Audience targeting is the future of social media: Finalists for The Drum Social Buzz Awards 2018 revealed

Traboulsi continued: "Being able to get granular with your level of targeting will makes it more appealing to brands. Also, how you can then measure the success of your campaigns in terms of brand uplift studies and the availability of those and the detail you get back from your campaigns on those social platforms."

According to FleishmanHillard's director of social innovation, Claire Twohill, brands have started to truly link social to real life actions. One category that stood out was Best Use of Group/Community.

She said: "What was interesting was how the brands have engaged with a community to take action, get behind them and start to think about how they can do some good. Which could be good around an issue or helping them invent a product."

The finalists are: Autumn Worldwide for Hewlett Packard India, Born Social for Unforgettable, Brands2life for LinkedIn, Minshare UK for Tommy’s, Mumsnet for Dreams, The Open University, UKTV, Wavemaker for Voxi (Vodafone) and We are Social for Adidas Football

Here is some of the their work

Chair of the judging panel and head of social media, news and content for Cancer Research UK, Cecilia Dominici said a real drive towards accountability and social activity, "is a testament to how much social media has grown up as a channel."

She added: "The category that stood out for me was Best B2B Sector Social Media Strategy/Campaign. It was really interesting to see because it’s a difficult category towards creativity, which the entries really had to drive.

The finalists are: 1000heads Ltd for Wella, Cisco Systems, Dell EMC for IT Transformation, EY World Entrepreneur of the Year, Immediate Future for Fujitsu Best B2B, Immediate Future for Fujitsu Forum 2017, OST Marketing for Sage, OST Marketing for Thomson Reuters, Pulse for Dropbox Business, The Crocodile for Linux Professional Institute and The Social Effect for Automechanika Birmingham 2018.

Here is some of their work

Another category that caught he judges attention is Best Use of Twitter.

Paul Hood, digital marketing director at The Sun believes that people are becoming human with their social media campaigns, stating: "Rather than focusing on being a large campaign, the entries were getting down to granular levels."

The finalists are: Gravity for Spor10/Pele, London North Eastern Railway for Beating the Beast from the East, Manning Gottlieb OMD for John Lewis and Partners, Spark Foundry for Royal London, Tangerine Communications for Iceland, VML for Kraft Heinz, McKinney for CarMax, Wavemaker and Ogilvy for British Airways, Wavemaker for Vodafone and Wilderness Agency for Warner Bros. UK.

Some of the finalists for Best Use of Twitter

A full list of the nominees can be found here. Tickets for the awards ceremony on 28 November at the Marriott Grosvenor Square, London, can be purchased now.