The first-ever Equestrian Social Media Awards (ESMAs) has been launched by a pair of social-media-savvy equestrian industry professionals from ‘across the pond’ – and KempEquine is a finalist in the ‘Best Use of Twitter – International’ division!
Rhea Freeman of Rhea Freeman PR, and Liam Killen of Abbeyview Equine and PagePlay are the masterminds behind the ESMAs. The nominating process is now over, and voting is open until February 18, 2011. We caught up with Liam to get the inside scoop behind the ESMAs.
How did the ESMAs come about? The idea was all Rhea’s. True to form, she sent me a direct message via Twitter with the idea at around 11am, by 10pm we had the strategy written and were ready to launch! It just goes to show how an idea, well presented, can travel the globe via social media (SM) in under 24 hours. The power of social media is huge.
What are you hoping to accomplish with the ESMAs? The whole idea behind the ESMAs is that people who put a bit of thought and effort into their SM activity need to be rewarded. It’s also a great way to gauge your follower/fan responsiveness. Also, the SM equestrian community is growing by the day.
The nomination period was short when compared to the voting period – why? We kept the nomination period short because we knew the right people would pick up on it, just by doing what they’re doing. Those who value SM look out for trends and opportunities – and they make the most of them. Their vigilance has served them well! In 10 days we counted just shy of 4000 nominations.
How is the voting coming along? Less than 24 hours after announcing the finalists, we had 2000+ sets of votes from across the globe. Voting closes in February, and we’re limiting votes to ONE per person.
How will the winners be announced? We will be asking winners to send us a short acceptance speech video, no more than 1 minute long. We’re then going to once again keep it true to SM by creating a YouTube awards ceremony in a series of videos.
Many thanks, Liam Killen, for the insights on the ESMAs! You can vote for Kemp Equine in the ESMAs here – it’s Category 3, Best Use of Twitter under the International side. You’ll have to enter a valid email address, and you can only vote ONCE.
It was an honor and a thrill to find I’d been nominated by my equestrian fans and followers – since there are so many doing great things with social media I didn’t think I had a chance. So now that you’ve given me your vote of confidence in the ESMAs, I guess I better spread the word and give it a real go to win. I’ll announce the results here, and post the link to the ESMA ‘online awards ceremony’ – should be interesting! And thanks in advance for voting for me!
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