Lessons To Learn From Top Social Media Campaigns

Of late, companies are creating smart and innovative social media campaigns to advertise their products. Some manage to create tremendous buzz around their products. Others are not so successful, because they didn't do everything just right. Let's have a look at the lessons that some of the best media campaigns from the past few years can teach us.

Watch the behavior of social media users and use that to your advantage. This is obvious, but key. For instance, look at the Starbucks photo campaigns of 2009. They pinned up new posters in the style of the 60s, with copy about quality coffee beans and how Starbucks uses it to make the best coffee. People were given the challenge to be the first to find one of these posters and post them on Twitter.

The inspiration for the project was a market research of online networking sites popular with the young.

But media marketing strategy today is not just about drawing new customers but about keeping the old ones interested. And that's where Starbucks scores high in its innovative marketing methods. This is clear from the large and staunch Starbucks following – 1 million on Twitter alone.

Community building is important. The Starbucks project was not aimed at attracting new customers, but then they already have a strong support base. However, for other brands this may not be the case. Some of the most successful campaigns are about reaching out to new arenas and new people.

A case in point is the Gap program where the online discount coupon site Groupon was a partner – selling $50 worth of apparel for $25 dollars must have brought in many new users. Another instance is their deal for Fourquare users that gave a 25% discount for each login on a particular day. And there's no easier community builder than social media sites.

Know your product and your brand well. More and more film production houses are using social media to advertise their films. Toy Story 3 was one of these, which sent out viral videos as well as iPhone ads to create a buzz. Tickets for the film were available on Facebook. People using Facebook couldn't really leave without booking their seat in the theaters. This translated into revenue for the brand. It was a strong crusade that was highly successful.

However, the flaw in the Toy Story social media campaign was that some of the products, such as the ad for iPhone 4, was too polished. This is a hazard of tie-ups with big brands. Somehow the rolling ad with characters from the film was not in the spirit of the film itself, as it lacked the nostalgia of the other ads that were created as a part of the same campaign.