Julie Hong
Remember the “World’s Toughest Job” campaign by American Greetings that went viral with nearly 25 million views on YouTube? Today’s marketing managers have the tough responsibility to learn from and replicate the success of these past few years’ top social media campaigns, while coming up with an extra layer of creativity adapted to current trends.
In a way, little has changed in the sense that the key to great marketing campaigns is still a matter of playing to people’s emotions. Using the social listening tool Talkwalker, we’ve discovered top social media influencers’ opinions and measured top campaigns’ performance on social media using advanced social media analytics KPIs.
So what makes people click? We learned from the best:
- Jack Simpsons, eConsultancy Writer
- Steve Olenski, Marketing Contributor on Forbes
- Evan LePage, Content Marketing Specialist at Hootsuite
- Lara O’Reilly, Global Advertising Editor at Business Insider
1. Go Beyond Influencer Marketing with Committed, Celebrity Marketing
The use of celebrities as brand ambassadors doesn’t stop at putting their faces on adverts. Celebrities get fully involved and serve as a means to attract direct clicks through their social activity.
Adidas is probably the best example of brands that leverages celebrities in their campaigns (think of #Allin Or Nothing campaign starring football players such as Beckham and Zidane) and its #AdidasNeo campaign proved successful with singer and actress Selena Gomez’s Twitter account getting up to 17,700 engagement per tweet about Adidas Neo Label.
Brilliant tip read on Business Insider’s study of 9 effective campaigns by Lara O’Reilly:
“With consumer habits shifting from ‘basic living requirements’ to ‘personalisation,’ it’s quite effective to influence consumers with celebrities.”
2. Move The Masses with Cause Marketing
What if I told you there’s a brilliant campaign aiming at breaking the limitations of girls around the world in order to boost their confidence, would you be able to guess who is behind the campaign? That’s right, it’s Always. 
During the month of September, the hashtag #likeagirl was used 17,200 times on social media, driving up to 180,700 engagement (likes, shares, retweets) across the globe.
Sentiment analysis shows us that the posts were particularly positive on Facebook and Instagram.
On Cause Marketing, here is what social media expert Evan LePage tells us when sharing his thoughts about major marketing campaigns:
“When you choose to support a cause, there’s a natural emotional element behind that decision: empathy, pain, happiness, pride. People will share your content because they support your cause, brand awareness will follow naturally.”
3. Become a Social Media Network Early Adopter
We’ve witnessed it: Turkish Airlines’s campaign using Periscope, WWF using Snapchat, or General Electric on Vine… Brands see great advantages in becoming social network early adopters as it is a way to being ahead of competition and connecting faster with a newly-built and fresh network.
Hewlett-Packard’s #BendTheRule campaign is a good example of how Vine, and the Vine-ographers community can help with the success of a campaign cross-countries and cross-languages as shown below.
Hewlett-Packard’s #BendTheRule campaign is highly mentioned across North America, Europe and Asia in both English and French.
Advertising and marketing expert Steve Olenski agrees and consider #BendTheRules to be one of the best campaigns of 2015:
“Using Vine Stars, [HP] has created content around the use of their products, transcending social media networks and interacting with consumers on multiple mediums.”
4. Make Lasting Impressions With Social Experiments
#BestSummerEver campaign by Malibu is one of the best examples to illustration how social experiments-based campaign work really well with today’s audience. The idea behind this campaign was to have Malibu drinkers create a bucket list for their summer, gathered in a dedicated platform. Social analytics show a predominance of “brilliant” as a feedback from social media.
Trending emotions-related keywords for Malibu’s #BestSummerEver campaign was “brilliant”
Digital marketing expert Jack Simpsons comments on why #BestSummerEver campaign was spectacular:
“The cultural hook for the campaign was the rise of the summer bucket list […] and YouTube users were also encouraged to share their own ideas via the platform”. He adds: “In addition to the platform, Malibu sent five strangers from around the world on a forty-day trip through Europe and the US. They were tasked with taking on the #BestSummerEver list and generate plenty of content for the campaign.”
Which was your favorite campaign this year and which creative hook particularly impressed you? Do not hesitate to share with us @Talkwalker! Talkwalker’s advanced social media analytics can help you uncover valuable insights for your campaign. Read our guide on how to use them to your advantage for great campaign management.
Image Credits: Freepik
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