Social media is no longer the shiny new toy. By now, most companies have integrated some sort of social media into their traditional marketing plan. As a result, there is a saturation of campaigns, some good, some not so good. But, through the thick of it all I still find those campaigns that really stand out and inspire me to find creative and unique ways to integrate social media into our larger marketing plans. Social media isn’t about being a stand-alone method, it is about how effectively you can integrate them into other methods. Here are my top 3 favorite integrated social media campaigns.
#3 Peugeot Pinterest Puzzle
I love it when I see a campaign that makes me want to drop everything and participate. This is exactly what happened when I saw the Peugeot puzzle contest on Pinterest. In an attempt to gain more engagement with their fans, Peugeot decided to run a fun, engaging competition on Pinterest. They created boards with five images, four of which said “missing” and one with a picture of a part of a car. Users were then asked to scour Peugeot’s website and Facebook page to find the other four missing images, to complete the puzzle. The first people to complete the puzzle board and share it with Peugeot won discounts, cash and prizes. Not only did this campaign strengthen their social media presence, it also educated consumers about their products. During this campaign, Peugeot saw a 50,000 increase in likes, follows, and re-pins on Pinterest. In addition, this campaign saw national media coverage, further promoting the Peugeot brand. When I am brainstorming a Pinterest contest-this is my go-to campaign for inspiration.
#2 Ben and Jerry’s Fairtweets
This is my favorite twitter awareness campaign that I have seen. Ben and Jerry’s decided to think outside of the box when they launched their Fairtweets campaign. In doing research, they realized that twitter users rarely utilized all 140 characters that are given to them. So, in an effort to raise awareness about World Fair Trade Day they created an application that would “recycle” the left over characters in tweets. Users downloaded a twitter-integrated Fairtweets application that allowed them to tweet normally. Their leftover characters were then turned into a custom message about Fair Trade Day with the hashtag #fairtweets and a link to a microsite with more information. Ben and Jerry’s was able to use twitter to push people to their website where they were showcasing World Fair Trade Day on a larger level. I love this campaign because it takes very little effort on the part of the user, but effectively pushes the message. The users don’t need to remember to mention World Fair Trade Day, they simply tweet and the message is created for them.
#1 Human Rights Campaign – Red for Equality
It is pretty hard to ignore a campaign that completely infiltrates your Facebook timeline. Last week, the 
Human Rights Campaign launched the most effective campaign I have seen to date. Their messaging was concise: change your profile picture to their logo in red. Within hours, their original photo was seen by 9 million people and shared 77,000 times. The thing that I love the most about this campaign is that they kept it simple. They didn’t try and use any magic tricks; they purely asked users to change their profile picture. It always amazes me to see campaigns that stay true to what
social media really is: word-of-mouth marketing. For those who didn’t know what the red logos were for, they took the next steps to research what they were seeing on Facebook, which ultimately lead them to the HRC website. This campaign taught me that sometimes its good to stick to what you know works.
With all of the social media campaigns out there, it can be a little overwhelming. I have found that creativity is contagious and I am always looking for that brand that really goes the extra mile to help keep me on my toes.
