Running a top social media campaign that stands out takes hefty doses of creativity, patience, research, and the ability to know a good idea when you see one. The social waters are getting deeper, wider, and more crowded with every passing year. This makes it hard for brands to create content that gets noticed and achieves its purpose.
The remedy? Just look at some of the top social media campaigns of 2024 to get inspired. Ask yourself: What about these social media content ideas makes them so influential? What did these brands do well? How can your brand improve on them?
Use this list to spark your social media marketing strategy and start creating campaigns that work.
Table of Contents:
What Is a Social Media Campaign?
How Do Social Media Campaigns Work?
Top Social Media Campaigns of 2024
What Is a Social Media Campaign?
Let’s start with a definition. What is a social media campaign, anyway?
It’s a lot like any type of marketing campaign: a planned series of events over a specific period of time designed to achieve a certain outcome that can be tracked and measured.
Unlike marketing campaigns that can apply to any number or variety of channels, social media marketing campaigns are specific to social media. Effective social media marketing takes into account each platform’s unique audience, features, and functions and builds the campaign around them.
How Do Social Media Campaigns Work?
Social media campaigns are a slice of a larger social media content marketing strategy. You use content to increase SEO, attract leads, promote products and services, and market your business.
A social media campaign is a granular content marketing tool designed to achieve a specific goal. Instead of creating just any type of content, your content should directly relate to the campaign. It’s more specific and focused, especially when you consider all the different layers of social media that must be taken into account.
Every social media marketing campaign begins with a purpose. For example, you might join a new social network and run a brand awareness campaign to ramp up your follower count.
Or you might be launching a new product and want to run a social media campaign to raise awareness or sales. Use these goals to come up with social media content ideas that will help you reach your objectives.
From there, marketers will come up with social media post ideas to spread the word and achieve their goals. This might be custom images with the brand’s logo, quotes from a company leader, facts or stats from recent research, or ad copy that intrigues the reader, for example.
You can even use artificial intelligence tools, like HubSpot's AI campaign assistant, to generate all of this.
After creating content for social media, you’ll decide where and when to post it. Which platforms will you post on? What time will you post content? How long will you post content around this specific goal or topic?
Finally, you should plan to track your social media posts using a social media monitoring tool like Meltwater. See how users engage with and respond to each post. Compare engagement metrics to specific actions, such as purchases, audience growth, or media mentions to see whether you achieved your campaign goals.
The benefits of social media campaigns cannot be overstated. They help brands to align with innovation and creativity. When done well, they can lead to tons of user-generated content that will help even more people enjoy your content.
Top Social Media Campaigns of 2024
Inspiring your social media content strategy is as easy as looking at what other successful brands are doing. You never know where your next social media content ideas will come from.
Here are some of our favorite social media campaign examples from 2024 and what you can learn from them.
1. Little Caesar’s “Burn the Burns” Campaign
3. Liquid Death’s Marketing Spoof
4. McDonald’s “As Featured In” Collaboration
5. Tinder’s “It Starts with a Swipe” Campaign
1. Little Caesar's "Burn the Burns" Campaign
Little Caesar’s embraces its reputation as a budget pizza brand but also knows its price isn’t a reflection of its quality. To silence the haters, it recruited the infamous “Disaster Girl” from a popular internet meme (where the girl turns and smiles at a camera as a building burns in the background).
The brand created a TikTok campaign where Disaster Girl and others burn signs displaying negative remarks about the company and its pizza, such as “I have standards. I can’t go to Little Caesar’s.”
2. Dove’s The Face of 10
Young girls are impressionable and are constantly being swept in by beauty companies and social media’s impossible standards. To combat body issues before they begin, Dove launched the Face of 10 campaign, which featured girls as young as the age of 10.
The idea is that young girls don’t need anti-aging products marketed to them and that their natural youthful glow is enough.
Are you interested in more Dove campaigns? Learn how Dove raises the bar with its #ArmsUp campaign.
3. Liquid Death's Marketing Spoof
Health is no laughing matter, especially when big soda companies are pushing ungodly amounts of sugar onto their consumers. Liquid Death saw an opportunity to shed light on the topic while showcasing the dangers of sugar and soda in a humorous way.
The campaign featured auditions for a fake soda brand, where attractive models tried to push the product for the camera. It also compared the sugar content of popular sodas to Liquid Death, proving flavor doesn’t need to be unhealthy.
4. McDonald's "As Featured In" Collaboration
Nostalgia has been trending hot in advertising and marketing, and McDonald’s saw an opportunity to cash in with its “As Featured In” menu items. It features fan-favorite items that have been featured in pop culture over the years, including movies like Richie Rich, Space Jam, and The Fifth Element.
To expand the campaign’s reach, the brand is offering unique AR experiences via Snapchat. Customers can scan the QR code on the new Loki sauce to unlock custom content from Marvel Studios or access exclusive merch from skate brand PALACE.
5. Tinder's "It Starts with a Swipe" Campaign
A dating app that’s become synonymous with quick hook-ups and one-time flings, Tinder aims to change its reputation by showing it can connect people for the long term. The “It Starts with a Swipe” campaign is Exhibit A.
The hashtag of the same name has earned hundreds of mentions from Tinder and its customers highlighting pieces of their love story that the app helped to write. The idea is to show that the dating app can offer unlimited possibilities across a wide range of relationships.
6. The First Digital Nation
Global warming and rising sea waters continue to be hot button issues, and the nation of Tuvalu brings attention to the crisis in its First Digital Nation campaign. Experts project that Tuvalu will be completely submerged by sea waters in the next few decades, but its people continue to fight for existence by living on digitally, even after the land is no more.
The campaign won a 2024 Webby award in the social impact category.
7. Heinz Ketchup Insurance
There’s ketchup, and then there’s Heinz ketchup. The brand leads the pack in this fan-favorite condiment, so it’s no surprise the company knows that nearly half of its customers experience ketchup-related disasters.
To help combat stains and spillages, the company launched the Heinz Ketchup Insurance campaign with the hashtag of the same name.
Customers in the UAE can file claims for compensation in the form of house cleanings, handyman services, and even spa treatments. The goal is to turn messy moments into enjoyment, with plenty of humorous advertisements along the way.
8. Michael CeraVe
Launched during Super Bowl LVIII, skincare brand CeraVe enlisted the help of actor Michael Cera, an unlikely candidate to promote its products. Known for his awkward humor and sense of style, Cera’s name became an ideal fit for the CeraVe brand. He was even spotted signing bottles of CeraVe at a New York City pharmacy.
Super Bowl commercials might be made for TV, but they’re notorious for blowing up on social media, too. Fans called the campaign genius and couldn’t help themselves from fawning over it on platforms like X.
9. Fireball Friday
Hashtag campaigns are a great way to load up on user-generated content. Fireball (known for its cinnamon whiskey) takes this to heart by running Fireball Fridays, a way to showcase how real people are having a good time with its cult-favorite drink.
The campaign challenges fans to find creative, unique ways to show how they drink Fireball. Fans post their content with the hashtag and have a chance of being featured on Fireball’s Instagram page each week. The bolder, the better.
See also: Principles of Successful Social Media Challenges
10. Talk Away the Dark
A social impact honoree for the 2024 Webby awards, Talk Away the Dark brings light to the topic of suicide. The hashtag of the same name aims to break barriers in talking about mental health struggles and show that talking can help.
The campaign targets those who might be at risk of suicide as well as non-suicidal individuals who can help others find the light.
Using Meltwater for Your Social Media Campaigns
No matter your campaign, posting the content isn’t the end goal. Once your campaign goes live, use brand tracking software to monitor and measure its impact so you can see how you’re making a difference.
These social media campaign examples are just the tip of the iceberg. How will you use them to inspire your social marketing strategy? For help developing your next campaign and making the most of your social media marketing, contact Meltwater today.
