The Official Shorty Awards Blog

The Fake ESPN and Dilma Rousseff tied for the #FakeAccount Shorty Award!

With over 245,000 followers, The Fake ESPN is one of the most popular fake accounts on Twitter. The account tweets facetious headlines lightly mocking the sports world, like yesterday’s hilarious “NHL playoffs still going on, 3 fans allege.”

The Dilma Rousseff Twitter account attempts to build morale for the 36th and current President of Brazil. She is the first woman to hold the office, and this fake account helps humorously bring supporters amongst the younger generation of Brazilians who voice their support for their current president. The account strives to imitate President Rousseff’s daily activities and tweet facetiously inspirational quotes for her 35,000+ followers.

Walgreens wins Best Use of Foursquare in a Campaign!

Walgreens won the Best Use of Foursquare in a Campaign for their “Check-ins That Make a Difference: For every store check-in via Foursquare or Places, a flu shot was donated to a charitable organization. Walgreens was able to donate over $6.3 million in flu shots to various charities through the power of location-based social networking.

Walgreens’ campaign resulted in an overwhelming response, but most importantly helped provide flu shots for people in need.

Watch Don Tapscott present Walgreens’ Adam Kmiec with the Shorty Award for Best Use of Foursquare in a Campaign!

The Shorty Awards were at NYC’s Benchmark Conference yesterday!

The Shorty Awards were at the Benchmark conference yesterday in New York, moderating a panel on the Shorty Industry Awards! The panel was meant to highlight the the integration of social media with existing brands, for an optimized look at how brands can better use platforms like Twitter and Tumblr.

Shorty Awards founder Greg Galant introduced the winner of three Shorty Awards campaigns: Melle Hock, Michael Scogin, and Jack Daley. 

Hock is the Senior Account Supervisor at Edelman, and won Best Viral Campaign for BuzzFeed Schick Xtreme 3 Razorbombing. Scogin is the Vice President of Mobile for MTV, and won Best Use of Social Media for Live Television for VMA Twitter Tracker (the second time in a row). Daley is the Senior Director of Digital Marketing for Nickelodeon, and won Best Use of Game Mechanics (Gamification) in a Social Media Campaign for NICKELODEON’S ‘KIDS’ CHOICE AWARDS 2011’. 

Hock, Scogin, Daley, and Galant discussed the potential of social media to further brands. For example, Scogin explained that the VMA Twitter Tracker enabled the 2011 Video Music Awards to become a worldwide trending topic in two minutes.

With industry professionals like these panelists, all brands could utilize the massive pull of social media to reach potential users and consumers!

Check out a synopsis of tweets from the event:

Our Shorty Industry panel @benchmarkNY w/ @gregory @jackeveryday @otherone @mellehnyc! Follow #bnchmrk to learn how they won @ShortyAwards!

— Shorty Awards (@shortyawards) May 9, 2012

Pic: Meet the brains behind 3 Shorty Industry winning campaigns! @jackeveryday @otherone @mellehnyc. #bnchmrk twitter.com/shortyawards/s…

— Shorty Awards (@shortyawards) May 9, 2012

“It drove about 17 million votes on Facebook alone…from a ratings perspective…best in over 25 yrs”. -@jackeveryday twitter.com/shortyawards/s…

— Shorty Awards (@shortyawards) May 9, 2012

“Being able to react quickly when you see something excited is essential.” -@mellehnyc on @schickxtreme3’s Shorty win! twitter.com/shortyawards/s…

— Shorty Awards (@shortyawards) May 9, 2012

“The hashtag became a worldwide trending topic in two minutes.” - @otherone on @mtv’s VMA Twitter Tracker Shorty win. twitter.com/shortyawards/s…

— Shorty Awards (@shortyawards) May 9, 2012

The Shorty Award for Real-Time Photo of the Year goes to Stefanie Gordon and Louise Macabitas!

The Shorty Award Real-Time Photo of the Year goes to both Stefanie Gordon for tweeting a photo of the Space Shuttle Endeavor from a commercial airliner AND Louise Macabitas for the infamous “Police Pepper-Spraying UC Davis Students.”

The space shuttle Endeavor, lead by shuttle commander Mark Kelly, undertook a 16-day mission to the International Space Station in order to install a cosmic ray detector. Proving that photos taken from cell phones can prove substantial, Gordon took a photo of the Endeavor’s path to outer space from a passenger airplane and tweeted it. The Twitpic was viewed more than 600,000 times and became one of the most retweeted photos of the year…

…along with Louise Macabitas’ photo of the students at University of California Davis, which depicted campus police pepper-spraying a group of students participating in an Occupy Davis demonstration. The photo quickly went viral and contributed to one of 2011’s most indelible memes. (As far as memes can be indelible, anyway.)

Watch the Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi (star of independent hit Today’s Special) present the Real-Time Photo of the Year award to Stefanie Gordon and Louise Macabitas!

Doctor Who wins the Shorty Industry Award for Best Overall Brand Presence on Tumblr!

The Doctor Who Tumblr uses a mix of creative participatory campaigns, user generated art, animated GIFs and more to a create a communicative and interactive Tumblr site, connecting BBC America’s highest rated show to its fans.

The Tumblr site drives users not only to the promotion of the show, but to other brand-related properties in social, digital, and e-commerce. With over 82,000 followers in its first 10 months of inception, the Tumblr averaged over 1300 notes per entry.

Doctor Who Tumblr is one of the fastest growing media brands on Tumblr. Its strong brand-focused editorial and understanding of the Tumblr platform has resulted in its widespread success, making the show a force to be reckoned with. 

Watch Tumblr Founder, David Karp, present Kenyatta Cheese from Doctor Who Tumblr with the Shorty Award!