Cool FM Presenter Named Social Media Personality of the Year

Cool FM’s Stuart Robinson was named ‘Social Media Personality of the Year’ at the Northern Ireland Social Media Awards at the weekend.

The glitzy ceremony was held at the Europa Hotel in Belfast and recognises freelancers, individuals, teams, agencies and businesses delivering social media excellence across Northern Ireland.

The Cool Saturday Show rose to the top of social media timelines during the COVID-19 pandemic to front Cool FM’s rolling social media coverage of the pandemic.

For almost two years Cool FM became the authority in Northern Ireland utilising facebook live, Instagram and other social media to reach audiences other broadcasters simply could not.

Stuart explained that he had no idea at the time the content would reach such large audiences, nor would it go on so long; “We took the decision at the very start of the pandemic to provide extra content for our audiences at what was a worrying and confusing time for many, very quickly we started getting large audiences tuning in for the content and it wasn’t long before we had become the ‘go to’ place for the latest information on the pandemic and the restrictions”.

“When it became clear that COVID was going to be around for a while, we had to diversify how we delivered the content by moving our entire video production suite into my front living room – this enabled me to go live instantly at anytime of day or night as new information became available and get ahead of our competition”.

The live daily 3pm COVID briefings from Stormont was co-hosted by Cool FM’s Chief Reporter Sasha Wylie and reached mass audiences in NI – with some live streams being watched by up to 30,000 people at any one time and some videos reaching in the upwards of a quarter of a million viewers.

Stuart’s new social media notoriety placed him top of the list for NI’s leaders to relay important public health information to a younger demographic during COVID - indeed First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill became regulars on Cool FM, interacting directly with Stuart’s audience on the important COVID news of the day while often showing a much more relaxed side of their personalities.

Along with Stuart’s award, Cool FM also picked up the award for ‘Best Use of Facebook’ recognising how the station utilises the platform to showcase and promote the Cash Call completion.