7 Viral Social Media Marketing Campaigns Run by Small Businesses
Featured Image: iStock/Ja_inter
Many small businesses are now active on social media platforms, but just having a social media account and posting updates and promotions about your business is not enough to attract your target audience.
For new businesses to attract customers, they must be creative and consistent. This objective is easily achievable through an active social media marketing campaign that is well-planned and executed.
There is, however, a big challenge for small businesses concerning social media, and that is having insufficient resources. Many small businesses manage social media on a shoestring budget with a limited number of digital marketers.
It is, therefore, imperative that small business owners strategize their social media campaigns carefully. Creating a marketing campaign for social media that reaches their targeted audience will help small businesses optimize their social media budget.
As a result, understanding why users share things on their social media accounts is essential to creating successful social media campaigns. Before working on your strategy, it is a good idea to have all the visual brand assets in one place. Get a professional logo design that can be recognizable across different channels and help people identify your business.
When it comes to creating content, you should keep in mind that a post with a higher emotional trigger will have a greater chance of being shared by people. These triggers can include happiness, sadness, and anger, among others.
How can small businesses utilize social media to enhance their marketing efforts? The following examples of social media campaigns demonstrate the ability of small businesses to reach their target audiences, but first, we must understand what makes them successful. So let’s get started.
Common Factors for Successful Social Media Campaigns
Several key characteristics distinguish the best social media campaigns. A strategic focus is on social media interaction rather than the company’s products or services. How does someone respond to a corporate social media post by commenting, sharing, or liking it?
It is not as easy to answer that question.
A social media campaign should also deliver a business or marketing goal, demonstrating the importance of social media campaigns in today’s marketing. It is also important to maintain consistency with branding and boost recognition or awareness. For instance, when it comes to branding ideas for retail startups to kickstart their social media campaigns, there are quite a few that can make an impact on potential customers.
1. Goals for social media campaigns
As a formless medium, social media is a platform on which any structure can be applied. The first step in achieving our objectives is to determine what they are. The result will be meaningless metrics used to measure awareness and widespread engagement.
An effective campaign results from combining marketing analytics, intuition, and traditional creativity.
An audit of your past social media campaigns and those of your competitors is a good way to determine which strategies worked for you. Next, determine your business goals and how they could be translated into social media actions. Its also a good idea to look into design factors and apply accessibility tips for your social media apps to get five star reviews from users.
If you don’t know what you want your audience to do, they are very unlikely to do it.
2. Targeting specific audiences
When it comes to reaching your audience, knowing who you want to reach is also crucial. Data also plays an important role here, as it is derived from a deep understanding of your customer base. You can also brand data visualization assets for marketing campaigns to increase familiarity and convert more potential customers.
The first step in a successful campaign is to develop a clearly defined strategy for who the business will target when they reach the target audience and which social media networks will best serve each objective.
3. Producing creative content
For a brand to stand out in social media, it must be able to create eye-catching content. Data-driven campaigns have a sophisticated approach, yet they never lose sight of content’s importance.
Reaching the exact audience segment is a great opportunity, but only if you know what to say when you have their attention.
A successful social media campaign conveys the company’s brand positioning without straying too far into corporate discourse.
7 Social Media Campaigns That Small Businesses Can Learn From
They follow social media best practices while engaging with their audience innovatively through these creative social media campaigns.
Even though many examples are drawn from large corporations, these marketing techniques can be applied by companies of any size.
1. The Folklore “Black-Owned Friday”
The Folklore, an online retailer specializing in African fashion, launched the “Black-Owned Friday” campaign 3 years ago in November 2020. The goal was to support and promote Black-owned businesses during the holiday shopping season after Thanksgiving.
The Folklore utilized platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to promote black-owned businesses and their products to attract the black community. Their marketing campaign featured product images, highlighted unique stories behind the brands, and provided links for customers to shop directly from these businesses. By creating a dedicated platform to amplify Black-owned businesses, The Folklore encouraged consumers to support them.
The “Black-Owned Friday” campaign brought attention to these businesses and fostered a sense of community and support within the online shopping community.
If you are a small business starting out, you can target a specific community and their requirements and then expand onwards. Make sure that your brand identity designs align with your message and core values.
Image Source: blog.google
2. Gymshark – “66 Days. Don’t Quit”
Gymshark launched a social media campaign in 2021 asking users to share their fitness journeys for 66 consecutive days. The main goal of the campaign was that continuous 66 days workout brings the changes in body which includes losing weight and gaining muscles.
Participants documented their fitness progress, workouts, and challenges using the campaign hashtag on social media platforms such as Instagram.
As a result of the campaign, thousands of people were motivated to pursue their fitness goals.
Image Source: central.gymshark.com
The campaign’s concept revolves around the notion that habits take 66 days to develop. Using the hashtag #66dayfitnesschallenge, Gymshark invited participants to participate in 66 days of fitness challenge.
Participants posted regular updates, photos, and videos of their dedication to the challenge on social media platforms. Gymshark, in response, also provided support and encouragement to the participants who posted.
Image Source: radarr.com
The campaign successfully engaged fitness enthusiasts and communicated the brand’s commitment to supporting active lifestyles.
Here are a few things we can learn from Gymshark:
Create a Sense of Community: Gymshark built a community by encouraging participants to share their progress, challenges, and successes in bodybuilding on social media platforms. Building a sense of community around your brand strengthens customer loyalty.
Set a Clear Goal: A specific goal of the campaign was to motivate individuals to complete a 66-day fitness challenge. Clear objectives help align marketing efforts and provide a measurable target for evaluating the campaign’s results.
3. Elf on the Shelf’s “12 Days of Hide and Seek”:
Elf on the Shelf, a popular Christmas store, launched the “12 Days of Hide and Seek” campaign to engage users and test their creativity. It encouraged the families to find unique and amusing hiding spots for their Elf on the Shelf toy. By using the hashtag #ScoutElfIdeas, parents could share photographs and videos of their hidden elves on Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Many folks embraced the challenge and started hiding their elf toys at unique places in their house to show their imagination and creativity. Due to this the campaign gained a lot of traction and generated a lot of engagement from other users as well.
This campaign has proven successful in capturing the joy and creativity of the holiday season and also providing a source of entertainment to the people. You can also direct more visitors to your website with a successful social media campaign. It is a good idea to create a professional website that encourages people to look for more information.
Image Source: amomstake.com
4. Love Your Melon – “Buy Beanies, Fight Cancer”:
A clothing brand known for its beanies, Love Your Melon, has been running a social media campaign for the cause of pediatric cancer patients. According to the company, one beanie is donated to a child with cancer for every beanie purchased, and part of the proceeds go to pediatric cancer research.
By purchasing Love Your Melon beanies, customers can support the cause while raising awareness of pediatric cancer. To highlight the impact of their purchases, the brand utilized social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
Image Source: amomstake.com
The content created by Love, Your Melon features photos and videos of children wearing their beanies and sharing their experiences. Additionally, they collaborated with celebrities, influencers, and non-profit organizations to amplify their message.
The campaign gained traction in just a few days and generated significant engagement and support. Many customers were making a meaningful contribution towards the treatment of cancer patients.
The campaign connected with its audience emotionally by making their purchases align with a noble cause and create a sense of purpose.
5. Burger Revolution- “Comment of the Day”
A Canada-based restaurant called Burger Revolution has a marketing strategy involving sharing their patron content on different social media platforms, which helps to build loyalty and simultaneously helps to gain new customers.
They run a campaign known as “the comment of the day.” A Post-It note board is available at the physical store where patrons can provide feedback about their experience.
Every day, the Burger Revolution team shares its favorite comment on social media. A social media marketing campaign like this allows Burger Revolution to showcase the positive experiences of its patrons. The company can also humanize its brand by displaying comments from people who enjoy visiting the location.
Furthermore, Burger Revolution’s fans and followers enjoy the daily posts. The content is often liked, retweeted, and commented upon by the audience.
With the comment of the day campaign, Burger Revolution is innovating a way to promote user-generated content on their social media pages. To attract and engage their target market, small businesses can use this type of social media marketing effort.
What Can You Learn from Burger Revolution Campaign?
To take advantage of user-generated content, your business does not need handwritten notes from your loyal customers.
There are still ways to encourage your fans and followers to contribute content to your social media channels. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is to hold a social media contest where you request photos of your customers using your products. Giveaways and free goods are popular among people.
Your customers can still generate some wonderful content even if you give them a small donation. For small businesses, user-generated content is an invaluable social media strategy.
By showing potential customers and prospects how your products work in the real world, you help them understand how they might benefit.
6. Chewy – “Pets Bring Us Together”
Chewy, an online retailer of pet supplies, recently ran a heartwarming campaign highlighting the bond between pets and their owners.
Chewy hopes to promote itself as the ultimate pet supply store by highlighting people’s emotional connection with their pets.
Chewy asked the customers to share their stories, photos, and videos on social media, which showed how much they love their pets and how they have changed their lives. Anyone who used the ‘Pets bring us together‘ hashtag on their posts had their post shared by Chewy on their page.
Image Source: facebook.com/Chewy
Pet owners well received the campaign across a variety of social media platforms. The participants shared heartwarming stories of how their pets provide companionship, comfort, and happiness. Participants actively engaged in the campaign got giveaways and special mentions from Chewy on their official page.
“Pets Bring Us Together” was a successful campaign that made pet owners feel connected and created a community atmosphere. With its celebration of the love and companionship of pets, Chewy has created a brand committed to recognizing and valuing the relationship between humans and animals.
Image Source: facebook.com/Chewy
Evidently, the campaign was successful based on the widespread participation and the positive sentiment generated regarding the brand.
7. Urban Canning Company
St. Petersburg-based Urban Canning Company sells jams, pickles, and beer mustards that are handcrafted and naturally preserved.
Their marketing plan is to reach local consumers who can purchase their products at local markets, stores, and customers in other parts of the country.
Furthermore, they should target new consumers and distributors interested in purchasing their products online. Urban Canning is doing an excellent job of branding itself as an artisanal food producer.
Since many of their products are seasonal, they are only available for a limited period.
They have created a social media marketing campaign emphasizing these seasonal products’ limited quantity.
As soon as these limited batch items become available, they inform customers where to find them via social media. Urban Canning aims to attract its audience’s attention by using high-quality photographs of their products.
Image Source: lyfemarketing.com
A brief product description is followed by fun captions that help draw the audience’s attention.
These posts emphasize that the special products are available only for a limited period of time. Additionally, they provide information about where users can obtain these products before they run out.
A sense of urgency is created for eager consumers by emphasizing the limited nature of Urban Canning’s products.
Providing consumers with information that the products are limited in quantity and seasonal encourages them to act quickly. Purchasing a limited product also adds a sense of exclusivity to the experience for consumers.
Conclusion
These seven viral social media marketing campaigns by small businesses exemplify the power of creativity, authenticity, and community engagement.
They demonstrate how small businesses can make a big impact and compete in the digital landscape by being creative and understanding their audience. We hope you get the idea if you are a small business owner.
