Giving visibility to interesting or leading edge applications of social media is the objective of the Social Media in Practice Excellence Awards Competition. We have been looking for effective social media applications in business or in the public sector.

The call for case histories was announced in late 2018 and 18 submissions were received describing on an outline basis a social media initiative. 14 contributors were invited to forward a full case history. A panel of judges chose the case history finalists who are invited to present their work at the 6th European Conference on Social Media, in Brighton, UK in June 2019.

The emphasis of the successful case histories is on innovative, creative and effective social media applications and the finalists published in this book are demonstrating this. Submissions to the competition this year are widespread with contributions from Australia, Poland, Portugal, India and South Africa.

The initiatives are also diverse, and include a student communication project from Portugal, as well as e-assessments in Australia. Projects from South Africa, Poland and India also focus on the introduction and use of Social Media in High Education. And away from Education there is a case on the use of Whatsapp groups in staff development. Although the competition was open to social media applications from all fields it is interesting that this year it is dominated by educational issue.