VIDEO: Twitter teen a finalist in social media awards

A teenager from Horsham has become a finalist in an awards competition that honours the best in social media.

Jack Edwards, who has over 14,800 followers on Twitter, is up for the title of ‘Best in Social Media from the UK’ in the Shorty Awards.

The Forest pupil said: “In my eyes I’m just an average, boring 14 year old boy and so the fact that people actually want to read the things I write still blows my mind!

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“It’s the last thing I expected when I activated my account just last year, but it’s really made all of the time I’ve spent worth something.”

Jack, from Winterbourne, Horsham, is up for the UK award against five others including boyband One Direction after beating other boyband The Wanted to reach the finals.

He added: “I think my friends think it’s cool but weird that I’m out there with these big names and I’m doing incredibly well for someone who’s not actually famous.”

Jack, who also has a few famous followers on Twitter including Little Mixand James Arthur, now hopes to win the competition.

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“I think I probably stand out a bit as most of my tweets are original,” he continued.

“Twitter at the moment is full of the same old tweets which just gets boring after a while.

“I would say that people my age can probably relate to what I write and a huge number of Twitter users are teenagers.”

If the tweeting teen were to win, he will receive a glass trophy and have to film an acceptance speech in 140 words which would be shown at the awards evening in New York in April.

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Proud mum Tracey is pleased with how far Jack has come, but has her reservations. She said: “I’m very proud, it’s something he’s really interested in and it just shows how funny and quick witted he is.

“He studies media, is very academic and gets all his work done but I am very worried about him putting himself out there.”

Jack describes his posts as ‘comedic’ based on his opinions and advises people who want to become popular on Twitter to ‘be yourself’.

“Be original, be funny, be relatable and don’t take yourself too seriously,” he continued.

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“I’d also just like to say thank you all for putting up with me and to everyone who has voted and followed me on Twitter. It really means a lot and I feel incredibly lucky.”

For more information visit www.shortyawards.com and you can follow Jack on Twitter @jackbenedwards.