Nominations Now Open for 2015 Small Business Influencer Awards


Nominations Now Open for 2015 Small Business Influencer Awards

The 2015 Small Business Influencer Awards are officially open for nominations!  

If you’ve been chomping at the bit to nominate those individuals, organizations and apps, now is the time.

A Little About the Small Business Influencer Awards

The Small Business Influencer Awards are a joint effort between Small Business Trends and Small Biz Technology. Each year, we honor people, tools and companies that have positively impacted small businesses in North America. Nominees are grouped into eight categories:

The six primary categories are:

  • News Outlets (media companies)
  • Corporations (providers of products and services to the small business market)
  • Media (individual journalists, reporters, broadcasters, bloggers)
  • Leaders (executives or other key employees that are part of corporations serving the small business market)
  • Experts (mavens, authors, speakers, consultants)
  • Apps (software, mobile apps, tablet apps)

Last year, we added two special categories:

  • Small Business Marketing Campaign of the Year
  • Small Business Growth Story of the Year

These two special categories are truly unique in the influencer space.  We wanted to acknowledge the consultants and vendors who are behind the scenes helping small business clients with marketing campaigns and strategies that allowed small businesses to grow and reach their profit and revenue goals.  There is no doubt that these folks are influencers based on the most important measure of all — results.

Put These Dates in Your Calendar

The Small Business Influencer Awards are unique in that we incorporate BOTH community votes and the votes from our volunteer panel of small business experts and influencers.  

There are four phases to the Small Business Influencer Awards:

  1. Nominations: Now through October 15 noon Pacific Time:  Nominate as many Small Business Influencers as you’d like.  
  2. Community Voting: October 16 through November 5 at Noon Pacific Time.  After nominations close, the community can vote for influencers across all of the categories.  You can vote for as many influencers as you like and you only need to vote once during the entire voting period.
  3. Community Choice Winners Announcement: November 6, 2015.  
  4. 2015 Small Business Influencer Champions Announcement: November 16, 2015.

Who Will YOU Nominate?

Take a moment and think about who has influenced you in the past year. Perhaps a mentor? A business colleague? Client? Partner? Or maybe it’s a business that’s helped you take your company to the next level.

What about YOU? There’s no rule that says you can’t nominate yourself, so if you think you’ve made a splash in the small business community, by all means, nominate yourself.

Participation is a Breeze!

The rules for the Small Business Influencer Awards are simple:

  • Nominees must be based in North America.
  • Entrants must be involved in supporting, assisting, serving or enabling small businesses, through products, services, information and/or expertise used by those in the small business market.

Now it’s your turn to nominate your favorite people and brands in the small business world.

Nominate!

Want to connect with influencers and be in the know? Be sure to follow @SMBInfluencer on Twitter, as well as the hashtag #SMBInfluencer, to get the latest news on the awards.

2 Comments ▼

Ivana Taylor Ivana Taylor is the Book Editor for Small Business Trends. She is responsible for directing the site’s book review program and manages the team of professional book reviewers. She also spearheads the annual Small Business Book Awards. Ivana publishes DIYMarketers, where she shares daily do-it-yourself marketing tips, and is co-author of "Excel for Marketing Managers."

2 Reactions
  1. So it happens again. I am excited on who will make it this year. I am sure that it will be filled with lots of inspiration from successful people that you can learn from.

  2. This has become a fine SMB tradition! Will you participate in this nomination process?