Brands use social media as a place to meet their audience, interact and potentially win their hearts. There are many different ways to achieve just that.
Sometimes it’s hard to come up with the next best campaign idea that will shake up your marketing strategy and impress your audience.
Together with the ReVerb creative team, I’ve researched hundreds of fascinating examples and have chosen the six best social media campaigns of all time.
Enjoy our insights!
Best Social Media Campaigns: Key Takeaways
Hopefully, these fantastic examples will inspire your next social media campaign.
1. Wendy’s Twitter Humor
In recent years, the Twitter account of the fast-food chain Wendy’s suddenly became super popular. This is due to the funny persona they created for interacting with customers, cracking jokes, and “beefing” with their competitors.
They even gave away a year of free chicken nuggets to a customer who asked how many retweets it would take and ended up getting recognition from verified clothing brands and airline companies.
Of course, it wasn’t necessarily the free nuggets that gave Wendy’s account the popularity it now has, but the genuine customer interaction, self-aware humor, and general light-heartedness of it all. Everyone loves seeing brand accounts act like people, and Wendy’s brilliantly used this strategy.
What you can take from this social media campaign:
Wendy’s chief marketing officer Kurt Kane once said, “The biggest thing we decided was to stop advertising to people and to start having a conversation with people.” And this is precisely what your takeaway from this example should be.
Creation of the humoristic posts is a highly effective approach to increase engagement on social media. But, this must be done keeping your target audience in mind. If you wish to target young teens, millennials, or the “tech-savvy” crowd, then this may be the approach for you.
Try to be light-hearted, cheerful, and respond fast, and you are good to go. If your target audience is older or consists of more serious professionals, then one of our other chosen successful social media campaigns may have better results.
2. Apple: Project Shot on iPhone
This is a currently ongoing social media campaign and is one of our favorites on this list. Apple realized how to get free promotion and exposure on a regular basis in a passive way. This was the idea behind the Shot on iPhone campaign, a unique user-generated project on Instagram.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, user-generated content (UGC) is content related to your brand that is produced and posted by people who aren’t your business representatives. Particularly, these are users who indirectly promote your brand with their photos, videos, and articles. You can then get in touch with them and ask to use their materials for your social media, or launch a special project inviting everyone to contribute. This is exactly how one of the best social media campaigns was born.
Apple utilizes the UGC technique by asking users to add the exclusive hashtag #shotoniphone to their photos taken on iPhones. They publish the most fascinating shots on their official profile. Currently, this hashtag has over 18 million posts, which is tons of brand exposure that Apple hasn’t directly paid for.
What you can take from this social media campaign:
User-generated content is an integral part of many marketing strategies. Not only is UGC practically free exposure, but it is also a great way to interact with your target audience. You will have content, your customers will feel seen and appreciated, and all of this with minimal effort.
Each customer that posts content promoting your brand means your products and services are distributed to a hundred of their friends. This adds up to a very large audience in the end. So, ask your followers to tag you in the images and videos posted featuring your products and use a specific hashtag.
You can also further encourage them by entering them in a giveaway draw or posting the most creative posts on your Instagram or Facebook stories. If you don’t sell products, promote a hashtag focusing on one of your fundamental brand values, which is what our next example does.
3. Dove: Project #ShowUs
Since we are already on the topic of user-generated content and social media, here is another example we consider to be one of the best social media campaigns ever.
Natural beauty, inclusivity, and positive body image have been values that are always front and center of social media campaigns from the hygiene and care brand Dove. Their latest is called Project #ShowUs.
Recently, Dove, along with Girlgaze and Getty Images, asked their female customers to help. This campaign became an exceptional social media example with thousands of women submitting their pictures. Once again, this is proof of the power UGC has.
What you can take from this social media campaign:
Company values are the most important part of your brand. That’s what people need to see and know about your brand name. If you use your social media campaigns to do just that, your audience will be easy to capture and convert to leads.
Dove did that by showing that it cares about how beautiful the women in its audience feel.
The company wanted to boost every woman’s confidence that would come across their #ShowUs campaign.
Of course, this won’t work with another company as the audience will be different from what Dove has. So if you are going to start a new campaign, always research your buyer personas before launching it.
4. Spotify #Wrapped
If you are even a casual scroller of social media, you will surely have noticed the #SpotifyWrapped hashtag trending routinely every year, with similar colorful graphics on everyone’s stories. Spotify shares year-end data with their users every December, composed of their most-listened-to albums, artists, and songs in a bright and colorful Wrapped summary.
These fun and personalized summaries are made to be screenshotted easily and shared on users’ social media platforms. Each December, this hashtag is trending on Twitter as people wait to see what artists they loved this year. It’s a great way to get brand exposure while keeping the people in anticipation.
What you can take from this social media campaign:
The key takeaway from the Spotify example is that you shouldn’t always scrap a successful strategy. You can reuse it over time, making slight changes and tweaks to keep it fresh and interesting. “Sticking” your campaign to an event that happens on a regular basis means your target audience will always look forward to it.
5. Casper: Spotify Sleep Channel
Another one of our best social media campaign examples is from the mattress store Casper. They have created an audio playlist designed to help their customers sleep better. These hour-long podcasts are perfect for a dive into a deep slumber.
What makes their campaign so unique is that the playlist isn’t just on YouTube and Instagram, but also the streaming platform Spotify.
What your brand should learn from this social media campaign:
The brand Casper producing mattresses has found a great way to stand out and be creative while maintaining their brand image. Many businesses are trying to showcase their message on social media.
But, Casper may actually be the only brand that has created original content for a music streaming platform specifically. It was unexpected coming from a mattress company, but quickly became a campaign loved by many So always look for ways to do things differently and stand out.
Is there a platform that your competitors aren’t really using? Try a strategy from one of the best social media campaign examples and see what happens!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DvlgV3DUUs&list=PLXINXk3YC_heMWSAnmYd9rQc5oAveSaqP&ab_channel=Casper
6. Starbucks #ExtraShotOfPride Campaign
You’re probably familiar with various interesting social media campaigns that Starbucks rolls out every now and then.
In 2019, their #Pride was trending as part of the #ExtraShotOfPride campaign.
What was the idea behind it?
The campaign was designed to support the LGBTQ community during the Pride Month they invented. They posted bright images of the community members and shared their stories on Facebook and Instagram.
What you can take from this social media campaign:
The best social media campaigns aren’t always standalone. Starbucks took advantage of the current trend towards the Pride Month celebration. They basically “hopped on the train” of an already popular topic. Everyone was already talking and posting about this, so the content easily reached their desired audience.
The tip – Use a popular and trending hashtag devoted to some special occasion or hot topic to get the desired visibility and engagement of your social media marketing campaigns.
Conclusion
This was just a small list of brands doing great things on social media, but hopefully, this has inspired and motivated you. The charm of social media marketing is that it’s accessible to any and all businesses.
Take note of how these brands and companies use social media for marketing themselves and use these examples as inspiration for your future campaigns. The creative ReVerb team will be happy to help you implement the boldest social media campaign ideas!
