Who will be the 1st batch of Push Awards winners?

ABS-CBN’s entertainment website PUSH.com.ph will recognize the best among the past year’s certified online sensations and entertainment industry’s newsmakers based on their online reach and influence, popular votes and excellence through the PUSH Awards.

Two of today’s hottest love teams KathNiel (Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla) and JaDine (James Reid and Nadine Lustre) are both nominated in four categories — Most Liked Group or Tandem for PUSHLike (Facebook), Favorite Group or Tandem for PUSHTweet (Twitter), Most Loved Group or Tandem for PUSHGram (Instagram) and Best Group or Tandem for PUSHPlay (YouTube).

Also competing against KathNiel and JaDine are LizQuen (Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil) in three categories, as well as the accidental love team AlDub, composed of Maine “Yaya Dub” Mendoza and Alden Richards in two categories.

Voting starts on Sep 14 online. Fans and netizens can visit PUSHAwards.com for all the categories under the PUSH Digital Media and Awesome Awards.

ABS-CBN chief digital officer Donald Lim said the PUSH Awards aim to showcase the stars who are doing very well in the digital space, whether they are TV personalities or not, as determined not only by their number of followers, but also their number of likes, subscribers and most especially, engagement with their audience.

“People in the entertainment industry use social media to amplify what they want to do, what they’re doing through an Internet platform. We’ve also seen a lot of Twitter, Instagram and YouTube superstars coming out on their own. Some of them don’t even need the traditional platforms,” he said.

“It’s a different kind of awards altogether. That’s the embodiment of PUSH; it wants to recognize Philippine entertainment talent. We want to honor those who use digital media best. We encourage people to level up, be more active in digital, regardless of any TV station. We want to be at par with entertainers around the world,” he added.

Categories include PUSHLike Most Liked Male Celebrity, Most Liked Female Celebrity, Most Liked Group or Tandem, Most Liked Music Artist and Most Liked Newcomer, as well as PUSHTweet Favorite Male Celebrity, Favorite Female Celebrity, Favorite Group or Tandem, Favorite Music Artist, and Favorite Newcomer based on Facebook and Twitter popularity.

Celebrities who connect with their fans via photos and videos on Instagram will also be honored in the PUSHGram Most Loved Male Celebrity, Most Loved Female Celebrity, Most Loved Group or Tandem, Most Loved Music Artist, and Most Loved Newcomer categories.

The best and most well-loved Internet video celebrities on YouTube, meanwhile, will be recognized with the PUSHPlay Best Male Celebrity, Best Female Celebrity, Best Group or Tandem, Best Music Artist and Best Newcomer awards.

The nominees with the highest number of public votes in each category will be declared the winners, who will be announced and awarded with a special trophy in a celebrity party event late this year.

Among this already prestigious group of digital media award winners, PUSH.com.ph, with the help of a distinguished panel of judges, will determine who will claim the Top PUSH Elite Awards of the year, namely the PUSH Male Celebrity of the Year, PUSH Female Celebrity of the Year, PUSH Group of Tandem of the Year, PUSH Music Artist of the Year, and PUSH Newcomer of the Year.

“The panel will be comprised of respected representatives from the worlds of the entertainment industry,” said ABS-CBN DMD’s digital content publishing head for entertainment Domi Espejo. “It will be composed of members from the entertainment press, the academe, advertising agencies, corporate world and digital media.”

Recognizing the power of fans in digital media, PUSH Awards will also give out the Ultimate Fan Award to a fandom that will publish the most number of posts on Twitter with special hashtags assigned to each of them. To join, simply use the hashtag #PushAwards, plus the name of the fans club one belongs to. For example, tweet #PushAwardsKathNiel.

Richard Reynante, head of the digital content publishing team of ABS-CBN’s Digital Media Division, said PUSH.com.ph enjoys the trust of its audience, as proven by the millions of page views it receives monthly.

“With that trust comes our credibility. With that credibility, we thought of coming up with this project, so we get to hear the voice of our audience, not just ours,” he said.

Aside from the Digital Media and Elite Awards, PUSH will also honor the most talked about and well-loved celebrities with the following awards: Awesome Celebrity Baby, Awesome Celebrity Family, Awesome Selfie King, Awesome Selfie Queen, Awesome OOTD (Outfit of the Day) King, Awesome OOTD Queen, Awesome Lip Sync Performer, Awesome LOL Performer, Awesome Dancer and Awesome Song Cover.

To see the initial set of nominees in the PUSH Awards 2015, visit PUSHAwards.com.