10 Social Marketing

Campaigns You Wish

You Came Up With

Social media has become ‘the’ outlet for brands big and small to

connect with customers and build brand awareness. The social

marketing campaigns that have used social media successfully aren’t

just boosting their numbers, they are establishing a bond with

consumers.

Want to find out how to create campaigns that will spread like wildfire and make

your customers forget about your competitors?

Here are the top 10 campaigns that have managed to strike

it big on social media

1. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Most people wouldn't know very much about ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) or the struggles of those who suffer from it, if it weren’t for the head-numbing ice bucket challenge launched in 2014 by the ALS Association.

Its social media campaign not only spread awareness – it led to $41 million in donations to fund research.

Today, scientists are one step closer to finding a cure thanks to all

the money raised from #icebucketchallenge. A specific gene, which

is known to contribute to the development of the disease, has

been discovered, giving researchers a target for drug development.

2. The Dollar Shave Club YouTube Campaign

Science shows that when people feel good, their first impulse is to share. The marketers for the Dollar Shave Club have created a hysterically funny video campaign on YouTube. It makes people smile, and has gotten a lot of social media attention. It is impossible not to crack up watching their videos.

The original one, created with

Dollar Shave Club CEO, Mike, has

gotten over 24 million views.

It also launched this start-up to stardom and won the company

serious attention, including a feature interview on CNBC.

3. DHL – The Trojan Mailing Campaign

DHL came up with a mischievous, and pretty hilarious idea to

market its messaging

service – getting their

competitors to market

for them.

They used thermal activated tape to hide their brand, froze the packages, and then hired competing delivery companies to deliver their packaging – and their branding.

10 points for creative genius. The campaign has garnered more than 41 thousand Facebook shares.

4. Airtasker’s Like a Boss Campaign

Aussie services marketplace company, Airtasker, won over their audience – and their audience’s friends and followers, with the brand’s Like a Boss video campaign. The videos, featuring an

Asian grandmother, an over-tasked new mum, and a man cave aficionado dancing with their Airtasker helpers, are priceless.

Colin Jowell of UDKU, the agency that came up with the videos,

explained part of their winning production process,

“We ... sense checked it with a good old fashioned animatic test

– and people actually laughed out loud at the animation.”

5. Honey Bunches of Oats 50 Million Smiles

Who doesn’t love a brand that gives us all a reason to smile?

Honey Bunches of Oats got

a lot of love for their 50

Million Smiles and Counting

campaign through Facebook

and Instagram. They added 162,000 fans from the campaign!

The brand did an excellent job spreading the word about their cereal, while also making a great loyalty-building marketing move by making the campaign into a contest. They offered a chance to win an all-expenses paid holiday for everyone who posted a quote, photo or video testimonial about something that made them smile.

Contests are great for strengthening customer relationships and keeping people

talking and sharing!

6. Tourism Queensland – Best Job in the World Campaign

This marketing campaign went viral on the day it was launched, bringing in so many site visitors, the company’s site crashed! It was a brilliant way to promote tourism to tropical Queensland on a small budget.

Tourism Queensland called for short video uploads to serve as job applicants to get the best job in the world – living and working as the caretaker on Hamilton Island of the Great Barrier Reef for six months.

The campaign was a predecessor to today’s social media big hits, launched back in 2009.

News of the campaign was spread through 60 youth travel operators to get applicants going.

In the end it resulted in:

● 34,000 video applicants

● 230,000 blog posts

● 46,000 mainstream media reports

● 6.8 unique monthly visitors to the site

● 54 million page views

● A BBC documentary

● Countless people dreaming of what it would be like to live on

an island off the Queensland coast

7. Mondelez’s Real Life Sour Patch Kid Campaign

lovers to snap photos of their favourite candy bars and to modify them with the platform’s drawing tools. Their best campaign, however, was the first, which was launched in 2014.

Candy manufacturer Mondelez is a fan of using Snapchat,

which appeals to their younger customer base, for their social

media marketing. They recently

launched a contest getting candy

They asked social media royal Logan Paul to take over their account

for a week so he could document his weekly pranks using a life-sized

sour patch kid. They gained 120,000 new followers and 6.8 million

impressions thanks to this masterful melding of influencer and

social media marketing.

8. Lowe’s Fix in Six Campaign

This Vine campaign by American home improvement

company, Lowe’s, is wonderfully clever. The brand uses short, clay animation videos to offer home and gardening tips.

They clips are fun to watch, perfectly short, and helpful, making them ideal for social sharing

9. Bonds – The Boys Campaign

Bonds does a superb job of holding

their audience’s attention with The

Boys videos posted to YouTube. The

videos are humorous,

boundary-pushing, and they help

position their briefs as the most

comfortable on the planet.

10. LG – Ticket Hunter

LG used Twitter to engage its target audience, 16-24 year-olds, by creating an interactive treasure hunt, #lgtickethunter. The first person to find each LG stall won two tickets to a music concert. The challenge was a huge success, garnering 50,000 tweets.

The brand also quadrupled their smartphone sales amongst this age group in the weeks right after the campaign ended.

This was a great example of creating something to motivate buyers by using the right actions, tone, and incentive.

With social media, the more creative you can be with your campaigns, the more interested your audience will be. These are excellent examples of smart usage of social networking sites, yet you’ll notice an important trend – there is no magic formula.

The way to succeed is to come up with a tailored strategy that fits your

brand and that your buyers will enjoy.

Want to learn more about getting the word out there about your

brand? Download our guide, “Building Brand Awareness: The Ultimate

Guide for 2017.”