I made it! Or rather, we made it! After a hard fought campaign, I reached the final of the Shorty Awards 'Apps' category at midnight on Tuesday. I'm still pinching myself as I thought I'd never fight my way past the One Directions and Justin Biebers of the world – the human hurdles in the social sausage machine. Here's my campaign video...
I have put myself through the pain of the chase for the past three years and always fallen at those aforementioned human hurdles. This year, that all changed as the organisers culled the irrelevant and banished the bands in categories where their presence wasn't welcome. Having said that, I'm still sharing the top tier of the Apps category with Cristiano Ronaldo's social network and Chay Suede, a Brazilian Idol 2010 finalist. I'm hoping the judges will take all our app credentials into consideration...
Speaking of which, as if the frantic nomination process wasn't stressful enough, the next phase of the Shorty Awards gets really exciting. The winner of each category is decided by the great and the good of the social media world. This doesn't mean they're all 'social experts' (beware of those), they are real people, albeit famous, that actually use Twitter, Facebook, Vine, etc to communicate with their audience rather than hold a one-way conversation with a random group of followers. The winners are announced at a glittering awards ceremony in New York on April 7th!
I don't base social achievement on the number of followers or 'friends' I've collected across my many networks. I have been on LinkedIn since the very early days, steadily adding depth and relevance to my profile yet my connections amount to a little over 600. I have exercised restraint and avoided connecting to my postman, my dentist or 100s of recruiters looking to plunder my network.
A similar approach applies to Facebook, where I reserve connections to friends for, well, friends – not someone I met once on a drunken night out, although I've shared a drink with most friends. There's also the Activrightbrain Facebook page, where the content relevant to this site lives.
Finally, Twitter and Vine illustrate my levels of restraint. I rarely follow back automatically as I either get to know or have a genuine interest in those I follow. When I dip into Twitter and Vine, I read every post, look at every video and hold actual conversations. Of course, I broadcast a lot but this tends to be relevant to my audience – and to be fair, I'm proud of what I and my Brandwidth team do so have plenty to say.
I'm not a fan of mass broadcast across all social networks, one message does not fit all and the language (and often content) needs to suit the audience. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn may well share network members but we're usually in a different state of mind when trawling each website or app. A scattergun approach with the wrong message can have the same effect as showing up to a job interview in a mankini.
Thanks again to my fantastic friends spread across many social networks and the Dadsaster audience. I touch on the Shorties in passing in episode 46 (Everything is Awesome) alongside LEGO Mindstorms and the new BleepBleeps range on Kickstarter.
If you're still confused about the Shorty Awards, I'll leave the last words to Ricky Gervais, Kiefer Sutherland, William Shatner, Conan O'Brien, George Takei and Grover...