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The Post‘s Managing Editor of Digital, James Martin, said the awards come at a time great upheaval in the media industry: “In the past 12-months we have made a series of changes that make the entire National Post brand more resilient and better placed to thrive in a very challenging media environment.

“The successful publishers of the future will not necessarily always be the biggest, but our unprecedented digital audience growth is obviously hugely encouraging.”

The Post, which won gold in 2011 for its social media initiatives, took home silver in the same category for its overall efforts in social media. Other nominees were CBC News, the Edmonton Journal, Global News, La Presse, and The Grid.

The gold-winning Gastropost brings Toronto’s food lovers together on weekly “food missions” that members document and share on gastropost.com and through Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Many of the completed missions are then published in a two-page spread in each Saturday’s Toronto edition of National Post.

“We’re thrilled, and this really belongs to the members of Gastropost — these are people who really do love food, and love to share their food experiences. Our best ideas and inspiration always come right from our members,” Duncan Clark, Vice President of Postmedia Strategic Initiatives, said.

The National Post‘s social media presence includes dozens of Twitter accounts, eight Facebook pages, four Tumblr sites, two Google+ accounts, and a rapidly growing Pinterest board and an Instagram account.

“This validates all the efforts we’ve had over the past year, with Gastropost and expanding our social media efforts,” added Sheldon Sawchuk, National Post Director, Digital Products.

The National Post was also nominated for Best Website Design at the COPAs.

The award ceremony took place at The Hoxton along Toronto’s King West strip and was hosted by App Central’s Amber MacArthur. With most acceptance speeches completed in two sentences or less, MacArthur joked she was not used to such brevity from spending so much time working with television media.