Highlights of 2014’s Social Media Calendar

louisejohnston

It has been another huge year for social media and its always quite impressive to see how creatives have continued to develop unique viral campaigns to beat off the competition. Here are my top 7 highlights from the 2014 social media calendar:

7. Urban Decay

Urban Decay makeup brand cleverly executed a campaign to coincide with Coachella music festival which as we know is attended by more celebs than the Oscars. Users had to pin their favourite looks to their Pinterest and follow Urban Decay for a chance to win tickets to go along to the festival. Their campaign successfully encouraged interaction with their social platform by piggy backing a huge popular music festival and in the process gained in excess of 50,000 followers. Impressive.

6. Tiffany & Co. Instagram

You’ll find over 22k results for Tiffany Blue on Etsy. The video is simple but a classic. It garnered thousands of likes in hours on Instagram.

5. Oreo’s Snack Hack

Oreo’s have nailed Vine. Their snack hacks are hugely popular. Who knew the humble cookie could be so versatile? Oreo has over 33k followers on this relatively niche platform.

4. AT&T

AT&T created a digital video series called @SummerBreak. They successfully tapped up millennial YouTube influencers including Ricky Dillion and Alexis Zall with five to 10 minute episodes and a 20 minute instalment weekly. The storyline follows a group of smartphone addicted teenagers as they spend their last summer together before college life. The numbers for the series which taps into teens’ 3 loves of reality TV, smartphones and social media have been huge.

3. Cancer Research #NoMakeUpSelfie & ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

I’ve grouped these two campaigns together as both didn’t do anything particularly unique but they did spread like wildfire around the globe and they raised a tonne of cash which should be commended. So while they didn’t reinvent the wheel credit to both Cancer Research UK and ALS USA for both creating viral internet sensations.

#NoMakeUpSelfie encouraged women to share a photo of themselves without make up and tag a friend while ALS encouraged friends to film themselves receiving a bucket of ice over the head and to donate to the charity which raises funds for the disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Cancer Research UK reported £8million in donations in just 6 days.

2. Hyundai Copa World Cup Tickets

Hyundai together with Copa 90 (one of the top independent YouTube channels) invited entries with the most passionate, inventive and or creative goal celebrations to submit via their facebook app for a chance to win a VIP trip to the world cup. This content partnership deal with Hyundai and Copa 90 also encompassed a series of programmes reviewing the 12 host cities. You can see some of their successful stats from Hyundai’s involvement in the World Cup below.

1. Snickers

One that deserves an honourable mention is Snicker’s ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’ campaign. This campaign has been going since Snickers paid Rio Ferdinand and Jordan to tweet about knitting and quantitative easing respectively which created mass confusion and thereafter hilarity when people twigged that it was a hoax. They have run successfully with this campaign since and their viral campaign with Australian builders shouting empowering message at women (while probably a bit offensive to builders) is brilliant. I don’t think they have done anything exceptional on social but they have very successfully integrated this theme into their social media with everything from Santa to Thanksgiving related themed tweets.