The Official Shorty Awards Blog

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

Nominate your favorite #College on Social Media!

Have you nominated your favorite #College for a Shorty Award yet?

Social media has brought an entirely new dimension to education. The Shorty Award for #college will be presented to an institution of higher learning who uses social media to effectively engage with students and, most importantly, demonstrates school spirit. 

Whether it’s keeping students up to date on campus and local news, covering student-run events or reviewing the best (and worst) of the dining halls, these streams are integral to the lifeblood of a #college community.

What #college do you want to nominate for a Shorty Award?

HBO’s True Blood Wins the Shorty Industry Award for Best Use of Twitter in a Marketing Campaign

HBO’s True Blood (@TrueBloodHBO) Season 3 Premiere was awarded the Shorty Industry Award for Best Use of Twitter in a Marketing Campaign at the 3rd Annual Shorty Awards on Monday, March 28, 2011 in New York City.

Overview: True Blood is an HBO drama series about vampires created by Alan Ball. For the Season 3 premiere in June, 2010, the show’s marketing team launched a digital media campaign centered on “The True Blood Ultimate Fan Experience.” A midnight screening event was held simultaneously in 50 movie theaters nationwide. The show’s Twitter account shared clues for which city would get tickets next. Fans got a free screening of the Season 2 finale, an exclusive Season 3 sneak peak, and a live simulcast Q&A with Ball and the cast. One of the only ways to get a ticket was through a Facebook application where fans “played” for local tickets overnight from 6:13 p.m. to 6:13 a.m., playing on the 6/13 premiere date. Fifty “Ultimate Truebie Sheriffs,” who are fan leaders to represent each city, were chosen through Twitter after answering the tweet, “Why should you be Sheriff in your city? Tell us in 140 characters or less.” The show’s blog, Bloodcopy.com, became a Twitter microsite where users could adjust the feed to display show‐ related Twitter lists. On finale night, True Blood invited two actors active on Twitter, Kristin Bauer Van Straten and Joe Manganiello, to host a live Twitter chat at Bloodcopy.com. On‐air promotion drove fans to the microsite to chat live with their favorite characters. True Blood won a Shorty Award for #entertainment last year.

Impact: The Season 3 premiere of True Blood pulled in more than 5 million viewers, up 1.3 million viewers from the Season 2 premiere. It also beat FOX and NBC in its time slot. A replay of the Sunday night premiere later in the night had an additional 1 million viewers.

MTV Shows Its Love for Twitter at the 3rd Annual Shorty Awards

While MTV won a Shorty Industry Award for their 2010 VMAs Twitter Tracker, they also had a broad presence at the 3rd Annual Shorty awards.

In attendance was MTV’s Twitter Jockey, Gabi Gregg (@MTVTJ), who participated in a Shorty Interview prior to the ceremony,conducted by our friend, Sree Sreenivasan (@sree).

During the ceremony, MTV played a 10 On Top video made exclusively for the Shorty Awards.

For more videos from the Shorty Awards, visit our YouTube channel.

MTV Wins the Shorty Industry Award for Best Integration of Social Media with Traditional Media

MTV’s 2010 VMAs Twitter Tracker was awarded the Shorty Industry Award for Best Integration of Social Media with Traditional Media at the 3rd Annual Shorty Awards on Monday, March 28, 2011 in New York City.

Overview: Prior to the 2010 Video Music Awards, MTV launched an application called the MTV VMA Twitter Tracker. The web-based visual application displayed tweets and trending topics related to the awards. When the Awards aired September 12, 2010, the application featured a visualization of discussions happening on Twitter concerning the show and the nominated artists. The application showed the top 50 topics related to the awards show, the number of tweets per minute for the topic, and clickable tweets so fans could find out what others’ were talking about. Users could also use the application to tweet about the show with pre-loaded hashtags. The VMA Twitter Tracker connected fans and viewers before, during, and after the airing of the Awards on MTV.

Impact: Millions of tweets and users were cataloged and integrated into the application during the award’s ceremony. Popular artists, including Taylor Swift, were mentioned in more than 3,500 tweets a minute during the show. The MTV Video Music Awards also scored the biggest numbers for any MTV telecast since 2002. The VMAs had 11.4 million viewers and were also the single highest rated program on the network during 2010.