Safaricom carried away seven prizes from the OLX Social Media Awards ceremony held at the weekend that saw Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta receive a special award for his use of social media.
Among the awards scooped by Kenya’s largest network operator was the overall Corporate Award of the Year and the Corporate Twitter Account of the Year beating Samsung Mobile Kenya, Bata Kenya, Eat Out Kenya, Kenya Airways, Chase Bank and Airtel Kenya.
Bob Collymore, Safaricom’s chief executive officer (CEO), won the CEO of the Year Award.
Other categories dominated by Safaricom were Best Use of Social Media For Social Corporate Responsibility in the Bring Zack Back Home campaign, Best Use of Social Media in Events for the Safaricom 7s and the best use of Customer Service in Facebook and Twitter categories.
Journalist Julie Gichuru was voted Media Personality of the Year, Sauti Sol won Artist of the Year and Jamii Telecom’s Faiba advert was voted Video Campaign of the Year.
Comedian Daniel Churchill Ndambuki was also a showstopper at the SOMA awards carrying home three awards: Most Influential Facebook Personality, Facebook Page of the Year and the Overall Social Media Personality of the Year.
Lanet Umoja provincial administrator Chief Francis Kariuki was voted the Tweep of the Year while The Crazy Nairobian carried the day as the most influential blogger.
Journalist turned activist Boniface Mwangi was awarded for his Occupy Parliament campaign on twitter that fetched world headlines, while iVolunteer was voted as the Social Media Innovation of the Year.
In the Best Use of Social Media by Government category, Vision 2030 beat the likes of the Kenya ICT board, Kenya Wildlife Service, Kenya Power and Kenya Tourism Board’s Magical Kenya.
