Social media campaigns are the rocket fuel of your marketing efforts: a concentrated burst of energy that pays off in a major heave to your brand reputation, awareness or sales.

Looking for inspiration for your next social media entrada? We've gathered a choice of the all-time social media campaigns in recent retentivity to bear witness you how it'due south done.

Bonus: Download a free social media campaign templateto aid y'all programme your next goal-crushing campaign of any size or upkeep. Assign responsibilities, gear up timelines, list deliverables, and more than!

A social media campaign reinforces or assists your social media marketing plan. It'southward a series of coordinated actions that are intended to fulfil the goals set along in your overall strategy.

A social media campaign will feature specific outcomes that can be tracked and measured over a specific catamenia of time (eastward.g., one month). It should be more concentrated and targeted than your "business organization as usual" social media content.

Your entrada tin be express to a single network, or take place beyond multiple social media platforms. Often it will have a specific theme, such every bit "Black Fri" or "Fashion week."

Looking for inspiration for your next social media campaign? We've gathered a option of the best social media campaigns in recent memory to show you how it's washed.

Getty Museum Challenge

Platforms used: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

What Getty Museum did: In the height of the lockdown, Los Angeles' Getty Museum challenged the public to share homespun recreations of its diverse artworks… and the public responded in droves with homages both hilarious and impressive.

Equally images came in, Getty shared them side-by-side with the original artwork. The posts showcased Getty'due south warmth and sense of humor, only also quietly showcased the impressive variety and telescopic of its collection. During a time where in that location wasn't much to study on social, user-generated content kept the content calendar full (not to mention it cost zero and made fans happy in the procedure).

Why information technology worked: The barrier to participate was dead simple. "Cull your favorite artwork, notice three things lying effectually your house, recreate the artwork with those items. And share with us," tweeted the official Getty Museum account. There was no prize, no time limit, no parameters: this was merely a playful challenge to fine art fans that ultimately cultivated joy and community in a dark time.

The Museum offered a few examples to get the ball rolling, and the submissions started pouring in from in that location.

What you can acquire: Creativity comes from constraint. By offering followers a elementary-yet-structured fashion to showcase their fandom (and stave off quarantine colorlessness), Getty sparked inspiration for thousands of pieces of content. What kind of IP or inspiration can yous offer up your followers to play around with or riff on?

Save The Music's #musicsaves

Platform used: TikTok

What Save the Music did: Salve the Music Foundation is an American non-profit that provides public school kids in need with music didactics. Its #musicsaves campaign was intended to enhance awareness of the importance and impact music can have on mental health, as well as describe attention to the foundation itself.

Partnering with TikTok, Relieve the Music got a #musicsaves hashtag on the Featured Hashtags listing, which helped encourage people to utilise the tag to share their own musical stories. On an app like TikTok, where music is king, the audience was well positioned to soak upwardly the emotional tales of the power of song (and usually some hot tracks, too). The campaign garnered 229 million views.

When people used the #musicsaves hashtag, it likewise activated TikTok's then-new Donate sticker to tap into the audience for fundraising.

TikTok Music saves hashtag donate option

Why information technology worked: There are two unshakable truths that combine hither: people love talking about themselves, and personal stories are a powerful strength in fundraising in general. Opening up the ability for anyone on TikTok to share how music had impacted them immune Save the Music to spread its message even further than it might with a more formal entrada.

@chloeflower

Help my friends @savethemusic by tapping the sticker to donate! And spread the word MusicSaves! #SavetheMusic #chloeflower #flowerthroughconcrete

♬ Flower Through Concrete – Chloe Blossom

What you tin can larn: Uplifting personal stories don't just requite your brand something to post well-nigh: they build a experience-good relationship with your followers and fan bases. The #musicsaves entrada allowed anyone to position themselves as an ambassador for a worthy cause. If your brand is a non-profit or charity, or even if you accept a values-based marketing strategy or social-impact goals, invite your followers to get involved in advocacy, too.

Cadbury's #justaskanAus

Platforms: Instagram Stories

What Cadbury did: The Cadbury Britain squad built a street-level billboard in London with a seat for an Australian person to sit down on in front of the text, "It's amazing, just enquire this Aussie." Merely while this advertizing entrada was plain a fun physical stunt for passersby to experience, the social media layer of the campaign was important, besides: followers could ask questions of the Aussie using the Questions sticker, via Instagram Stories.

While information technology wasn't necessarily an Instagram Live video, the abiding updates almost this stunt over the course of a unmarried mean solar day gave the campaign a feeling of immediacy. (Though it lives on in Cadbury's highlight reel.)

Cadbury UK Just Ask An Aussie Instagram highlight reel

Why information technology worked: Even for those who couldn't harass this dangling chocolate fan in person, Stories yet offered a way to participate and get in on the gag, and the videos of the Aussie responding created even more content for the Cadbury United kingdom account to share.

This blending of the "real" world and social created a sense of slight urgency—who knows how long this person is going to be sitting on the billboard answering questions?!—that prompted users to engage.

What you lot can learn: At that place's something kind of magical about blending the earth of social media with real-globe events, like the platform is a window into some other world. What stunt or special outcome could act equally a content generator for your brand?

Athlete's Foot's Katch the Kayanos entrada

Platform: TikTok

What did Athlete'due south Human foot do? The global retailer (which specializes in athletic shoes) went across a typical shoe giveaway to create a virtual race on TikTok. Teaming upwardly with creator Sarah Magusara, Athlete's Foot created a series of targeted ads.

@user037048

Win a pair of ASICS Gel-Kayano 28. Gyre to catch @sarahmagusara

♬ original audio – theathletesfootaunz

TikTokers would see Sarah running in a pair of slick new ASICS Gel-Kayano 28s and be invited to "race" her through the For You page to the finish line. By continuing to scroll, users would come across additional ads of Sarah running and larn more than about the shoe. Those who made it to the terminal advertizement in the "story" could enter to win a pair of the sneakers themselves.

As TikTok itself explains, "Equally people moved through their For You Feeds, the advertising placements acted as signposts with different In-Feed Ads encouraging the community to continue to scroll to race to the end line. A lucky few in the customs who got to the concluding advertizing placement so had the gamble to win a pair of new ASICS Gel-Kayano 28s."

Why it worked: The sequential storytelling piqued TikTok user'south curiosity, and the treasure-hunt attribute of "finding" Sarah in your For You lot feed is almost irresistible. The Katch the Kayanos campaign wound up with eight.5 1000000 impressions and a 5% engagement rate.

What yous tin can learn: Paid social campaigns tin can be just as creative and fun as organic ones, and gamification is one great fashion to catch the attending of new potential followers.

Oreo'due south #oreoscope

Platform: Twitter

What Oreo did: Borer into the current obsession with horoscopes and star signs, the cookie brand offered to clarify fan's most recent tweets and share a personalized "Oreoscope" with insights near their personality — and how it continued to one of the brand'southward products, naturally.

Why it worked: People love personalized content: if the smash success of Spotify Wrapped each year isn't proof enough for you lot, we don't know what is. And while there are manifestly a ready number of "Oreoscopes" out in that location, receiving your own personal diagnosis from the make nonetheless feels a fiddling special and inspires users to share the results to assist their own followers understand them a picayune amend.

The beauty of personalized results (whether it's from some sort of information analysis, or from the results of a quiz) is that even when you get it dead incorrect, that withal gives fans an opportunity to talk virtually themselves… and your products in the process.

Bonus: Download a complimentary social media entrada templateto help you lot plan your next goal-crushing campaign of any size or budget. Assign responsibilities, set timelines, list deliverables, and more!

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What you can learn: Y'all'll have a much higher share charge per unit when you offer followers a take chances to say something nigh themselves. That doesn't necessarily mean yous demand a large AI plan or some supercomputer crunching Tweets or Spotify listens. Fifty-fifty a collection of memes about your production that necktie into different star signs or age groups or life experiences can present your fans with the opportunity to become "that is so me."

Weetabix and Heinz collaboration

Platform: Twitter

What Weetabix did: The loftier-cobweb cereal trolled a nation with an oddball collaboration with Heinz beans dorsum in February 2021.

Simply by posting a perplexing photograph of beans on its bran cakes and suggesting that this, um, unusual combination was a practiced idea, the brand sparked a massive conversation and slew of reactions, garnering over 36K retweets, 68K quote tweets and 131K likes in the process.

Why information technology worked: What's funny about this photo in item is how normal it is, shot like any other photograph of a balanced breakfast and accompanied past earnest-seeming text. "Why should bread take all the fun, when there's Weetabix?" the tweet asks innocently. Some people (and tons of brands!) saw the joke correct away and weighed in with their own cheeky commentary, simply others assumed information technology was a genuine pairing suggestion and couldn't resist reacting with outrage.

TikTok users even started making videos of themselves trying the pairing suggestion.

What you can learn: First off: straight up lying to your audience is probably not a great business organization motion. Just if you lot run a make account that can appropriately utilize a little scrap of playful sense of humor, there'southward a lot of fun to be had with throwing out a comedic offer to your followers.

Not simply volition a weirdo epitome like this one stand out from the oversupply in the newsfeed, it'll get conversation going. Would that taste good? Is that actually crazy? Are they joking or is this serious? An prototype or post that sparks curiosity is also going to spark chat.

Zalando'south #styledayfriday

Platforms: Instagram and TikTok

What Zalando did: When Covid striking and many people were stuck at habitation or no longer going into the role, loungewear sales jumped up every bit most fashion-y pieces (read: dress with "buttons" and "waistbands") dropped dramatically. European fashion brand Zalando tried to combat the collapse by promoting a weekly, get-dolled-up challenge amongst its followers: turn Casual Friday into Style Day Friday.

The weekly event offered themes, challenges (like "Matchy Monochrome" or "Flower Power") and live content, promoted via Zalando employees, established style influencers and agile #styledayfriday participants (who were rewarded with a promotion to the "Zquad" and featured on the Zalando social channels).

Why it worked: During a night fourth dimension, the claiming gave Zalando fans a take a chance to connect with community, and reconnect with their love of fashion. Seeing other people's outfits flood in each week offered inspiration and the chance for some playful oneupsmanship. (You call that a crop elevation?! I'll bear witness yous!)

@irinahp

blossom power 🌸#styledayfriday #tiktokvienna #viennagirl #vienna #outfitchallenge @zalando

♬ Originalton – Irina

Followers flooded Zalando'southward channels with comments similar "Practiced occasion to get dressed!" and "Thank you for the joy you brought my fridays!", showcasing the positive touch on that the campaign had. All in all, #styledayfriday doubled Zalando's engagement and quadrupled the brand's follower growth; the weekly content reached more than 182 one thousand thousand users.

What you can acquire: Tying a entrada to a specific recurring time period (in this case, in one case a week) makes an event out of information technology: something for fans to wait frontward to, or even plan for. Providing a weekly challenge layered in a sense of urgency, as well: if you wanted to participate, it was now or never.

@levinhotho

Today is StyledayFriday! Get your favourite Flower Power Outfit and share it with me – mayhap y'all'll win a 200€ @zalando Gift Carte du jour! *Anzeige

♬ original audio – Levin

Feeling inspired? Prepare to get started with your own social media campaign? We've got a template fix to assistance you striking the ground running.

Bonus: Download a complimentary social media campaign templateto assistance yous plan your next goal-crushing campaign of whatsoever size or budget. Assign responsibilities, set timelines, list deliverables, and more!

Apply Hootsuite to manage your side by side social media campaign. From a single dashboard you can schedule and publish posts across networks, engage the audience, and measure results. Try it free today.

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With files from Michelle Cyca.