2014 seems to have brought a whole new wave of creative social media campaigns. Some of these social media campaigns have really stood out and inspired me to think up new ideas for my own clients at YOMA.
Social media campaigns isn’t a case of hitting a start button and letting it run its course. Social media campaigns take a lot of management including reporting, engaging with your audience, design work and more. Here are 6 of the best social media campaigns I have seen in 2014 so far…
Top Social Media Campaigns: Facebook
Facebook can be a tough social media channel to crack but after a lot of thought and creative thinking, it can be done. The following businesses have done just that and are more than likely reaping the rewards.
Biltwell Inc.
Bitwell Inc. created a campaign on Facebook to encourage audience engagement and build a social media community. The idea of the campaign was to encourage fans to send in their best motorcycle helmet artwork which will then be featured on the Biltwell Inc. Facebook page for all to see. This is an ongoing social media campaign and so by having something like this, you will not see a drop in fans as you might do with a competition. Also you will be generating fans who are within your target audience profile rather than just competition seekers for example.
National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel created a Facebook competition as their campaign to generate audience engagement and new fans. The competition was very simple and the prize was incredible which is why it was such a success. The competition prize was to have their photo on a National Geographic magazine plus two tickets to travel! To enter the competition, someone simply had to upload their photo to the National Geographic Channel Facebook page and add a caption… that is it. With having this type of competition where fans send in photos of themselves, you will be encouraging entries from your target audience profile rather than just competition seekers. 
Top Social Media Campaigns: Twitter
How amazing would it be to have your hashtag go viral? That really would be something wouldn’t it. It seems impossible but it really isn’t. Often the daftest things ends up going viral so don’t take things so seriously and start having fun with your Twitter campaign ideas. Here are two of my favourite Twitter campaigns I’ve seen this year so far…
Pepsi Max
This campaign has got to be my favourite of them all and would have loved to have seen it in person. Pepsi Max used the #LiveForNow hashtag for Twitter users to get involved in this crazy yet brilliant Twitter campaign. The idea was not online based but rather to take over a bus shelter in London… sounds crazy already right!? Pepsi Max converted a London bus shelter ad into a video that made it seem to passers-by that crazy things were actually happening in real life. You can watch the video of people’s reactions below. Want to know how else you can attract visitors to your website? Read my blog post on How to Attract Visitors to Your Website.
LEGO
For inspiration for those who haven’t got the budget to pull off something as extravagant as the Pepsi Max Twitter campaign, look to LEGO. This very simple but fun idea hit it off with Twitter users and generated 370 retweets, 226 favourites and a whole lot of comments. April Fools is probably the only day you could get away with something like this as it is rather risky otherwise (notice the disclaimer in the image) but people like to laugh and this is exactly what LEGO set out to do.
ONE DAY ONLY! Orders placed today will be delivered via REAL turtle. Shipping times may vary… https://twitter.com/LEGO_Group/status/451030616734064640http://t.co/gKkL7OLkUs — LEGO (@LEGO_Group) April 1, 2014
Top Social Media Campaigns: LinkedIn
LinkedIn is now in the top 3 social media sites for active users per month however many businesses still don’t know how to utilise it for their benefit. Now that everyone can do a long-form post, content on LinkedIn is what is going to keep you ahead of competitors.
Four Seasons
Four Seasons has really done well on LinkedIn as they realised the market they could target through this social network. Because not many hotels have tapped into the LinkedIn network, Four Seasons are way ahead in this race. How many professionals travel through work? How many of those professionals are on LinkedIn? I haven’t got the figures but I am assuming it is a lot and this is why Four Seasons have created their LinkedIn campaign. They have masterfully created a community on LinkedIn through informative content and fun images of employees and customers. 
Want to know how social media marketing works in the inbound marketing funnel? Read my blog post on What is Inbound Marketing.
CapitalOne
For a bank, CapitalOne certainly does have a friendly and relatable voice on LinkedIn. They could have easily have posted the same old content but they have took themselves above their competition with posts such as the one below. This post speaks out to so many and with people being on LinkedIn currently looking for work, LinkedIn was a great channel to do this. 
Social Media Inspiration
Have any of these campaigns inspired you to be more creative with your social media campaigns? I hope so as they certainly opened my eyes as to what can be achieved through social media channels. Remember to not only use one social channel for your campaign. Feature your campaign on one social media channel such as Facebook but promote it across all other social media sites such as Google+ and Pinterest. The important thing is to think about what it is your target audience want to see, hear or read, not what you want to them to see, hear or read. Have you seen a social media campaign that inspired you to do better? Let me know by leaving your comments or by tweeting @yoma_uk
