This weekend’s Northern Ireland Social Media Awards in partnership with Corner Bakery have been created by leading award-winning digital marketers and industry mentors, Niamh Taylor, Managing Director of Digital 24 and Caroline O’Neill Business Coach and Social Media Consultant of Digg For Success and Digg Mama.
The awards recognise local freelancers, individuals, teams, agencies and businesses delivering social media marketing and demonstrating excellence in their work.
Caroline and Niamh first met in 2017 when Niamh spoke at a Women in Business conference.
Read more: "NI Social Media Awards 2022 finalists announced"
Niamh Taylor said: “Caroline and I got chatting after the conference and asked me if I would mentor her to help bring her retail business online and grow her social media following. We really hit it off and have been working together professionally on different projects ever since.”
Co-founder Caroline O'Neill was an occupational therapist before opening up a kidswear shop in Dungannon which she had for 12 years.
“I always used social media in Digg Childrenswear to grow my online sales, to grow my customer base and I could see the benefits of it. I wanted to use my experience to help other businesses grow their brand online so I set up Digg For success which educates business owners on how to use social media effectively.”
"During the pandemic, I unfortunately had to make the difficult decision to close my shop as we were mainly an occasion wear retailer and this market effectively disappeared overnight. However, I then focussed all my efforts on building Digg For Success and have trained over 500 businesses to date.
"Last year I also launched The Digg Podcast which is an educational tool for businesses and it’s about to hit 100k downloads," she said.
Awards co-founder Niamh Taylor has worked in marketing all her life and started her agency Digital 24 almost eight years ago.
"I set up Digital 24 in 2015 because I didn’t want to look back and regret not trying and now I have a multi-award winning agency and the most dedicated employees. The internet has fundamentally transformed the way we do business. That was the first statement I posted on my own social media when I launched Digital 24. And over the last seven years, that has not changed."
Over the last two years in particular, social media has been a trusted source for news, supported businesses through survival and growth during a hugely challenging time and really came into its own to show how much good can be done through it when used correctly. Since lockdown, Digital 24 has mentored over 2,000 businesses and trained over 20,000 individuals and we are seeing more businesses than ever using it as a vital tool to promote and grow.
The NI Social Media Awards were launched in 2019 and this year’s theme is social media for good.
Caroline said: "Niamh and I could see how hard businesses and organisations across Northern Ireland worked on their social media and how much effort content creators were putting into their platforms and we wanted to celebrate this. We discussed how we should really have an awards ceremony where people get recognition for their amazing work and have an independent panel of expert judges to give that recognition.
"The inaugural event in 2019 was incredible. It really was an awards night that Northern Ireland had never seen before – the atmosphere was electric. Then Covid hit and we had two years without the awards. But within those two years, the strides that businesses have made on social media has been massive. The response this year has been fantastic and we received almost 400 submissions."
Niamh added: "Social media has played a vital role in the success of so many businesses over the last couple of years. It’s great to see the sheer number of businesses set up throughout lockdown or small businesses for example that are absolutely thriving now on social media.
"I think that social media can get a lot of negative publicity but actually what the awards are all about is celebrating everything good about social media."
Last year through social media, Caroline was able to buy almost £500,000 worth of goods through the Digg Deep For Kids campaign. This was raised solely through social media – this is a fantastic example of social media for good.
The winners of the NI Social Media Awards 2022 will be announced at the 'social event of the year' in the Europa Hotel on Saturday October 1.
Niamh explained: "Our awards are like no other awards.
"Everything has to be Instagrammable. It is all about the drama for us. There is a lot of drama."
Caroline added: "It's an awards ceremony with a difference. Yes it's an awards ceremony but it's a social event so there is going to be lots of surprises, lots of fun and lots of memories to be made.
"We tell the businesses that we mentor that to get noticed on social media you have to stand out and think outside of the box, do different things - so that is how we approached the awards."
The co-founders explained how they know it is a "hard business landscape" at the moment, but say great things can be achieved when hard work is put in.
"The businesses that are shortlisted show that" Caroline said.
Individual category sponsors include Balmoral Healthcare, Belfast City Centre Gift Card, Bellamianta, BNL Productions, Bodyfit Mums, EP Design, Holistic Kidz, House of Vixen, Malfy Gin, MCG Investment, Ooh & Aah Cookies, Pod Camping Ireland, Todds Leap, Ted & Stitch, Jans Lifestyle and McGowans Print. Charity partner is Aware.
To find out more about the awards, CLICK HERE.
READ NEXT:
NI Social Media Awards launched with global panel of judges announced
Councillors seek tougher regulation of cosmetic procedures in NI
Two Belfast eateries nominated for Restaurant of the Year at Asian food awards
For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here. To sign up to our FREE newsletters, see here
