Creative Ideas for Social Media Marketing

Successful social media marketing requires ongoing creativity. The best marketers continually find new ideas to promote their products, gain new followers, and increase recognition of their brand. Repeating the same self-promotional message usually fails to entice consumers. People demand excitement and entertainment. If marketers’ ideas slow, their followers will leave for other brands.

With that in mind, these are some examples of creative marketing ideas and campaigns we’ve gathered from marketing pundits.

Popular Techniques

In an article for Social Barrel, Jane Danes cites NASA, Nike and Adidas as top examples of social media accounts that can spark marketing ideas. They rely on some of these techniques

Humor. Brands, or the marketers providing the voice of the brand, use a first person voice with witty phrases to introduce their products and services. They aim to educate their audience in an engaging and witty manner. Wendy’s also uses humor on social media in responding to customer queries and complaints.

Pop culture. Brands that seek a young audience make regular references to pop culture. They use the latest memes trending online and Internet lingo in clever twists.

Customized content. Tailoring content to the formats of different networks works wonders. Marketers keep Snapchat posts entertaining as possible and avoid jargon, but they share detailed information on Twitter and Reddit. They post behind-the-scenes or photos before they are released to the press, and images that attract attention.

Influencers. Companies with large numbers of followers understand the importance of nurturing relationships with social media influencers. For instance, they might urge their followers to share a company news item, then give a few select followers a behind-the-scenes tour of the organization and offer them an opportunity to accompany engineers or executives.

Examples from Leading Brands

Ramona Sukhraj, content marketing manager at Impact Branding & Design, shares 25 social media campaign ideas from top brands. Here’s a few of them.

Six-second science. A GE campaign on Vine and Tumblr featured re-vined posts from people using the #6SecondScienceFair tag to encourage interest in science, increase engagement, and build GE’s reputation as an innovator. As the hashtag infers, videos lasted six seconds. One video, for instance, highlighted what happens when you combine milk, food coloring, and dish soap. The result was a colorful explosion.  The clip was liked 130,000 times and re-vined 105,000 times.

Share what fans create. Biltwell, which sells motorcycling accessories, shares what fans do with its products by posting them on its Facebook page. One fan painted a Biltwell helmet with feathers so it resembled an Indian war bonnet. Fans get their 15 minutes of fame and Biltwell gets to show off its products and “delight” their fans.

A photo contest. National Geographic launched a Facebook contest where its fans submitted photos for a chance to have their photo featured on the cover of the magazine and win two tickets for a free vacation. Fans needed only to upload their photos and caption them to enter the contest.

An April 1 prank. In an excellent example of holiday marketing, beer maker Sam Adams marketed its “HeliYUM” beer on April 1. In video posted across its social media channels, founder Jim Cook praised the benefits of adding helium to beer while sampling the product – in a high-pitched voice. He then offered samples to eager customers.

An Offline-Online Hybrid

Honest Tea created a hybrid offline-online campaign to highlight the fact that its tea uses real ingredients, explains Ben Sailer, blog manager at CoSchedule. The company set up pop-up shops in major cities that offered tea samples in exchange for $1 donations to charity. The tea stands were unstaffed, relying on visitor’s honesty –complementing the brand’s “refreshingly honest” tagline.

Honest Tea asked participants to prove their honesty by sharing their experience on Twitter and Instagram using the #RefreshinglyHonest hashtag. At the end of the campaign, the company posted results on a landing page. It turned out that the tea drinkers were refreshingly honest.

“This campaign got Honest Tea’s audience involved with the product, tied the brand’s cause back into its product in a creative way, and combined offline and online strategies well,” Sailer summarizes.

Happy to Help

In KLM’s “Happy to Help” campaign, the airline monitored Twitter for complaints from disgruntled travelers and then offered help — whether they were KLM customers or not.  It responded to everything from tracking down lost visas to delivering a bed to a stranded traveler.

The campaign was effective because it focused on being helpful. “It didn’t matter which airline someone was flying on,” Sailer explains. “It turned negative experiences into magical moments people will remember.”

Finally, GoPro provided an example of how marketers can show their gear in an unusual way. It strapped one of its cameras to a skateboarding cat. Didga, the skateboarding cat from Australia, demonstrated her skills at a skate park.

“It worked because it showed off an interesting application of their product and tied it into something their audience is interested in,” Sailer notes. The lesson: If your creativity slows, video a cat.

Bottom Line: As marketers compete for the attention of fickle consumers, creativity has become paramount. Consider these ideas and creative examples from leading brands to spark your marketing creativity.