I’m pleased to report that on Monday, March 26th, 2012, Research In Motion® (RIM®) won the 2012 Shorty Industry Award for Best Use of Social Media for Customer Service!

This is the second year in a row that RIM has won a Shorty Award for Customer Service, but what makes this year so special is that they expanded the Shorty Awards to honor all of the best short-form content published across social media, beyond just what we publish on Twitter®. In addition, they included the Customer Service category in the Shorty Industry Awards which, unlike the general interest Shorty Awards, are exclusive to the professional industry community. While the general Shorty Awards are subject to public voting, the Shorty Industry Awards are reviewed by a prestigious panel of expert and celebrity judges.

Our winning entry highlights the global expansion of the social support programs at RIM, and specifically calls attention to the successes of @BlackBerryHelp, @AyudaBlackBerry, @BlackBerryBantu and the global BlackBerry Support Community.

I want to congratulate everyone on the Social Support team for their continuous hard work, without which we wouldn’t have the honor of calling ourselves winners two years in a row! Hats off to #TeamBlackBerry!