full list of winners, go to www.nisocialmediaawards.com
Hannah Corbett, Laura McIntosh and Donna Barton from Hastings Hotels accept the award for Best Social Media Campaign in Hospitality from Naomi Bingham of Moira Cosmetic Dental.
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