Manama: Bahrain will hold its second Social Media Awards next month as a tribute to the increasing significance of social media in the country.
“Bahrain has over 260,000 Twitter users, 514,000 users on Facebook, 120,000 Instagram users and 160,000 on LinkedIn,” Shaikh Fawaz Bin Mohammad Al Khalifa, the state minister for communications, said.
“These figures reflect an increase in users between 14 per cent and 50 per cent over the last year. Government entities and the private sector cannot overlook the significance of social media in the communications sector and we aim for the Awards to encourage and promote responsible social media use,” he said.
The awards ceremony will be held on the sidelines of the Social Media Masters Forum 2013, where a panel of experts, including speakers from the Social Media Club (USA), Crowdbabble (Canada), Mindshare and TEDx speaker Patrick Schwerdtfeger, will be actively participating in discussions and presentations over two days on December 10 and 11.
The minister said that entries for government, corporate entities and individual accounts would be accepted starting on Sunday. Ali Sabkar, President of the Social Media Club, said that a panel of experts would act as judges in the competition as part of the forum. “It will include members of Bahrain’s Social Media Club, as well as regional and international experts in the field. The categories for the awards will focus on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram,” he said. Nominees for this year’s awards will be selected from corporate, government and individual accounts.
The criteria related to a responsible, ethical, innovative, non-derogatory and credible content will be applied to assess the entries for the Social Media Awards.
