By Blaze Pullman
March 23, 2016
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Many companies create new campaigns in the hopes of gaining followers and momentum on social media. Most usually result in an increase in followers, while others fall short, making their campaign a bust. However, there are a few companies that rise above and beyond to create one of the best social media campaigns of an entire year. These companies have used specific marketing tactics to make their brand shine, and these campaigns have resulted in large increased in followers and brand recognition. Below are the top social media campaigns in every platform’s category.
Whole Foods: Video Campaign
Because 2015 was the year of how-to and DIY dinner video clips, Whole Foods took the initiative to create their own line of short “How to” videos, with about one video being posted to their Facebook page every day. Whole foods realized that consumers have a shorter attention span than ever before, and by creating videos like this, they are able to grab the reader’s attention right off the bat, and keep it throughout the 30-60 second video. They have also successfully incorporated their deals and sales into the videos, making their consumer base rely on the videos to get the inside scoop on what is happening at Whole Foods.
INSTAGRAM:
Toms: #withoutshoes
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In May 2015, TOMS donated one pair of shoes for every person who took a picture of their bare feet and shared it on Instagram with the hashtag #withoutshoes. This campaign was so successful for the company because it allowed consumers to see their philanthropic side, and encouraged customers to become involved and integrated into this campaign by posting pictures with the hashtag. Toms gained a lot of popularity from this campaign, which proves that tapping into philanthropy could be very beneficial for your company.
SNAPCHAT:
World Wildlife Fund: #LastSelfie
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WWF was one of the first organizations to successfully launch a campaign that ran only on Snapchat. The organization played off the idea that images disappear off Snapchat after 10 seconds to illustrate the disappearance of endangered species around the world, using the #LastSelfie hashtag as the slogan of the campaign. This campaign was targeted specifically towards millennials, and the choice to launch this campaign on Snapchat was smart because the social media platform is mainly used by millennials. WWF was extremely successful in this campaign because they were able to effectively pull the heartstrings of millennials on the platform that is dominated by them.
PINTEREST:
Urban Decay: Get Electric
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When Urban Decay launched a new collection called “Electric”, they decided to launch a Pinterest contest at the same time to create talk about it. Urban Decay asked their fans to pin their favorite festival looks for a chance to win tickets to Coachella, a music festival in California. After they had fans post to Pinterest. They were then required to fill out an online form in order to win the contest. This campaign was successful because they invited their followers to become an integral part of the campaign, and Urban Decay saw a spike of 50,000 of Pinterest followers and gained a large increase in email subscribers as well.
LINKEDIN:
L’Oreal: Are you IN?
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L’Oreal has recently gained 800,000 followers on LinkedIn, and to celebrate this accomplishment, they created a new campaign titled “Are you IN” in which they encouraged potential employees and other followers on Linkedin to choose a word that describes them and explain why. These words ranged from INspiring to INvolved, and helped LinkedIn users to show off some of their best qualities on this platform. This campaign was especially successful because L’Oreal was able to take advantage of the visual opportunities provided on LinkedIn, and taking a different approach to a LinkedIn campaign proved to be advantageous to the company.
In Conclusion…
All of these examples show that in order to create an extremely successful social media campaign, you and your company must stay up to date on the newest social media trends, whether it be short videos, visual images, or interactive campaigning. Social media campaigns can be successful on any platform, but it is up to you and your company to determine which platform will be most successful for your goals.
LUC Marketing 399 
