3 Clever Social Campaigns That Got Results

“Don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with your marketing.”

— Mike Volpe

Certain companies make social media marketing look easy.

Looking at brands like Taco Bell, that have a knack for crushing the social game, some marketers might be dismissive of the intense creativity and skill that goes behind such a movement.

Attaining social sovereignty is a heck of a lot harder than it looks.

It takes more than sending out frequent tweets and broadcasting Live from Facebook here and there. To truly grab an audience and get them to love your campaign as much as you think they will, it requires a strong presence, sharp wit, and personality to spare.

Your campaign, however, needs to be more than flavorful; it needs to be original and engaging.

If you manage to achieve this, then you just might end up going viral; the dream of all marketers.

One of the staples of a viral campaign is gobs of creativity.

If you’re busy assembling your brand’s next social media marketing push but could use a bit of inspiration, look no further.

Here are three wildly clever social media campaigns that garnered tremendous attention, engagement, and revenues.

Domination: Deadpool

Deadpool was one of the biggest movies of 2016. The massive acclaim the film received was not only due to the movie being true to its source material, but also because of the ingenious marketing campaign that bombarded just about everyone with a pulse.

Because of the character’s unsavory nature, 20th Century Fox received a fair amount of criticism for the over-the-top campaign. The marketing machine, which kicked off with an image of Deadpool laying on a bearskin rug à la Burt Reynolds, brought just the right amount of levity and playfulness to the character, and it was extremely well received.

For nearly a year prior to the film’s release, 20th Century Fox besieged television screens and social feeds with a barrage of characteristically distasteful (albeit hilarious) content.

One of the starter pieces was an April Fool’s Day Extra interview with Deadpool where the movie’s R rating was announced; that video has since garnered more than eight million views.

This was followed by a Deadpool Christmas countdown in which new pieces of content would be dropped daily in accordance with the “12 Days of Deadpool” campaign, which all led up to the release of the movie’s second trailer.

The Deadpool marketing team also went as far as to have the “Merc with a Mouth” create a testicular cancer PSA parody (complete with a Deadpool Tinder profile) during the premier of ABC’s “The Bachelor.”

While these are just a few of the many highlights during the campaign, Ryan Reynolds himself also acted like a one-man marketing team, pumping out countless pieces of Deadpool-related content via his personal social profiles.

Ultimately, the film ended up shattering box office records, pulling down a cool $138 million on opening weekend; the biggest all-time opening for an R-rated movie.

The Daily Show’s Hidden Content

When The Daily Show’s long-time host Jon Stewart announced he was stepping away from the program, there was an equal amount of grieving over the departure and speculation as to who would fill Stewart’s shoes.

When a relatively unknown comedian in the United States, Trevor Noah, was named, people were naturally curious to find out more about him; and that’s where Comedy Central saw an opportunity to capitalize.

Leveraging Google AdWords and social media platforms, the network purchased ads surrounding certain key terms that people would surely be searching to find out more about the new host: Trevor Noah age, Trevor Noah girlfriend, Trevor Noah tweets, and others.

When users would click on one of these ads, they would be met with exclusive video content related to the term they searched.

Comedy Central did not tell followers how many of these videos existed – nor which keywords they were linked to – which stimulated engagement across social platforms and enthralled social users in a content hunt.

The campaign picked up so much traction that websites like Slate, Reddit, and UPROXX took notice, ultimately amplifying engagement to new heights and generating even more buzz.

When the smoke cleared in February 2016, the campaign had generated more than 38 million impressions and 2.8 million video views. Google reported that viewers watched an average of 85 percent of the video’s content.

Moreover, the campaign was such a smash that Google Insights featured the campaign as a case study and the creative team earned a Webby nomination.

Chatbooks Makes Time for Moms

Chatbooks is a photo book subscription service that earned more than one million members in its first 18 months.

When the company concocted a cleverly comedic video of an uber busy mom, the brand grabbed tons more attention.

Source: - http://www.sitepronews.com/2017/09/08/3-clever-social-campaigns-that-got-results/

Chatbooks’ video perfectly embodies the brand’s buyer persona as a quirky yet cool mom describing the wonderful insanity of her life with children and how the service provides her with awesome picture albums that she doesn’t have time to create because of, well, kids.

The video also includes a decent amount of educational elements to help people wrap their heads around the new type of service.

What the company ended up creating is masterful; it speaks directly to its core audience, tells people everything they need to know about Chatbooks, and weaves in heaping helpings of jokes that endear the intended audience to the brand.

Since the video was published in October 2016, it has racked up a whopping 15.6 million views and counting.

More than that, Chatbooks continues to engage audiences across social platforms with various videos and images using the same woman featured in their viral video; this has earned the brand over 274,000 followers on Facebook alone.

Creativity is a prerequisite to an outstanding social media marketing campaign. Take a page out of these brand’s books and try thinking outside the box and do something that people wouldn’t necessarily expect. There’s a chance it will pay off in the same way these campaigns did.

What creative marketing campaigns have you been inspired by this year?