The Social Media Marketing Awards (SMMA) finalists for 2021 have been announced & local creative agency The Creative Collective are proud to have been recognised in four separate categories.
The annual awards, presented by the Social Media Marketing Institute, honours and recognises individuals, teams, agencies and organisations, and celebrates excellence and achievement in the field of social media marketing.
The Creative Collective are finalists in: ‘Use of a Chatbot in Social Media’ for their work with Sunshine Coast based business Misty View Cottages, ‘Best Integrated Campaign’ for their work with triennial event Beef Australia held in Rockhampton in May; while recent University of Newcastle graduate Claire Sandhoff has been named a finalist in the Best Emerging Marketer of the Year category and founder of the company Yvette Adams has been named a finalist in the Social Media Educator of the Year category.
Claire Sandhoff – finalist in Emerging Marketer of the Year 
Yvette Adams – finalist in Social Media Educator of the Year
Adams says she is extremely proud of the team, especially given this was the first time the agency have entered these awards, and the exceptionally high calibre of the entrants. Other finalists in this year’s awards include the likes of IAG, Ramsay Health Care, RACQ, Auckland Council, NZ Police, UNSW, Sydney Airport, NRMA, and many leading social media agencies and professionals within the industry.
“It’s a fantastic achievement for our company to be recognised in four separate categories of these awards,” says Adams. “And it’s a very exciting time for our agency which has doubled in size in the past six months alone, with plenty of growth coming from our social media division” she says.
Highlighting the best in social media in the form of individuals, teams, agencies and organisations, the SMMA is made up of 23 categories, ranging from Social Media Marketer and Best Public Sector Social Media Campaign to Best Social Media App and Best Social Media Storytelling. Independently judged by leaders in the social media marketing space, the SMMA is scheduled to present the winners of each category on 16 September in Sydney.
Adams says the fact the awards feature 23 categories shows just how large the industry has become over the years.
“We were very early to market offering social media training, consultancy and services in 2009, and back then the conversations we were having with businesses were largely around getting them set up on the various networks and posting content. These days we have a multitude of services to offer them including programming chatbot conversations and running competitions integrated with chatbots, through to extensive social media advertising capabilities, and, thorough our sister company The Training Collective, offering a lot of consultancy and training.”
“It’s a fast moving and ever changing landscape but we love playing in it and most of all, we love educating
and getting great results for our clients,” she says.
As an example of the great results the company are getting, with their finalist nomination for ‘Best Integrated Campaign’ for Beef Australia, The Creative Collective were tasked just three months out from promoting the triennial Beef Australia exhibition in Rockhampton, which they did through a series of targeted social media ads on Linkedin, Facebook & Instagram, strategic boosted posts and chatbot competitions. A range of sophisticated marketing techniques were used including extensive audience research which saw over 50 audiences targeted throughout the campaign. The organisers of the event were delighted to achieve an increase of 15% more visitation than previous years despite being unable to host the 1,200 international delegates from 43 countries that were absent due to COVID-19, and attribute a lot of that success to the integrated social media advertising campaign which they had never run for previous events.
Demonstrating their ability to produce results for small local businesses on a more humble budget too, under their nomination for ‘Use of a Chatbot in Social Media’ for Misty View Cottages, boutique luxury accommodation in the Hinterland of the Sunshine Coast, as one of their early engagements for the client, The Creative Collective created a chatbot competition in the lead up to Valentine’s Day which in a one month period saw the client gain 205% more followers, reach 63,000 individuals, extremely high engagement and garner a database of over 2000 people who they have continued to send marketing promotions to post campaign with a great conversion rate.
“What a lot of people think social media is and what it can do, and what we think it is and can do are often two different things. Most clients we talk to are using social media for about 10% of what it can do. So our aim is to always stay at the cutting edge of the tools and become the trusted advisor of our clients when it comes to all aspects of their marketing, and being finalists like this is a great pat on the back that what we are doing is working and recognised as industry leading,” says Adams.
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For any media enquiries, please contact Holly Lambert of The Creative Collective: