Running a social media campaign that stands out takes hefty doses of creativity, patience, research, and knowing a good idea when you see one. The social waters are getting deeper, wider, and more crowded every year. This makes it hard for brands to create content that gets noticed and achieves its purpose.
Use this list to spark your social media marketing strategy and start creating campaigns that work.
Table of Contents
Let’s start with a definition. What is a social media campaign, anyway?
It’s a lot like any type of marketing campaign: a planned series of events over a specific period designed to achieve a certain outcome that can be tracked and measured.
Unlike marketing campaigns that can apply to any number or variety of channels, social media marketing campaigns are specific to social media. Effective social media marketing considers each platform’s unique audience, features, and functions and builds the campaign around them.
Social media campaigns are a slice of a larger social media content marketing strategy. You use content to increase SEO, attract leads, promote products and services, and market your business.
A social media campaign is a granular content marketing tool designed to achieve a specific goal. Instead of creating just any content, your content should directly relate to the campaign. It’s more specific and focused, especially when you consider all the different layers of social media that must be considered.
Every social media marketing campaign begins with a purpose. For example, you might join a new social network and run a brand awareness campaign to increase your follower count. Or you might be launching a new product and want to run a social media campaign to raise awareness or sales. Use these goals to develop social media content ideas to help you reach your objectives.
learn more : Mistakes Social Media Campaigns : The Ultimate Guide to Avoiding Disaster.
From there, marketers will generate social media post ideas to spread the word and achieve their goals. These might include custom images with the brand’s logo, quotes from a company leader, facts or stats from recent research, or intrigue-inducing ad copy. Artificial intelligence tools, like HubSpot’s AI campaign assistant, can even generate all of this for you.
After creating content for social media, you’ll decide where and when to post it. Which platforms will you post on? What time will you post content? How long will you post content around this specific goal or topic?
Last but not least, you should plan to track your social media posts using a social media monitoring tool like Meltwater. See how users engage with and respond to each post. Compare engagement metrics to specific actions, such as purchases, audience growth, or media mentions, to see whether you achieved your campaign goals.
The benefits of social media campaigns cannot be overstated. They help brands to align with innovation and creativity. Doing well can lead to tons of user-generated content that will help even more people enjoy your content.
Inspiring your social media content strategy is as easy as looking at what other successful brands are doing. You never know where your next social media content ideas will come from.
Here are some of our favorite social media campaign examples from 2024 and what you can learn from them:
1. Burger King’s campaign “You are the greatest”
Burger King’s “You Rule” CampaignBurger King’s catchy “Whopper, Whopper” jingles have dominated most of 2024, even giving Burger King the number one share of voice for restaurants in NFL-related conversations. Its overarching theme on social media this year has been “You Rule,” focusing on the customers who made the jingle go viral in the first place.
Throughout the year, Burger King’s social media creatives have run with this theme in the brand’s content, with captions like “It’s Crowning Szn” for a homecoming post and a collection of user-generated content with the caption “y’all out here ruling spooky season.”
These are great examples of how brands can tie in a key theme or message across posts to maintain brand unity.
2. Dove’s detox campaign for your diet
Dove’s Detox Your Feed CampaignDove has long been synonymous with social responsibility. From their groundbreaking Campaign for Real Beauty to their commitment to promoting positive body image, Dove has consistently pushed the boundaries of being a responsible brand.
Its recent campaign, #DetoxYourFeed, continues this tradition, focusing on helping parents set the tone for their children on social media.
In this campaign, Dove invited mother-daughter pairs to view social content and its impact. One clip showed a mother speaking out in favor of questionable practices like Botox for babies.
The brand also used deep-fake technology to show how powerfully convincing social media can be. The campaign encouraged parents and their children to unfollow toxic influencers, build healthy social media habits, and recognize bad beauty advice.
Are you interested in more Dove campaigns? Learn how Dove raises the bar with its #ArmsUp campaign.
3. Cadbury Worldwide Hide and Seek
Cadbury Worldwide Hide EventBeloved chocolate brand Cadbury always brings out creativity at Easter time, and 2024 was no different. This time, the brand partnered with Google Maps to create one of the largest egg hunts ever. Egg hunters could hide digital eggs worldwide and mark their locations on Google Maps.
4. Casper’s 10 days of fancy dress
Casper’s 10 Days of CostumesMattress brand Casper took a fun approach to showcase its products by dressing up its iconic mattress-in-a-box in unique Halloween costumes.
This campaign brings awareness to Casper’s packaging, a big part of its visual brand identity. It also invites fun onto its social media pages without the sales pitch.
5. Amazon’s Wonderful Mile
Amazon’s Marvelous MileThe top social media campaigns of 2024 don’t always start on social media — rather, it’s a destination. This is the case for Amazon’s hit show, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” as the streaming platform paid homage to its final season.
The pop-up event in New York featured a flashy pink car and a mile-long pink carpet stretching for ten blocks along Fifth Avenue. Along the way, visitors could engage with interactive stops and photo ops, all filled with themes of the ’50s and ’60s.
The event also spawned the Pink Shoe Laces Challenge, or #PSLChallenge (no pumpkin spice lattes here), which earned over 50 million views on Instagram and TikTok.
See also: Principles of Successful Social Media Challenges
6. Nike’s No Pride, No Sport campaign
Nike’s No Pride, No Sport Campaign June is the official Pride Month each year, but socially forward brands like Nike know that pride isn’t something that lasts only for a season. That’s why it introduced the Pride for Life campaign, focusing on LGBT athletes.
The campaign launched with two 60-second films showcasing real stories from the LGBT market segment, including athletes and pride-friendly fitness centers. It provides an excellent follow-up to the previously launched “Be True” collection.
7. Pepsi’s new visual identity
Pepsi’s New Visual IdentityY2K nostalgia is in full force, and Pepsi took to social media to showcase its reinvented visual identity. Post-pandemic, the brand is refreshing its image, harkening back to its roots in the music industry and trading flat icons for bolder, more dynamic visuals. And it’s giving its fans a heads-up on social media.
The video announcement has since racked up more than 203K views on YouTube. The full brand rollout will come in the fall of 2024, and more upgraded brand content is coming.
8. McDonald’s “Lift your vault” campaign
McDonald’s Raise Your Arches CampaignMcDonald’s is well recognized for its pair of golden arches, and the brand leveraged this claim to fame in its Raise Your Arches campaign. The campaign was designed to mirror customers’ excitement when thinking about grabbing a Big Mac for lunch or treating themselves to a McFlurry.
A quick raise of the eyebrows when McDonald’s comes to mind is a simple yet powerful gesture. The campaign earned over 1,000 Instagram posts and over 5 million views on TikTok of customers “raising their arches” as a show of solidarity in their affinity for McDonald’s.
learn more: The complete guide to social media campaigns.
9. Duolingo’s Adoption Centre
Duolingo’s Adoption Center Netflix nearly broke the internet when it announced it ended password sharing. So, Duolingo’s language company decided to take its narrative in another direction with its Adoption Center campaign. For family subscriptions with unused slots, the brand notified customers that they could “adopt” users outside the family to fill those seats.
Not only did the campaign resonate with customers at a time when many thought other brands would follow in Netflix’s footsteps, but it also raised awareness about Netflix’s family subscriptions.
10. Uber Eats’s Iftar coming up
Uber Eats’s Iftar IncomingUber Eats used social media to show its commitment to diversity and inclusion by tying its campaign to the Muslim holiday Ramadan. During this fasting period, Muslims break their fast at sunset — a meal called Iftar.
To cater to its Muslim customers during this time, Uber Eats developed a series of posts, each featuring an image of a tasty dish and the time of the sunset for each day.
No matter your campaign, posting the content isn’t the end goal. Once your campaign goes live, use brand tracking software to monitor and measure its impact so you can see how you’re making a difference.
These social media campaign examples are just the tip of the iceberg. How will you use them to inspire your social marketing strategy? To help develop your next campaign and make the most of your social media marketing, contact Meltwater today.
FAQ – Top Social Media Campaigns
What are social media campaigns?
Social media campaigns are coordinated marketing efforts that use social media platforms to promote a specific message, product, or service. They often include a series of strategic actions that pursue a specific goal, such as increasing brand awareness, driving traffic to the website, or increasing sales.
How can I measure the success of my social media campaign?
Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares), reach (the number of people who see your content), conversions (the number of users who take a desired action, such as making a purchase) and return on investment (ROI) can help you determine the success of your social media campaign. By tracking these metrics, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign and make data-driven decisions to optimize performance.
What makes a successful social media campaign?
A successful social media campaign resonates with the target audience, drives engagement, and achieves the goals set by the brand or organization. It is characterized by compelling content, strategic targeting, consistent branding, and measurable results.
How do I choose the right social media platforms for my campaign?
When selecting social media platforms for your campaign, consider the demographics of your target audience, preferred content formats, and your marketing objectives. Each platform has its unique features and target audiences. Therefore, you must choose the platforms that best suit your campaign objectives.
What are the most common mistakes to avoid with social media campaigns?
Common mistakes to avoid with social media campaigns include inconsistent branding, inadequate targeting, ignoring analytics data, and a lack of interaction with your followers. You must have a clear strategy and continuously monitor and optimize your campaign based on performance data.
How can I create compelling content for my social media campaign?
To create compelling content for your social media campaign, you should consider the interests and needs of your target audience. Use engaging visual elements such as videos, images, and infographics, and make sure your content is relevant, valuable, and in line with your brand language and messaging.
How important is influencer marketing in social media campaigns?
Influencer marketing can be an effective strategy for social media campaigns because it allows you to utilize the existing audience and influence of influencers to promote your brand or products. Influencers can help you reach a wider audience and build credibility with their followers, leading to more engagement and brand awareness.
How should I allocate the budget for my social media campaign?
When allocating the budget for your social media campaign, you should consider your objectives and the resources required to achieve them. Allocate the budget for paid advertising, content creation, influencer partnerships, analytics tools, and other resources required to run a successful campaign. Regularly monitor your budget allocation and adjust it based on your campaign’s performance.
To summarise, this article’s Top Social Media Campaigns have demonstrated the power of creativity and strategic planning when engaging audiences and driving results. These campaigns have set new benchmarks for social media marketing success, from viral challenges to interactive storytelling. By studying and learning from these examples, organizations can gain valuable insight into effectively using social media platforms to connect with their target audience and achieve their marketing objectives. As the social media landscape evolves, it’s important to stay innovative and adaptable to create impactful campaigns that resonate with consumers. Take inspiration from these successful campaigns and develop your compelling social media strategy today!
