By Paola Bassanese
London 2012 was the Twitter Olympics aka the “Socialympics”. Mel Kirk of social media agency Spreading Jam, quoted on twitter: “Olympics drove 159m tweets in 16 days”.
The speed and immediacy of social media have been the key drivers for social engagement, from sporting events to music concerts. So when it comes to lifestyle, people tend to share experiences online through reviews and online voting. Clear examples of this trend are spa reviews on Wahanda (fellow finalist at London Lifestyle Awards) and restaurant reviews on Toptable.
Hats off to the team at London Lifestyle Awards who have understood this trend and gathered a record-breaking number of votes for the finalists at almost 190,000 in total.
Of those 190K votes, a slice was from my supporters. I did my fair share of cajoling clients, contacts, friends from around the world and social media fans to vote for Energya in the Health and Beauty category. I used all my social media profiles to gather votes: twitter, facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google +.
I’ve also emailed my clients and reminded them during their massage treatments to vote for me (how cool is that? The X Factor can contact me any time to use the same technique on the general public).
Now it’s all in the hands of the Committee Gods: Jason Gale, Sinitta, Akashia Hoosein, Mark Fuller and JJ Miller.
I face stiff competition from true spa heavyweights; for me winning the London Lifestyle Awards is mission-critical as it would be the triumph of the underdog. And everybody likes a good underdog story.