The 2020 Sockies/ Social Media Awards have created new categories for our new lives and our new ways of working in 2020. There is a new category for the social media strategy of media organisations, another category to recognise organisations combating fake news called “Factual Communications” as well as categories around Covid19 including a category for organisations that had to fund raise for survival in 2020 and a category to recognise the great use of social media during Covid19.
Organiser Damien Mulley said “The awards competition this year is reacting to how people and organisations are adapting to a world with Covid19. We’ve added new categories and structures for the changing use of social media. We want to recognise the amazing work people and organisations are doing.”
Last year the social media awards added more focus on SMEs, NGOs and State orgs as agencies and big brands were getting more attention and the smaller fish just weren’t featuring in the winners lists. Now half the categories are just for SMEs, NGOs and State Organisations. In addition this year the awards are recognising media organisations and their use of social media.
Speaking about the Media organisation Social Media Strategy category, Mulley added “Newspapers, radio stations, online publications have seriously upped their game in the past two years with websites, podcasts, videos and newsletters being produced. We wanted to recognise the omni-channel nature of media organisations in 2020”
On the anti-fake news category (Factual Communications) category and the fundraising category Mulley added “We always hear about how bad social media can be and how it can ruin lives but for 2020, the use of social media by organisations to reset the conversation, steer people to the truth and also to help organisations with new funding routes is remarkable. We want to highlight that used in the right way, social media can enhance the good we are already doing. Good work needs to be highlighted, there are enough bots and anonymous accounts being negative.”
The Factual Communications and Fundraising categories are free to enter.
Wildcard entry
A new “F**k Covid” category has also been added to recognise which is people/organisations that are using social media to bring joy during Covid19 lockdowns. We’ve made that free to enter too.
Charges:
For Covid19 The Social Media Awards/ Sockies 2020 have started to charge this year because we don’t have a physical event and that’s where all the revenue came from. Fee is low though at €20 per category. We polled our mailing list and people suggested €40 per category was fair but this might get more entries.
Entries are open until August 28th. Awards “night” date not decided yet.
Nominations can be made at www.sockies.ie
