Pressing pause on the Equestrian Social Media Awards

Attracting 17,131 nominations from 5,109 individuals in 2014 alone, the ESMAs have promoted and celebrated the creativity and talent of equestrian digital marketers worldwide in their use of social media for four years. The finalists have created acceptance speech videos in which they showed off their creative side for an online award ceremony – presented by mini mascot Esmarelda, in 2014 at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida.

Managing Director Liam Killen said of the announcement: “Since the 2010 launch, the awards have become a force of nature! My partner and I are about to start a family and will have a new force of nature to focus on. Along with this announcement, it’s important for me to thank all of the nominees and finalists who have taken part, the team at PagePlay websites for all their help and their hard work behind-the-scenes, the panel of judges who each year provided expert opinion and truly valuable feedback for the finalists, Richard Johnson of the FEI for helping us to reach a global audience through the World Award and all of our amazing sponsors. The ESMAs could not have happened without the support of all of these people.”

Liam continued: “The ESMAs have given me much to be grateful for. They inspired me to create the Equestrian Creative Network – which has been going from strength to strength since its launch in 2013. The Equestrian Creative Network fulfills a need in our industry for a targeted platform for creatives. Marketers, photographers, writers, artists, designers and publishers with an equestrian specialism can showcase their work to potential clients all in one place. Members can showcase their work through their content rich portfolios and share their news, views and inspiration with readers through news stories which feature on the homepage, social media channels and regular e-newsletter – which already has over 3,000 subscribers. Members also get access to the new ECN Newswire feature giving their press releases extra coverage by journalists internationally.”

Asked about the future for the ESMAs Liam said: “The awards have created such a buzz it’s hard to imagine life without them. Whilst we can’t rule out their return, there’s no specific timeline either.”

To find out more about the Equestrian Creative Network visit equestriancreativenetwork.com or sign up to the ECN newsletter which will be the first place to find out about future ESMA news.