The most successful social media campaigns

If you are working with a regular social media schedule (posting, advertising, making analysis), you know that you will achieve success. However, sometimes people want to jump to a higher place and get away from usual scheme, and to do that they start their social media campaigns.

You shouldn`t confuse social media campaigns and social media marketing strategies. Campaign always have time limits with the defined start and end period. Social media campaign always have goals that you set before the start and a strong budget that you can spend on advertising, cooperating or something else that you need for your campaign.

Sometimes, people just don`t understand how to start their social media campaign and what to do when it starts. To help them we`ve collected seven examples of the most successful social media campaigns that helped their creators to increase leads, sales and the number of regular clients.

1. Wealthsimple`s #InvestingForHumans

If you don`t know anything about words “fintech” or “robo-advisors”, it`s ok.

Wealthsimple is a fintech and robo-advisor based in Toronto, Canada. They don`t want to impress people by calling themselves robo-advisors – they just use a down-to-earth approach when pitching their money products. They are working with 29-year-old millennials and it`s good for them.

Wealthsimple become renowned because of its unusual style of their advertising campaigns for a financial firm. However, right know we are interested it their #InvestingForHumans social media campaign.

While running that campaign, they used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. What did they do? They interviewed hundreds of “real” people about their money problems. They used an award-winning filmmaker to give people their most honest stories. They also used a backdrop of branded, plain-color walls that make a social media feed look like it was purposefully designed. After that, they disseminated those interviews across the web and on TV.

Filmmaker captured people`s emotions so the videos had a better impact on the audience.

As a result, Wealthsimple has 1, 851, 028 views on their video on YouTube (just on one video). They also had thousands of additional views on Instagram.

The key takeaways they used:

• Language that your target market can understand
• You don`t sell a product. You just need to sell an idea tied to your product.
• Pay for ads to share video that you`ve just made.
• Use more than one social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram).

2. Bombass`s viral Facebook video

First of all, you should know a few things about Bombass. It`s a sock company that donates one pair for every purchase. They got their start from the Indiegogo campaign.  They following year, they were on Shank Tank. Today, they are posting viral videos on Facebook.

One the key points of their success is cooperating with famous Hollywood actors like Zack Efron, who appeared in one of their latest videos.

3. Burger King`s take on net neutrality

We know that Burger King could just tell you how delicious their double Whooper is, and you will buy it. However, they choose another way – they sent a political message.

Net neutrality was released in the USA in late 2017. After that, in early 2018, company took it upon themselves to demonstrate what their brand is about: equally for all. To show how that relates to the net neutrality, they shared a viral video on social media to explain the connection. Watch it, and you will understand everything.

Such move is a good example of capitalizing on a specific, historical event to catch customers` attention.

4. Girl Scouts sell cookies on Facebook

Notice that Girl Scout cookies were in high demand for many years? However, you still can`t buy their cookies online. Why? Do you believe that this organization couldn`t let itself to create such service? Well, maybe not. Scarcity in marketing is a very old technique to increase sales conversions. And Girl Scouts show us a great example of such practice.

First of all, they launched an application to help people find cookies. This app was nominated for a Shorty award under the mobile “campaign category”. They advertised in on their Twitter account, dedicated only to cookies.

Also, we should mention that now they are able to sell cookies from their parents` social media accounts. We`ve checked how they perform this scheme and… it works!

5. McDonalds` “Bling Mac” social media contest giveaway

Well, everyone knows about Big Mac. That giant, tasty burger with three buns, a lot of salad, sauce and a huge cutlet. However, did you hear about “Bling Mac”?

If you love Big Macs, you could have won an 18-karat “real” piece of jewelry made in the visage of a hamburger. The task is easy – you had to tweet a Valentine`s love “wow” to McDonalds and add the hashtag #BlingMacContest.

We don`t know what will become of creation`s value over time. However, you have to admit that its outrageousness was certainly attention-grabbing. And, we should say that it was a very smart move of turning a giveaway contest into a social media campaign in order to sell more burgers.

6. iHeartDogs: 0% off

iHeartDogs is company that was built on social good. Every time when people buy their products, they donate meals to the dog shelters. Very smart move, right?

Aside from dog treats and collars, company also sells dog paraphernalia like T-shorts and bracelets. However, it`s not only an e-commerce platform – it`s a dog lifestyle website.

Now, we want to talk about their social media campaign. How did they get ideas for it? First of all, they had dog love, and it`s the most important part.

The only platform they used was Facebook. They ran ads telling Facebook followers that they were giving them nothing for buying their products. However, it didn`t stop the company from quadrupling sales.

Instead of giving discounts for customers, campaign promised to double donations to from purchases made over the weekend (from Black Friday to Giving Tuesday).

The target of the campaign was to give 100 000 meals to dogs in need – and they`ve doubled it! Here are the results of their campaign:

• Quadrupled sales between Black Friday and Giving Tuesday
• 200 000 donated meals instead of 100 000
• 500 000 people reached on Facebook alone

Their key takeaways:

• Follow the plan and take all advantages of the holidays
• Set goals and measure results
• Make it easy for customers to make purchases from social media posts
• Build social good into your social media campaigns to draw attention