The summer before my sophomore yr in college, I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw my friend dump a bucket of ice water on herself.

When I read the status update, I realized she was doing the Ice Saucepan Challenge in an effort to promote awareness for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disease.

This was in 2014 when the Ice Bucket Challenge went viral and raised $220 million worldwide.

That'due south what a successful social media campaign looks like.

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As a marketer, paying attention to these social media campaigns is important, especially since 45% of the world population is active on social media.

Although every social media campaign tin can't achieve the aforementioned viral attention as the ALS Ice Bucket Claiming, there are several things you can try to ameliorate the results of your social media efforts.

Below, let's review the top social media campaign ideas to try this year.

ane. Build social proof.

One of the main benefits of social media marketing is that you tin can build social proof online. Your online reputation is i of the nearly important aspects of your make. On social media, you can personify your brand and speak directly to your customers.

To build social proof, yous might start a hashtag for users to submit testimonials. For example, P90X is an at-home training programme that uses the hashtag #p90xresults to gather customer results.

This helps build social proof that their product works without seeming promotional. Additionally, you can share posts and interact with customers who mention your brand to spread awareness of the positive results your customers' go from using your product or service.

2. Postal service offers and discounts online.

To complement your marketing entrada, you tin promote discounts and offers on social media. In fact, at that place's even a special section for offers on Facebook.

Discounts can assistance spread awareness and bring in new customers who might not have tried your product or service.

For instance, a video game store, Play N Trade, uses the Facebook offer department to promote a free year membership:

Play N Trade offers discounts on Facebook. Image Source

iii. Showcase happy customers.

The best people to promote your brand are your current customers. Using social media, y'all tin can showcase happy customers and their stories by liking or sharing posts of them using your product or service.

You can encourage customers to share photos of themselves with your product and create a hashtag to promote information technology.

For example, Coca-Cola started a marketing campaign called Share a Coke. The hashtag #shareacoke became a place where people would accept pictures of the new product. This promoted their campaign and collection more customers to buy their production then they could find a Coke with their name on it.

four. Host contests.

People dearest winning gratis stuff and getting discounts — which is why a content is such an constructive social media campaign idea.

Hosting a contest on social media is an first-class manner to drive engagement, traffic, and create make awareness.

You tin run several different types of contests including asking followers to tag a friend in the comments, answer a question in the comments, or send a photo of themselves with your product or service.

Additionally, if you're creating an ad campaign, you can host a casting contest and feature your customers in your ads.

5. Create calls-to-activeness on your posts.

But similar in the real world, being mysterious doesn't get you far. If you want your customers to exercise something, inquire them to do it.

A telephone call-to-action (CTA) does merely that. By including a CTA on all your social media posts, people are more than likely to interact and engage.

CTAs can be simple -- similar asking people to sign up, subscribe, larn more than, or comment below. A CTA can increase your click-through-charge per unit (CTR), engagement, and success of your social media campaigns.

6. Encourage engagement with polls.

Who doesn't love a good poll when you're scrolling through your social media feed? Personally, I vote in every poll I see. I'k fifty-fifty tempted to vote in the ones that don't use to me -- although I endeavour not to because I don't want to ruin the numbers.

With polls, you'll learn more than about your audience and increase engagement.

For case, TurboTax used the polls feature on Twitter to see if people considered rideshare drivers self-employed:

Turbo Tax posts a poll on Twitter. Epitome Source

If yous're running a social media campaign, or whatever campaign for that matter, you should consider calculation a poll to your social accounts.

7. Put together an influencer giveaway.

Influencer marketing isn't a passing fad.

In fact, the influencer marketing industry is set up to reach $10 billion by 2020. Additionally, 80% of marketers say influencer marketing is effective for their businesses.

That'south why you should consider putting together an influencer giveaway social media campaign. Working on your relationships with influencers in your industry will help increment brand awareness and build social proof.

Subsequently researching the influencers in your industry, contact them and suggest a giveaway.

eight. Go live.

When y'all're putting together a social media campaign, don't underestimate live videos.

In a recent survey of one,000 respondents, lxxx% said they would rather sentinel a live video from a make than read a blog, and 82% prefer alive video to social media posts.

You can use this to your reward.

Effort hosting a live stream, talking to your customers in real-fourth dimension, or asking and answering questions. This will help you connect with your audience in a way that personifies your brand. By personifying your make, people are more likely to feel connected to your company in the same manner they experience continued to a friend.

nine. Accept a takeover.

Takeovers is an opportunity to proceed things interesting in your Stories department of your social profiles. Yous tin can take employees, partners, or guests host a "takeover" for the mean solar day. This entails having someone else — autonomously from your social media squad — regularly mail service content on your social media folio(south) for a day.

For example, every twenty-four hours The Skimm has an employee take over their Instagram Stories. Typically, they bear witness followers what they do in a twenty-four hours, discuss what their chore is, what their responsibilities are, and give career communication. This helps with branding and likewise promotes their workplace culture.

If you lot're running a social media entrada, calculation a takeover to your promotion can help increment engagement — additionally, having a guest or partner takeover your account can help your brand reach their audience, as well.

ten. Publish behind-the-scenes content.

Backside-the-scenes content is i of the best means to connect with your audience.

By showcasing a backside-the-scenes look, you lot can keep current and prospective customers upwards-to-date, brag near your team, and create an emotional connection that makes y'all relatable.

With any social media campaign, behind-the-scenes content can show off your personality and broaden your content.

11. Livestream events.

A social media campaign is one of the best means to promote your events. But the promotion shouldn't end on the mean solar day of the outcome.

Instead, consider alive streaming certain parts of the event on social media. This volition create more buzz virtually the event, encourage interaction with attendees, and is helpful for people who couldn't attend the event.

12. Design a viral campaign.

Creating a viral marketing entrada is an easy sentence to write, simply a difficult concept to execute.

When you're brainstorming your next social media campaign, answer these questions:

  • Does it entreatment to your target audience?
  • Does it have strong visuals?
  • Does information technology take an emotional entreatment?
  • Is it creative?
  • Is it easy to digest, and share?
  • Does the timing make sense?

Similar the ALS challenge, creating some sort of online challenge that influencers tin easily participate in will aid spread the discussion.

13. Write effect hashtags.

If you're hosting an event, don't forget to create a hashtag. With a hashtag, you can reply to attendees and keep runway of questions.

For case, at Inbound, the upshot hashtag is typically #INBOUND19 (or whatsoever twelvemonth information technology is). This hashtag helps HubSpot curates content related to INBOUND, including attendees' pictures of themselves at the outcome, and attendees' testimonials/opinions on the result.

If you lot can get an event hashtag trending, then you'll exist able to create more than make sensation and interact with your customers.

14. Interact with your customers.

Speaking of interacting with your customers, y'all tin design a social media campaign specifically around talking to your customers.

For example, in 2014 Taylor Swift did something called "Swiftmas." This is when she went on social media, looked for highly engaged fans, chose her top fans, and then sent them presents. She even coined a term for this process, called "Taylurking." If she commented a Christmas tree on ane of your posts, y'all're getting a present.

This is a great example of interacting with your audition in a way that doesn't feel promotional, yet still creates brand sensation.

fifteen. Utilize the holidays every bit inspiration.

Similar to the Taylor Swift example above, you can use the holidays every bit an inspiration for a social media campaign.

Y'all can employ your social accounts to promote a holiday sale, a Halloween contest, or sell holiday products similar ornaments.

When it isn't the holiday flavor, you lot tin can all the same utilise current events to inspire your social media campaigns. Retrieve, your social media posts don't happen in a silo. They're happening in the real earth, and they should be timely.

16. Provide educational content.

It's easy to go in the habit of just posting your products or services on social media. Only that would be a mistake.

Your content should be educational and create value. When you're creating a social media campaign, ask yourself what value information technology'll bring to your audience. That'due south how you lot'll brainstorm content ideas that could go viral.

17. Repurpose high-performing content.

Every fourth dimension y'all run a social media entrada, you don't have to reinvent the cycle. Y'all tin use old content that has performed well in the past.

Do you have a podcast that has really high downloads? Or a blog that has the most views? You can repurpose that content for social media. Create a video for Stories or IGTV and summarize it in a caption.

Old content is a great mode to boost your social media campaigns.

eighteen. Curate content.

Your social media doesn't have to include content that's only from yous. In fact, sharing other people's content is a bully mode to humanize your brand and create value for your audience.

If your social media entrada needs some more post ideas, consider curating content from other people that complement your promotion.

Once more, you don't desire your social media contour to experience likewise promotional. Your posts should have diverseness.

19. Participate in popular trends.

Information technology's always important to remember that the world is still spinning while you're in your marketing meeting, brainstorming social media campaign ideas.

Consider trends, like popular hashtags, and participate in them. For example, #throwbackthursday still hasn't gone out of style. If your posts need a little inspiration, look for popular hashtags and trends and jump on board.

Customers like to encounter that the brands they follow are staying current.

20. Adopt new social media platforms.

If a new social media platform comes out, be an early adopter and run social media campaigns on it.

These campaigns are more likely to be seen past your audience considering the sites haven't adult complicated algorithms withal.

Plus, you should e'er look for new places to engage with your audience and learn more virtually them.

21. Plan "explanation this" contests.

A fun and unique contest, the "caption this" contest is especially helpful for those times where you lot have a very intriguing photo simply are having a difficult time writing a caption.

These contests encourage creativity and are a fun way to collaborate with your audience.

When you're planning a social media campaign, consider a "explanation this" competition to encourage engagement.

22. Design geofilters on Snapchat.

Geofilters on Snapchat are an splendid mode to increase brand awareness and create memories with your audience.

If your customers take a photograph at an outcome, they'll appreciate the geofilter. Past posting photos of themselves with this filter, your customers are a free, walking advertisement.

Over again, the best mode to promote your brand is through your electric current customers. Geofilters volition help yous do just that.

23. Generate hype for your launches.

When you're about to launch a product, service, or event, you should create a social media entrada to generate hype.

Previews of your product or contests to figure out what the product is volition create excitement amidst your customers.

For example, in anticipation of the summer launch of Kylie Jenner'due south eye shadow palette, she posted swatches, videos, photos of her in the makeup, and tutorials on her Instagram.

This creates enthusiasm amidst her customers — as a result, she sold out nigh immediately.

24. Come up with man interest campaigns.

At the end of the 24-hour interval, your audience relates to people, not companies. You should always try to humanize your brand in your social media campaigns.

To practise this, include a human interest chemical element in all your campaigns.

For example, when Kim Kardashian West launched her shapewear Skims, her social media campaign included videos of the models in her shapewear talking about how information technology fabricated them experience more comfortable and confident in their peel. The man element in this campaign allowed followers to come across the value in Kim's new product.

25. Develop entertaining segments.

You lot know how James Corden has fun segments on his show the Tardily Late Bear witness, like Carpool Karaoke? Those fun, bite-sized segments are crucial elements to making his show as fun to picket as information technology is.

When y'all're creating a social media campaign, follow in his footsteps and create fun, entertaining segments just like you might for a Goggle box bear witness. After all, most social media has long-grade video content like Facebook Watch or IGTV.

This type of content tin increase traffic and engagement for your social media campaigns.

Brainstorming social media campaigns isn't e'er easy. However, y'all can utilize this listing to go started.

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Originally published Nov 8, 2019 one:00:00 PM, updated February 04 2021