As digital marketing continues to dominate the field, the experts standing behind some of the biggest global brands are pushing the boundaries of ingenuity, creativity and social engagement even further. Developing side by side with everyone’s favorite web spots, social media campaigns have grown to become the latest growth hack of both influential and rising brands.
If you are wondering why, the answer is simple – these marketing campaigns are the fastest way to gain new social media followers. The effective strategies for raising brand awareness, increasing self-promotion and enticing customer engagement have never been more accessible.
The success of the following examples is supported with only a couple of easy tips, which is why you should definitely consider implementing them in your future marketing campaigns:
• Contemplate your campaign goals and focus on them.
• Analyze the potential of individual social networks and choose the one that mostly fits your specific agendas.
• Stay present and keep engaging with your audience all throughout the campaign.
• Find a creative, original, appealing and relatable way to display your content.
• Here’s how some of the biggest names in the industry have done it.
1. The Relatability of Candy Chang’s “Before I Die”
Without a company to raise brand awareness for and no product of any kind to promote, Candy Chang has unintentionally made her art project viral. And, even though Before I Die is not a part of a business marketing strategy, this self-developed social campaign is an amazing example of how important relatability is, and therefore a lesson for every brand developer to learn.
The participatory public art project had a modest, but vital goal – to encourage social media goers to share their stories of struggle with the death of a loved one. Beginning on the wall of a ramshackle New Orleans house, the project has spread globally and inspired people from around 70 countries.
Although Chang’s “Before I Die” campaign was not intended specifically for social media blasts, users of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have embraced the idea and helped in sharing it all over the web. And no wonder, since the initial notion had all the right precursors for a public triumph – a clear goal, a potential for getting recognized and shared on the visual content-oriented networks, relatability that made it easier for others to engage in the project and a unique and brave approach.
2. The Art of Leveraging Buzz – GoPro’s Skateboarding Cat
On the same day that GoPro’s ingeniously captivating campaign was uploaded to YouTube, Time Magazine honored it with an article. Since then, the “GoPro: Didga the Skateboarding Cat” video has been seen by 4,185,366 people! And that’s the power of good marketing for you! For those unfamiliar with the brand, GoPro is an American company that specializes in action cameras, and when it comes to extreme-action videography, it is one of the leading ones. The company’s goal – to promote their product and showcase its quality. Being one of many in the niche, GoPro has certainly found a way of standing out.
The lesson to be learned is a clear one – find what catches the audience’s eye and use it as leverage. Videos of cats are lurking about from every corner of the internet, and every other member of the online community is interested in seeing these feline escapades documented and shared. And, if the cat is a skillful skateboarder like Australian-born Didga is, then the possibilities are truly endless. But there’s another trick that the marketing team of GoPro was very well aware of.
Instead of hiring Didga to act in a video of their company’s production, GoPro marketers have chosen the customer-generated approach. By delegating the presentation of your products to those who actually use them, you’re not only promoting the products, but you’re also providing a customer’s recommendation and social proof. In the marketing world, those are huge advantages to utilize.
3. A Tasty Lesson on Marketable Subjects and Forms
Not that Buzzfeed was in need of any additional publicity, but the site’s team has certainly continued to prove that their marketing skills are still on an envious level, and has quickly raised the popularity of this internet mogul even further. Even before “Tasty” was launched in July 2015, Buzzfeed had earned its title of the social campaign wizard, which makes it the most influential master marketer in the field.
The site focuses on “the most shareable breaking news, original reporting, entertainment, and video”, thus paving the path for all digital marketers following its lead. Tasty, as it happened, is another masterful campaign to learn from.
So far, a Facebook-launched Tasty has a following of 30 million users and counting, and one video alone is seen by tens of millions of food-enthusiasts. The campaign was devised to target those with hungry senses and big appetites, which is, if you think about it, the largest target audience in the world. Just like Chang’s encouragement of empathy and GoPro’s skateboarding cat, delicious food is everybody’s concern.
Still, Tasty is slightly different and more exciting, not because of its revolutionary recipes, but simply because of its chosen form – the one minute long videos are certainly more visually appealing than written cooking instructions, but still less tiring than YouTube cooking videos.
The presentation itself is devised to explain everything about the cooking process itself, and the finished product is simply irresistible. Once again, Buzzfeed teaches a valuable lesson on how universal subject matters, convenient visual forms and attractive design all win at luring audiences of all preferences and needs.
Whatever the niche, implementing these social media campaign ideas is absolutely doable. Simply think of your audience’s real-life and virtual habits as a potential bait, and find a way of presenting your product in the light of something universally important. And, while the subject matter should target a wide range of different individuals, the approach must be unique, catchy and relatable – find inspiration in the product you’re promoting, but make it impossible to overlook.
The author is highly qualified and writes blog posts weekly.
