7 Social media campaign examples to inspire your social media strategy

4.59 billion — that’s the number of active users on social media, and every brand is vying for their attention by engaging with them on different channels through social media campaigns. And to stand out from the crowd, brands need an effective social media marketing strategy to make their campaigns creative and successful.

So, what makes a social media marketing campaign successful? How can you create a campaign that will help drive sales? How do you create a stand-out campaign, like Starbuck's Unicorn Frappuccino campaign, where customers shared colorful images with their Unicorn Frappuccino on Instagram.

Let’s look at similar social media campaigns to get inspired. But before jumping into that, let’s first understand what exactly makes a viral social media campaign.

What makes a viral social media campaign?

Social media campaigns are a series of events that a brand fleshes out to improve brand awareness, social media user interaction, and business strategies through targeted advertising. The most successful social media campaigns are measured consistently performance-wise.

For an effective social media campaign, you need to target the right group of people and match your content with their preferences. Social media campaigns are powerful as they can reach a larger audience, and they can be aimed at the ideal set of individuals, thanks to the advanced analytics available today. Social media campaigns have the potential to go viral within minutes and, as a result, they can reach audiences who might not even be aware of the brand.

How do social media campaigns impact business?

Social media campaigns are incredibly influential in helping a brand to achieve its goals. Considering how much competition is out there in the market currently, social media presence is only becoming more important by the day.

Social media campaigns help brands:

• Improve brand engagement across social media channels

• Improve brand recognition

• Increase website traffic via social advertising

• Identify leads through engaged customers

• Improve sales through campaign advertisements

• Collect feedback from their target audience

• Gauge the overall sentiment of their campaign and brand

7 famous social media campaigns that created buzz

Social media is filled with campaigns of all kinds, from influencer campaigns to user-generated ones, but not all of them go on to become viral. While there are many social media campaign templates that one can consider, today, we’ll be looking at the campaigns that spread like wildfire on social platforms. To be more specific, we’ve identified and analyzed seven most successful social media campaigns that captivated audiences and received immense engagement. So, let’s take a look at them so you’re inspired by spectacular social media campaign ideas.

1. Trello — #WhereITrello

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Trello, a productivity software company, launched a campaign (#WhereITrello) that was very simple yet effective. Trello asked users to post photos of where they used Trello on X, formerly Twitter and Instagram, and winning entries were to be published on the company’s blog. This struck a chord, and social media was soon swamped with photo entries that carried the campaign’s hashtag.

This is an excellent example of advertising through user-generated content (UGC), which focuses on the unique selling point (USP) of Trello — staying organized wherever you are. This campaign shows how effectively one can conduct a campaign with UGC while highlighting the USP of their product across social media.

Tools like Sprinklr’s content marketing platform can discover high-quality UGC at scale and automate workflows for approvals. That way, you don’t always have to be on the hunt for premium UGC.

2. Citibank - The Moment #itsabouttime

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Citibank’s The Moment #itsabouttime campaign addresses the gender pay gap by capturing the moment when a diverse group of young girls learned that women are paid 29% less than males in the US. This campaign took an emotional approach, and people appreciated Citibank’s effort to promote gender equality.

This campaign is one of the best examples of using a matter-of-heart attitude while addressing a social issue. The campaign made full use of multiple channels, like video, billboards, etc., to grab audiences. The #itsabouttime hashtag also ignited conversations around gender inequality in the workplace via social channels. And all of this came together perfectly to improve Citibank’s brand image and increase their consumer engagement.

This shows the importance of creating content by identifying the behavioral preferences of the target audience, and AI-powered tools, like Sprinklr’s, can help discover these audience insights easily.

3. Subway — Beyond Meatball Sub

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Subway kicked off its Beyond Meatball sub campaign by introducing meat-free sandwiches across different cities in the US. This campaign targeted vegetarians, vegans, and meat-eaters, and it broke boundaries for the greens-only audience by introducing an alternative for meat sandwiches through plant-based meatballs.

This campaign was very successful, and it was a delight to veggie-lovers. Subway used a well-targeted approach to broaden its customer base in an empathetic and fun way.

4. Dove — #ShowUs

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Dove launched its #showus campaign, where it collaborated with Getty Images to create a collection of more than 10,000 unfiltered pics of women that focused on diversity. This campaign got a lot of traction, and images of people with the #showus hashtag came flooding in on social media.

So, it just goes to show that knowing your audience is a very important step when you’re planning a marketing campaign, and this is exactly what Dove did. It understood that most women feel unrepresented in the media, and it made the most of this opportunity to create a bond with its female audience.

5. Lush — #LushLife

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#LushLife is a great example of word-of-mouth marketing. Through this campaign, Lush promoted the “#LushLife,” and customers started posting their recent purchases and likes and dislikes of Lush products by using the hashtag on Instagram and TikTok. This was a smart move where customers were engaging with each other, which created a feeling of community and trust.

Listening tools such as Sprinklr enable you to collect these messages and derive product feedback automatically and at scale.

6. Apple — #ShotOniPhone

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Apple has been running this campaign for years. In 2022, its main focus was on iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, highlighting the macro photography capabilities of the mobiles. Apple came up with a challenge and asked its users to share the best macro photographs that they have taken from their iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max devices. People posted their favorite photos on Instagram and X, formerly Twitter with #ShotOniPhone and #iPhoneMacroChallenge.

This is a brilliant example of Apple using the USP of its newly launched product and marketing it directly to the end user.

7. Spotify — Wrapped

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Spotify Wrapped is an ongoing campaign that runs each year. Every December, Spotify shares personalized insights about tracks, artists and music that customers loved the most during the year. This campaign makes use of great visuals in a story format, and the data is accessible on the Spotify mobile app as well. Users can even share this info with their friends on social media.

This is a groovy example of how Spotify tunes in to its customers and leverages their listening data to create a wildly successful, recurring campaign. The campaign also increases the engagement from users and instills brand awareness. Since personalized experiences with customers build trust and a sense of relatability between them and the brand, they end up improving the overall experience and conversion.

Wrapping up

These are a few great examples of social media campaigns, but how can you implement them in your strategy? How do you understand what your customers are resonating with? How do you find the target audience that can influence other potential customers?

Well, the easier and more ideal way would be to join hands with a global partner offering a best-in-class social-listening tool. Someone with a robust AI-powered infrastructure that can derive insights reliably. Someone with a tool that helps in performing user-level customization at scale. And Sprinklr offers all of this and more to help you in shaping your next successful campaign.

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