Best Use of a Hashtag in Social Media - Shorty Awards

13th Annual Shorty Awards Categories

The Shorty Awards honor the talented agencies, brands, and industry leaders behind the best and most innovative work on social media and digital channels, campaigns, websites and applications.

From the 7th Annual Shorty Awards Best Use of a Hashtag

The humble #hashtag emerged as a grassroots invention by Twitter users, for categorizing and sharing tweets. Now, viral hashtags are a major way to follow top news stories, celebrities, products and trends. This award honors the most creative and effective use of hashtags across any platform for a specific brand, cause, marketing campaign, product, or service.

Presented by Unmetric, Official Social Media Analytics and Benchmarking Partner for the Shorty Awards.

Click here to see the previous winner and nominees.

Winner

Red Bull is known throughout the world for its branded Mini Coopers and iconic cans. Those little cans symbolize giving wings to people and ideas and hold a special place in the hearts (and hands) of Red Bull consumers. Every minute on social media Red Bull fans share photos and videos featuring the can within their personal stories.Last summer Re…

Finalists

Girls experience their biggest drop in confidence during puberty, around their first period. Always, a brand they count on for superior protection, wanted to change that. To truly champion girls' confidence, we needed to get to the heart of the issue. Our idea was to take a frequently used expression in society, one of the factors that undermines …

#100happydays challenge

100happydays is a global social movement of people who believe that happiness is a matter of personal choice. They all embarked on a personal challenge to find the answer to the question: "Can you be happy for 100 days in a row?" Using social media as a personal gratitude journal, the 100happydays challenge combines modern passion and growing tren…

#DontKillSeanBean - Legends on TNT

When launching their new summer drama LEGENDS, TNT recognized that Sean Bean's involvement would be an asset and primary driver for viewership. Although Bean himself does not participate on social media platforms, his previous roles (Game of Thrones; Lord of the Rings) generated and continue to be the inspiration for strong fandom content, especia…

#PricelessSurprises

In 2014 MasterCard was looking to evolve the 17 year old Priceless campaign to effectively engage today's consumers. As a brand our strategy was to create a platform that moves from "observing" Priceless moments to creating Priceless experiences for our cardholders.At the 2014 GRAMMYS, with brand ambassador Justin Timberlake, we unveiled #Priceles…

AT&T - It Can Wait

97% of teens are aware of the danger of using their phones while behind the wheel, but they still continue that deadly behavior. For them, FOMO outweighs the fear of dying while driving.To break this addictive behavior we gave them something simple to ease the social pressure to respond. #X to pause the conversation. A simple text shorthand, signi…

The Voice Instant Save

The Voice Save is the first and most impactful Twitter-based vote on TV. Indeed, measured by volume, the Voice Save is the most successful Social TV integration of all time.Here's how it worked: Each week, when the bottom three contestants were announced, the audience could choose a contestant to save from elimination by tweeting their vote using …

Thrown Back Thursdays

#tbt (Throw Back Thursday) is the fourth most popular hashtag on Instagram with millions of posts, many of them sharing nostalgic, favorite travel memories. In order to promote summer travel and grow Expedia's Instagram followers, Expedia took #tbt literally: Every Thursday, people who tagged their posts with "#ThrowMeBack" were entered to actuall…

UN Women’s #HeForShe Solidarity Movement for Gender Equality

HeForShe is a solidarity movement developed by UN Women to engage men and boys as advocates and agents of change for the achievement of gender equality. The campaign launched in September 2014 with a monumental speech by Emma Watson at the United Nations, highlighting the critical role of men and boys in the quest for gender equality. The #HeForS…

Nominees

#ASmartCookie for ORGANIX Jerky Chip Cookies

Objective:Generated interest in Castor & Pollux' new ORGANIX Jerky Chip Cookies with pet parents, pet influencers and bloggers through our unique hashtag gallery with the unique hashtag, #ASmartCookie. Ask pet parents to sound off on social media about their experiences with our new ORGANIX Jerky Chip Cookies using hashtag #ASmartCookie. Strategy: •Created …

Aaron Livesy was Emmerdale's misunderstood bad boy with a big heart. Saving his best friend Adam, coping with mental illness and discovering his sexuality made him a force to be reckoned with. Through so much adversity, the character amassed a huge cross-generational social following - helping to expand the reach and buzz of Emmerdale.So when a persona that…

#AprendizCelebridades (The Celebrity Apprentice Brazil), 1st edition

The first edition of The Celebrity Apprentice (Aprendiz Celebridades) in Brazil outstands itself for the heavy and smart usage of Twitter, and the strong interaction with the second screen. Through the #AprendizCelebridades hashtag, Twitter users became a "virtual counselor" and could advice on eliminations; comment the show and had their tweets shown on sc…

Objective: As a new sponsor of the Premier League team, Manchester United, we needed to insert ourselves into the football community in an authentic way. As a new sponsor of a storied English football club, and the sizable sponsorship price tag, we thought many fans may be concerned that we were only about the logo on the jersey. We knew that we had a respo…

#CarlsbergTalk with LFC

#CarlsbergTalk is a monthly event produced by Carlsberg, the longest serving commercial Partner in the Barclays Premier League, and Liverpool FC to life by tapping into football fans passion points and creating the opportunity to talk to both Liverpool FC legends and current LFC players. The aim is to increase awareness of the partnership between LFC and Ca…

The social truth is: IKEA fans invented the selfie. The internet is full of self-portraits taken by customers shopping at IKEA. Mirror selfies, happy shopping moments, eating hot dogs without using hands, romantic kisses with furniture or running through the bed section – naked. Yeah, we had them all. For the 40th anniversary of IKEA Germany, we celebrated…

It's Miller Time is iconic. A classic tagline that'll live on for generations. It belongs to Miller Lite. How could Miller Lite turn it into a consumer facing battle cry? After all, we make Miller Lite but the fans make Miller Time.

#MTVStars of 2014

What:#MTVStars of 2014 was a social media voting campaign of enormous scale.The campaign involved users voting for their favourite artists amongst the biggest "stars" of 2014. Music 'stars' were selected by an MTV panel based on social media following, chart performance, TV, digital performance and relevancy throughout the year. To vote, users had to tweet …

#OneLessStranger

Objective: Our objective was to launch an audacious social experiment to rid the world of strangers. At Airbnb, we aspire to create a world where people can Belong Anywhere. The primary barrier we face in achieving this aspiration is strangers. Strangers disrupt feelings of acceptance and therefore the enemy of belonging.Strategy: What happens when Airbnb i…

#SHAPEMATTERS and the Full Exposure Palette

Launching our new Full Exposure Palette in a crowded marketplace dominated by powerful competitors was no small challenge. We knew we had to transform the consumer connection with this product to break through, so we started by building the campaign on a unique message that was of service to her: Eye shape matters when it comes to applying shadow (just like…

In 2013, Russia signed into law a bill banning the 'propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors'— effectively condemning demonstrations of LGBTQ love and support for LGBTQ groups. In response, Lush created the #SignOfLove campaign to join global pressure against the Russian government and to stand up for global gay rights.Lush launched the campa…

#myHealthie – A Healthy Selfie Social Engagement Contest

Cigna knows that people love being noticed and recognized. This campaign was designed to create positive, social brand conversation on Cigna enterprise social media channels by encouraging individuals to share and celebrate their healthy moments and activities – both onsite at Cigna sponsored events in August and individually on Twitter. The campaign took a…

5 Days of Equality

Over 5 days, the world recognized the marriages of 31 same-sex couples in Australia.

@midnight #HashtagWars

@midnight is more than a late night game show, it is an immersive 24/7 experience that is constantly redefining interactive entertainment. @midnight's signature game, #HashtagWars, has taken the world by storm. The game starts on television, and within minutes is the number one worldwide trend on twitter. Not sometimes, but every single night. @midnight isn…

Dunkin' Donuts wanted to create a coffee promotion to reach Millennials. We added Julian Edelman of the New England Patriots, comedian co-host Don Zollo, and the perfect setting in Boston, MA to make it an engaging story.We called it DDTyme. First we built excitement across social. Then we hosted an event, where fans got to participate in :11 with #11 (11 s…

Hulu #TBTV – Throw Back Television

This creative exploration series was designed to promote the deep content library of titles in Hulu's digital vaults to the viewing customers. Our objective was to hit the nostalgia factor of well-known past series using the trending topic #tbtv on Throwback Thursdays (#tbt).

Jared The Galleria of Jewelry Summer Bridal Program #BRIDEnBEYOND

To generate awareness of Jared® The Galleria Of Jewelry around the summer Bridal time period, the brand engaged with influencers in Wedding and Lifestyle categories to produce and syndicate high-quality content that showcased the brand's bridal collection and a consumer's overall bridal experience at Jared® The Galleria Of Jewelry, Focusing on past, present…

Nespresso #TheCoffeeRevolution at SXSW

Nespresso had struggled to find an audience in the US with its European-influenced quality and luxury messaging. With limited scope and a shoestring budget, we used the SXSW conference to prove that aligning the brand with innovation and tech culture was the key to translating the brand's position to a US audience. In doing so, we shattered expectations, be…

Papa John’s Better #Bendgate

Objective: Leverage the popular Twitter trending topic #Bendgate—which was elevated with the launch of the new iPhone 6 to bring Papa John's pizza into the social conversation in an on-brand, ownable way with a 'Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.' Lens for social content.Strategy: Align Papa John's to relevant pop culture moments and convey 'better messaging…

2014 was a big year for the LGBT community. We wanted to build on that momentum by tapping into the power of YouTube's community to ignite a worldwide conversation about equality during the World Cup and Gay Pride Month. Introducing #ProudToPlay, a YouTube-powered cause that brought together athletes, celebrities and YouTube personalities to champion equali…

Volvo #JoyrideLive

Volvo needed to bring to life the 2015 XC60 Drive-E for a new set of consumers – passionate about cars, and visiting the New York Auto Show, but unfamiliar with the car. They needed to try before they would buy – and Volvo needed to give automotive enthusiasts and auto show visitors a catchy and socially-informed reason to check out the XC60. Joyride Live …

Wonders of South America Blogger FAM Series

To further the brands' already existing Only in South America campaign, LAN Airlines & TAM Airlines launched the @onlyinsouthamerica Instagram account, its first join social media profile since the airline merger, and an influencer series designed to highlight the wonders found only in their regio - South America. The brands partnered with influential …

World Cup 2014 Twitter Visualization

Objective of CampaignThe #armswideopen campaign wanted to capture the global nature and passion of fans around the 2014 World Cup. The aim was to unite fans in a single action, enabling people everywhere to take part across Twitter and see their impact displayed live in Brazil during a historic moment. Creative SolutionFrom 9th July - 12th July 2014, World …

Xbox Levels Up with #WhyIGame

A simple question: "Why do you play Xbox?". A simple hashtag: #WhyIGame. A simple strategy: Develop video, art, and copy that speak to the shared experiences and emotions around gaming, then use that to drive conversation around Xbox One. Result? Our little hashtag garnered over 38,000 mentions...

About the Shorty Awards

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media.

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