Golden Post Awards

Rules & Eligibility for 2024

Entry Deadline

Your entry must be submitted by the deadline of Wednesday, January 31, 2024 (extended entry deadline of Monday, February 5, 2024 by 11:59pm pacific time.

Eligibility

You may only nominate your own agency. If you want to recognize another agency, please reach out to them and encourage them to submit an entry.

Eligible to Enter

Eligible government agencies include the following agencies within the United States (and any departments, agencies, boards, commissions and elected officials thereof)

• City, town, township, municipality, borough, county, parish, tribal
• State
• Federal agencies & military 
• Special districts (such as water, airport authority, sanitation, visitor’s bureau, utility services owned by a government agency)
• Economic Development Corporation
• Library: City, county, state or federal
• Courts: Municipal, county, state or federal
• Public safety: Local/state

Ineligible to Enter

• Academic institutions, including school districts 
• Agencies outside of the United States or its territories 
• Any Golden Post Award program affiliate (award committee members and GSM council members) is ineligible to enter the competition – and may not advise any specific nominees on how to craft their entry – during their time of service.
• An agency that an affiliate represents is allowed to enter into the competition only if the entry did not have any involvement with the affiliate (including advising, developing the creative for social media, publishing, etc). This exception exists so as not to disqualify large agencies, such as state agencies and large federal agencies, that would have no relationship with or potentially even knowledge that one of their employees serves as an affiliate.  
• Judges may submit an entry in any category other than the categories they are assigned to judge. An agency may not submit an entry in a category if a judge represents that agency in that specific category. Any judge who has a conflict of interest with any entries in categories they are assigned to judge must inform the Awards committee co-chairs and recuse themselves from reviewing that entry.

Entry Requirements

3 Entry Limit
Agencies may only enter a maximum of THREE entries, and no more than ONE in any category.  

• Individual state departments representing the same state (such as a DOT and a DNR), can participate separately and don’t count toward each other’s 3-entry limit, provided that the office managing the social media presence (such as communications or marketing), or video, depending on category entered, differs.
• Police, Sheriff, Fire and Emergency entities can participate separately from their city, county or state entity, and don’t count toward each other’s 3-entry limit, provided that the office managing the social media presence (such as communications or marketing), or video, depending on category entered, differs.
• Federal, state, county and local entities with various satellite locations or branches of the same entity are considered the same entity for the purposes of calculating the 3-entry limit.

Eligible Dates

Only eligible social media activities that have occurred between January 2023 through January 2024 will be eligible for the 2024 competition. For the Video and Emergency categories, videos or emergencies already entered in 2023 are ineligible to be entered into the 2024 competition.

Judging Process

Golden Post Award judges include social media thought leaders and industry experts from all over the United States. Entries will be thoroughly reviewed and considered based on several aspects such as goals, strategy, tactics, results, engagement, customer service, inclusivity and overall creativity. 

We reserve the right to reassign categories deemed incorrectly entered, and we also reserve the right to pull/cancel any category due to receiving a lack of entries. We are committed to selecting finalists and winners reflective of the spirit of the awards, therefore lack of competition in any category will not guarantee an award. 

Finalists

Finalists in each category will be named in April 2024. Our goal is to name the top 5 finalists in each category, but some categories may have fewer finalists depending on the judging and scoring process. All finalists will receive a certificate.

Prizes and Award Ceremony 

Just like the Oscars, one overall winner in each category will be announced during the GSMCON2024 event. There are no “places” in the competition, only one overall winner in each category. Category winners will receive an engraved trophy, and all finalists will receive a certificate. 

The Golden Post Awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, at the Westin Rancho Mirage Golf Resort & Spa in Palm Springs, CA.

Only registered GSMCON2024 attendees will be able to participate in the ceremony, so we encourage you to register for attendance if you are selected as a finalist! Registration for a virtual ticket also allows entry to watch the livestreamed award ceremony for those not attending the conference in person.  

Finalists and winners are not required to attend the award ceremony. If winners are not in attendance, they will be notified by email and their trophy will be mailed to their agency. Finalists not in attendance will be mailed their certificates.

Nominees, finalists and winners do not receive discounted GSMCON registration.