5 of the best recent social media marketing campaigns we have seen

Sahail Ashraf posted on 8 February 2023

In recent months there has been an avalanche of amazing work in social media marketing. Today, we look at 5 of the best.

If there is one space where innovation and creativity can run riot, it’s on social media. And when brands really get going, you get to see some real works of genius. Over the last six months or so, we have seen some truly inspirational pieces of social media marketing. We thought we would share some of our favourites.

KFC

KFC made a bold push in 2022 for a chance at the breakfast market. Yes, we know that this particular brand is not really known for this time of the day. But KFC wanted to change this.

The Unboring Morning campaign was an attempt to persuade audiences that KFC could offer something at breakfast. While the campaign wasn’t necessarily all bells and whistles all of the time, it was certainly quirky, and different enough to get the attention of pretty much everyone.

It was cross-platform, and tied together with the hashtag #UnboringMorning. This meant that audiences found synergy across platforms, and were happy to follow and use the hashtag. Pull it all together with some fun, quirky imagery, and you have a very successful social media campaign.

McDonalds and the menu hacks

McDonalds has a huge amount of marketing clout at its disposal, and it often uses that in a creative way.

Rather than take any guesses, it decided to go straight to the social media audience it had built up over the years, and ask them what they thought would be a great menu hack.

A menu hack is where you take something from the McDonalds menu and pair it up with something else from that same menu. The deal is that you end up with some truly weird combinations that shouldn’t really exist (or even have been thought of).

Of course, the weird combos that the campaign ‘promoted’ are not on sale. This is just a fun campaign that actively gets the audience identifying and engaging with what makes the brand so special to them.

Dove and the reverse selfie

No strangers to making social media work for a brand, Dove took things to a deeper level recently.

There has been a huge and welcome rebellion against the fake and filtered nature of much of the content on social media. On Instagram and platforms like it, young people are often pressured into using platform tools to change the way they look. It’s sad, and it is affecting the mental health of many young people who feel they need to look a certain way if they are to gain approval on social media.

Dove became part of that rebellion by running a video campaign that showed a reverse sequence of a young girl using makeup and filters to change the way she looked online. The reverse aspect made the campaign engaging and very moving. 

Netflix and Wednesday

The Wednesday TV show on Netflix is a fun and dark series that has proven to be one of the platform’s biggest successes. 

Prior to the release of the first season, Netflix used social media expertly to create a buzz around the show. It uploaded videos of Thing (the ghoulish and funny hand from the show) to YouTube that were funny and completely in tune with the style of the show. It also did some fantastic work on Twitter, again with images of Thing.

The show has turned out to be nearly as big as Stranger Things (another huge success for Netflix), and it’s only had one season so far.

Starbucks and Baya

Starbucks created an energy drink called Baya. The drink is stuffed with vitamin C and the brand wanted to develop a campaign that tied into a sunny and fun vibe.

So they went down the Influencer route. Taking on celebrities like Jordan Fisher from Dancing With The Stars, as well as other hugely popular Influencers in the youth bracket, Starbucks created The Energy Makers Lab.

The Lab campaign, spearheaded by an Instagram video that you cannot watch without smiling, has worked wonders for the growth of the product in the energy drink market. With a focus on fun and youth rather than the intensity of established energy drinks, Baya has now carved out a spot of its own. 

The campaign is the perfect example of a brand using Influencers to set up a unique and laser-targeted campaign.

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