The Emirates Stadium in north London, home of the Premier League football club Arsenal, is a terrific venue for an event such as the UK Social Media Communication Awards. the 2015 edition of which took place there on Thursday October 15.

As befits a 60,000-seater stadium, the events part of the venue is fitting for a large crowd with space, facilities and excellent catering to make an enjoyable and memorable time for everyone involved.

And so more than 200 people were there last Thursday, including my wife and I, to entertain and be entertained along with finding out who won what in 2015 that marks the winners out as examples of excellent practice in the use of social media in the UK during the year.

The results were determined by a panel of judges (I was one) many of whom were there to present awards to the winners in each each of the 18 categories.

These are the 2015 winners (and shown in the shortlist of all those that were finalists for an award):

1. Best Use of Twitter
   Winner: Cubaka & Lidl – Lidl Real-Time Moments
2. Best Use of Facebook
   Winner: Spirit Social & Get Fit with Davina – Davina’s Lucky 7
3. Best Use of YouTube
   Winner: Mischief PR & Paddy Power – Farage Swings For Europe
4. Best Community Engagement Campaign
   Winner: University of Roehampton – University of Roehampton WeAreUR Campaign
5. Best Use of Research & Evaluation
   Winner: Performance Communications & Citroen – Citroen ParkingHero
6. Best Use of Social Media in a Crisis
   Winner: Aneurin Bevan University Health Board – Body Piercing & Tattoo Concerns
7. Innovation – sponsored by The Juice Academy
   Winner: OMD UK & Walkers – Tweet to Eat
8. Best Low Budget Campaign
   Winner: Zazzle Media & SKYN Condoms – How Grey are You? A Zazzle Media campaign for SKYN Condoms
9. Best Private Sector Campaign
   Winner: Hope&Glory & HTC – #phonies
10. Best Public Sector Campaign
    Winner: Claremont Social Communications, Munro & Forster and Skills Funding Agency – 100ReasonsWhy
11. Best Viral Campaign
    Winner: Mischief PR & Southampton Football Club – Show Your Stripes
12. Best Charity / Not for Profit Campaign
    Winner: OMD UK & NSPCC – Flaw in the Law
13. Best Social Media Campaign
    Winner: Hope&Glory & HTC – #phonies
14. Mark Hanson Award
    Winner: Maria Soleil, Digital Communications Co-ordinator, mhs homes
15. Best In House Team
    Winner: Nottinghamshire Police
16. Best Small Agency
    Winner: Umpf
17. Best Large Agency
    Winner: Battenhall
18. Grand Prix Award
    Winner: Cubaka & Lidl – Lidl Real-Time Moments

While the announcements of each awards category by MC Andy Crane, and the reveals and presentation of each award by some of the judges, were undoubtedly the highlights of the event, a close second would definitely have been the irreverence of the selfies many table groups took and, indeed, were encouraged to do so by selfie sticks placed on each of the 20+ tables.

Call me biased but Matt Read‘s selfie of the judges on table 10 combined a great pic with a brilliant text for a tweet that stood out.

Literally the sexiest judges ever to have lived… #somecomms pic.twitter.com/tm8Ti6jDl5

— Matt ???? (@FoxSaidWhat) October 15, 2015

I was very pleased to be involved in these awards as a judge for the third year running. Reviewing the entries that I did showed me very clearly indeed that imagination and creativity know little bounds in the UK. I just wish I could say the same for strategic thinking about the role of social media as a measurable activity – the overwhelming majority of entries I judged included plenty of objectives that a particular campaign or activity was designed to achieve, but none of them measurable.

Given the significance of measurement in all organizational communication activity, you’d expect examples of excellence to also get one of the basic elements in public relations practice right – measurement so you know whether you achieved your objectives or not.

But that’s a topic for another post on another day. In the meantime, let’s bask in the glow of a great event, well organized by my good friends at Don’t Panic, and well attended.

A great time was had by all – check out the tweets and pics!