According to the recent data, seventy-seven percent of the U.S. population is using social media. It has become equally important for a brand to use social media for promotion just as they use TV commercials. Companies must be creative and spend an adequate amount in order to stand out and get attention. There are so many companies that had successful campaigns this year for different purposes. Let’s take a look at the five best social media campaigns of 2018.

1. Wayfair

Last year in 2017, Instagram made new shopping features available to users and they became popular this year. Wayfair uploaded pictures of their furniture in a creative way. When the user clicked on the item he/she liked, the price showed up. This allowed the user to see the tagged merchandise available for sale. There was a ‘Shop Now’ feature available, once it was selected, the Instagram shopper was directed to the Wayfair website to make a purchase.

Wayfair’s social media campaign worked like an instant online catalog. This created a positive and fairly quick and easy shopping experience for the customers.

 

2. Spotify

The 2018 Goals campaign, highlighted Spotify’s user data in a fun manner. The ads were originally created by their in-house team. The ads contained 2018 Goals with the faces of well-known music artists and statistics of user data. They were Internationally placed on billboards, subways, and buildings and were seen all over the world.

Despite being an outdoor campaign, it fulfilled the aesthetics of a social media campaign. People took pictures of the ads and with the ads, and posted them on various social media platforms that created a buzz over social media and boosted brand awareness.

 

                                                           

 

3. Wendy’s

It all started on Twitter when Wendy’s fast food chain had a beef with their competitor McDonald’s. Wendy’s mocked and teased McDonald’s in March when they announced they would start making some of their burgers with fresh meat. The announcement took place on National Frozen Food Day. To add insult to injury, Wendy’s even released a small rap album on Spotify to continue the taunts. Listen to the rap album here.

 

 

 

 

 

4. IHOP 

The International House of Pancakes aka IHOP, decided to change the restaurant’s name temporarily to ‘International House of Burgers’ in order to welcome burgers on the menu. It was an attempt to gain attention for their burgers instead of being known as a restaurant for breakfast and pancakes. Before announcing the temporary name change, IHOP started dropping hints about a name change on Twitter that resulted in millions of tweets and an increase in burger sales.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Nike

This 2018 media campaign also grabbed a lot of attention on social media. It was indeed the most talked about and controversial campaigns of 2018. Nike featured Kaepernick for the 30^th anniversary of ‘Just Do It campaign’. As most people know, Kaepernick, a former NFL player, stopped playing professional football when he chose to kneel during the national anthem in protest of social injustices to black people in the United States. Unable to play professionally since 2016, he filed a lawsuit again the NFL.

President Trump commented on Nike’s ad and said that the ad has created anger and boycotts. People posted photos of themselves on social media destroying Nike’s clothing and apparel, while others supported and applauded Nike for their bold move. According to Bloomberg.com that shared an Apex Marketing Group statistic, the Kaepernick ad created over 43 million dollars in media exposure for Nike. This is one of the creative marketing campaigns that people will talk about and continue to learn from, for many years to come.