Social media campaign is a coordinated marketing effort designed to reinforce information or sentiment about a product, service, or brand as a whole through at least one social media platform. A social media campaign is the fuel of your marketing efforts. It can boost your brand reputation and increase brand awareness and sales.

A social media campaign is also a series of coordinated activities aimed at achieving specific objectives within a certain period of time, with results that can be tracked and measured. It can be limited to one network or run simultaneously across multiple social media platforms.

5 Examples of Social Media Campaigns

Below, IDEOWORKS has gathered five social media campaign ideas to give you a clearer picture.

• #ExploreBCLater by Hello BC, British Columbia

  The tourism industry experienced a difficult year, with air travel dropping nearly 95% and almost everyone canceling their summer vacation plans. It was challenging to turn that situation into a destination campaign, but the provincial tourism authority Hello, British Columbia achieved its goal with the #ExploreBCLater campaign.

  Across all social media platforms, Hello BC shared messages of social responsibility during the coronavirus outbreak, encouraging everyone to stay home and #ExploreBCLater. The campaign was a variation of their branded hashtag #ExploreBC, built on existing brand recognition and usage.

• #WhatsYourName by Starbucks

  In February, Starbucks UK partnered with Mermaids, an organization supporting transgender and gender diverse youth, for a social media campaign titled #WhatsYourName. Combining television advertising and social media engagement, this value driven campaign focused on Starbucks’ commitment to inclusivity for people of all genders by respecting their chosen names.

  The campaign was built on a well known aspect of the Starbucks experience, writing customers’ names on their drink cups, and reinforced the brand’s commitment to honoring the names customers prefer to be called.

  

• #DistanceDance by Procter & Gamble, P&G

  Procter & Gamble, a consumer goods company producing products such as toilet paper and toothpaste, collaborated with TikTok celebrity Charli D’Amelio to encourage people to stay home and prevent the spread of coronavirus in March 2020.

  With the help of advertising agency Grey, they launched the #DistanceDance campaign on Charli D’Amelio’s profile. The campaign became a massive success, generating 8 billion views and 1.7 million iterations. Various celebrities, sports teams, and major public figures participated within just the first week.

• #2019Wrapped by Spotify

  Music streaming platform Spotify ran a social media campaign across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Since 2017, Spotify has shared end of year data with users, such as the songs, albums, and artists they listened to most, through a personalized “Spotify Wrapped” summary.

  In 2019, Spotify went further by offering a decade long recap from 2009 to 2019, showing how users’ listening habits and preferences evolved. These summaries were presented in shareable image formats that users could post on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

• #BigGameColorCommentary by Pantone

  Pantone used Twitter to run a one day campaign during Super Bowl 2020, a major American football event in the United States.

  The campaign was inspired by a unique coincidence. For the first time in Super Bowl history, both finalist teams had almost identical primary uniform colors. Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers were separated by just one point on the Pantone color index. The Chiefs used Pantone 186C, while the 49ers used Pantone 187C.

  This social media campaign succeeded because of its original, creative, and engaging idea that leveraged Pantone’s brand identity as a color expert. It built a bridge between sports fans and design enthusiasts through content that was accessible and enjoyable for everyone.

  The examples above show that social media campaign ideas can come from anywhere, as long as they focus on user experience. Sometimes an idea requires large scale execution, but sometimes a small execution can become the turning point of an entire campaign.

  Social media campaign ideas do not always have to be completely new. By recycling an existing campaign and adding something fresh, you can relaunch it successfully.