Quaran-tunes wins at #HESM 2021 awards

Spotify playlist wins Fanshawe top award for best social media-led campaign at #HESM 2021

Fanshawe's Quaran-tunes campaign was recently awarded the Best Multi-Platform Campaign of the Year at the inaugural Best of Higher Ed Social Media (#HESM) Awards!

The global competition celebrates the outstanding performance of social media work created in and for the Higher Education sector, with over 30 award categories judged by a panel of post-secondary social media managers and digital communications professionals. The Multi-Platform Campaign category evaluated projects for which social media was the core component.

"Quaran-tunes: Music from Fanshawe MIA student and alumni, released during the pandemic" is Fanshawe's follow-up to the JUNO History playlist shared in 2019 as part of JUNO celebrations in London. It includes more than 50 songs from 28 artists, who are students or alumni of the College's Music Industry Arts (MIA) and Audio Post-Production (APR) programs. Some of the 2019 performers were among the first artists whom social media communications officer Sarah Wells contacted when developing the playlist.

"I've been following these artists since we worked with them in 2019, and saw their posts about new releases throughout the pandemic," Wells explains. "For the College's pandemic anniversary, we wanted to create something fun and shareable showing that positive things came out of the past year. Each of the artists were quick to agree and just as quick to identify other classmates who might also like to be part of the playlist."

Wells released Quaran-tunes on March 17, 2021 on Fanshawe's Spotify account to mark the one-year anniversary of the first pandemic lockdown that triggered our shift to remote delivery. Throughout March and April, Fanshawe published and promoted its award-winning playlist across multiple social networks as well as through traditional media, website, portal and email promotion. In the first week, it received attention from 80 new playlist followers, two radio and three newspaper interviews and 171 blog views, in addition to numerous interactions and shares on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

"I love that [the Quaran-tunes playlist] was unique to Fanshawe and it was highlighting... students who are creating the music," said HigherEdSocial founder Kasandrea Sereno during a Zoom awards presentation on June 16. "We saw that early on in COVID, that music was bringing people together during a really stressful time. I loved this campaign from Fanshawe. You guys crushed it - it was just really amazing!"

Founded in 2015, HigherEdSocial has become the largest and most recognizable association for social media managers, video production, graphic design and photography and digital communication professionals working in institutions of higher learning. Representing more than 87,000 different colleges and universities, the association offers networking and professional development opportunities to social media and digital communications professionals from more than 68 countries around the world.