The Shorty Awards also known as the “Shortys”, was introduced in 2008 and henceforth came to prominence as a prestigious international awards competition. It was set up to honor brands, agencies, influencers, organizations and social media professionals producing admirable work across digital and social media platforms. It is also the first ever award ceremony to honor social media.
The first Shortys celebrated only content creators on Twitter and later on extended its scope to other social media platforms. The award ceremony is held annually in spring and live streamed.
Why “Shorty”?
The name “Shorty” stands for short-form content since originally Twitter was where it began and while being one of the most widely used platforms when social media started to become a global phenomenon, Twitter and most social media users were limited to 140 characters or less to express their thoughts and create inspiring content. With the arrival of new social media networks the phrase ‘short-form content’ came to be associated with ‘social media content’ hence the term “Shorty” fit well once more.
Story behind the ‘whale tail’ logo
The ‘whale tail’ logo pays tributes to Twitter’s ‘Fail whale’ which was the symbol Twitter used to portray service outages until 2013. The ‘Fail whale’ or the originally titled ‘ Lifting a Dreamer’ created by artist Yiying Lu won her a Shorty Award for her design, making her one of the first Shorty Awards winners.
Shorty Awards categories
- “OF THE YEAR”
The Shortys honor three top performing Brands, Agencies and Non-profits as,
Brands: Small Brand of the Year
Mid-Sized Brand of the Year
Large Brand of the Year
Agencies: Small Agency of the Year
Mid-Sized Agency of the Year
Large Agency the Year
Non-Profit: Small Non-Profit of the Year
Mid-Sized Non-Profit of the Year
Large Non-Profit of the Year
- “CAMPAIGN”
- Global campaign
- Integrated campaign
- Local campaign
- Mobile campaign
- Multi-platform campaign
- Social good campaign
- “SINGLE PLATFORM”
- “OVERALL PRESENCE”
- “INFLUENCER & CELEBRITY BRAND PARTNERSHIP”
- “DESIGN”
- “VIDEO”
- “INDUSTRY”
- “CONTENT AND MEDIA”
- “STRATEGY & ENGAGEMENT”
- “VIRTUAL”
The Shorty Awards’ effort to recognize the talent and honor the inspirational social media content creators, influencers, organizations and the like, who reach out to and move millions of people around the world is truly commendable.
