UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has launched the Arab Social Media Award on 15th June 2014.
The idea of the Award is to highlight the most important initiatives of social media in the Arab world through dedicating an annual award that honors individual and institutional innovations in various social media.
The Award’s objectives is to
- Boost interaction and encourage communication through social media channels.
- Encourage creative thinking so as to contribute to the development of various sectors in the community.
- Utilize Social Media channels to increase awareness on issues of concern to the Arab community. - Increase awareness on best ways to use social networks and encourage optimal and responsible usage of social media channels
The Award’s Standards: connectivity, creativity and impact aim to attract individuals and companies who had a positive impact on the development and prosperity of the community, and contributed to the progress of the nation.
The Award’s Categories: consist of twenty categories to honour the most distinguished and active persons, private or government entities as follows:
1.Government Sector: honors government institutions and employees who are using social media channels to communicate with individuals and enhance the quality of services provided so as to achieve customer satisfaction.
2.Private Sector: honors institutions and businessmen who employ social media channels in marketing and promotion of products in a creative and innovative way.
3.Blogs: honors bloggers who through their blog posts managed to make a difference and achieve significant in the lives of their targeted audience. This category also considers blogs that contribute to spreading awareness about various societal issues.
4.Media: honors media outlets and journalists who optimally use social media channels to serve the community, spread news, information and investigations that contribute to the development of society.
5.Sports: honors the sports organizations, clubs and athletes who use social media channels to raise awareness on the issues that serve the sports community, and reach out to public through innovative and effective ways.
6.Tolerance: honors organizations and individuals who use social media channels so as to promote the values of tolerance, peaceful coexistence in the community, and enhance the unity among Arab societies.
7.Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): honors organizations and individuals who use social media optimally in order to provide services to all segments of society, or to a particular segment in the society.
8.Education: honors the institutions and employees in the education sector that use social media channels to promote educational values and outcomes, and benefit the targeted community segment.
9.Youth: honors institutions and young people who positively use social media and contribute to spreading awareness, community development and the provision of ideas that motivate young people to participate effectively in society.
10.Technology: honors the creations and innovations of individuals and institutions who succeeded in utilizing technology in providing services to the Arab communities.
11.Entrepreneurship: honors institutions and entrepreneurs who use social media channels to highlight the importance of entrepreneurship sector and its role in supporting economy as well as motivate young people to establish their own businesses being a model to follow suit in this regard.
12.Environment: honors organizations and individuals who provided valuable contribution in promoting awareness about environmental issues and climate change, and supported environmental protection and preservation of natural resources.
13.Economy: honors individuals, companies as well as economic and financial institutions that have managed through the use of social media channels to enhance the quality of development of various sectors of the economy.
14.Politics: honors political institutions, politicians and thought leaders, who used social media channels to spread ideas that contribute to positive and constructive development of Arab societies and educate community members about the best practices in this regard.
15.Health: honors the best use of social media in campaigns conducted by individuals, institutions, and healthcare companies to promote health awareness in the Arab community regarding the most important risks and health issues faced by the region.
16.Arts: honors art institutions and artists who have used social media channels to promote creativity and innovation through works of art.
17.Safety and Security: honors organizations and individuals who have contributed through social media channels to raise the levels of security and community safety, and enhance awareness on the most important issues related to safety and security.
18.Shopping: honors retail businesses and entrepreneurs who use social media channels to promote and market their products in innovative and creative ways.
19.Tourism: honors individuals and institutions, including hotels, transport companies, travel agents, airlines and other workers who employ social media channels in the development of tourism and promotion campaigns for different destinations.
20.Entertainment: honors organizations and individuals who use social media channels to provide meaningful entertainment.
- Personality of the Year
In addition to the above mentioned categories, there is the Personality of the Year category which honors the personality that had an impact on social media channels and quantitative achievements that stimulated creativity and communication about certain topics or issues.
- Organizer of the Award
The Award is organized and supervised by Dubai Executive Office who will insure the Award’s integrity. A committee including experts and specialists in the various sectors will assess applications and select the winner for each category.
How to Apply: Individuals and institutions can nominate themselves or others for the award of which results will be announced at the end of each year through the Award’s website: www.ArabSocialMediaAward.ae