BEIJING -- On March 16, 2021,  Effie Greater China's Social Media Marketing Committee meeting was held at IMS Beijing headquarters. This is the first offline event, unveiling the prelude for this year's Effie Awards Greater China events.
 
In addition to AI Marketing; Influencer Marketing and Short Video Marketing last year, new Effie Greater China specialty categories were added, including: Social Media Marketing; Industrial Service and Marketing; Business, Product, Service Innovation.
 
The Social Media Marketing Committee is comprised of of 13 senior practitioners from brands, agency and social media platforms. The committee is responsible for defining the categories, evaluation, category classification, competition guidance and promotion of the social media marketing category.

Alex Xu, President of Effie Greater China and Senior Vice President of Effie Worldwide, shared this year Effie’s strategy and looked forward to the development goals of the social media marketing category.

"Effie has always been a platform for creating business value, linking the most influential decision-makers and leaders in various fields, communicating global business challenges, to better serve the partners including brands and platforms. In 2019, Effie Greater China launched the first social media marketing category. After two years of operation, it joined hands with IMS | WEIQ upgrading to a specialty category. As a brand-new specialty category, it is dedicated to more extensive field, presenting and recognizing more excellent cases, so as to enlighten and lead the development of the industry," said Alex Xu.

With regard to the social media marketing specialty category, Shao Lei, General Manager of IMS (INMYSHOW) | WEIQ Business Division, said: "WEIQ has been working in the field of Internet Celebrity Marketing for 10 years, We hope to build a new category through IMS (INMYSHOW) | WEIQ and Effie Awards, and work together with judges and participating units to make social media marketing more accurate and effective, and further improve the application and development of social media in the marketing field."

Through observations and opinions on the current status and trend of social media marketing, committee members provide perspective on their own industry, had in-depth discussion and reached a consensus on the category definition and sub-category classification.

The Social Media Category definition states that the category is for campaigns that set out with the explicit purpose of using social as the primary communication channel or have social at their heart. The kind of idea that is specifically designed to take advantage of the socially connected consumer and the influence of social.
 
At the same time, the category set up seven sub-categories, namely Brand Experience, Media Content Partnerships, Media Innovation, Integrated Marketing, Internet Celebrity Marketing, IP Marketing, and Event Marketing.

The establishment of the Social Media Marketing Category for Effie Greater China provides a reference for social media marketing in the era of digital economy. High-quality cases will stimulate social media marketing practitioners to make further innovation and attempt, providing more effective connection between users and brands. Contribute more practical experience to the industry; drive the optimization and upgrading of social media marketing ecology.

For more information, please visit www.effie-greaterchina.cn/.