Urban Decay | Get Electric. Festival Style.

Urban Decay built a social campaign on Pinterest where users could submit their best recreations of makeup styles that they've seen at their favorite music festivals. Throughout the campaign Urban Decay gave away free festival tickets to Pinterest users that created the best boards featuring festival looks. 

Essence | Justin Bieber Believe Tour Sponsorship

The European beauty brand Essence made the most of their sponsorship of Justin Bieber's Believe Tour by creating social media events around each show.

They gave away free products at shows and offered various sweepstakes that highlighted user-generated content as contest entries for free tickets and other prizes.

Not only did they generate a lot of interest in their own brand, but they helped build buzz around each of the shows on the tour. The campaign resulted in 263 million brand impressions, 82,615 brand expressions, and 35 percent of on-site activation through social.

National Geographic | My Nat Geo Covershot

National Geographic launched a Facebook contest where their fans had a chance to have their own photo featured on the cover of the magazine and win two tickets for a free vacation. All the fans had to do was upload their photos and caption it and they were automatically entered to win.

Samuel Adams| April Fools: Helium Beer

This is a perfect example of leveraging a holiday to create a viral piece of social content. The beer maker Sam Adams posted this video across their social media platforms, showing off their new helium beer as an April Fools prank. You have to watch the video to see why it was such a hit.

Honey Bunches of Oats | 50 Million Smiles and Counting

Honey Bunches of Oats ran a campaign with the tagline “50 Million Smiles and Counting,” during which they shared the testimonial videos, images, and quotes from fans they had "made smile" across the country in exchange for a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip. By sharing the user-submitted content across Facebook and Instagram, they were able to add 162,000 new fans (a 721% increase) and increase engagement and traffic to their pages.

Qdoba | Queso Bliss Showdown

Popular restaurant chain, Qdoba, created a campaign where their fans could vote for their favorite queso, deciding which one the company would keep and which one would have to go.

The best part about this social media campaign was that the Qdoba team updated the results in real-time, keeping everyone engaged, and building suspense around the showdown. 

TD Ameritrade | #itaddsup

With this campaign, TD Ameritrade was able to capitalize on the 2014 Winter Olympics hype by comparing the accumulation of small investments over time to the practice and preparation that athletes go through to compete.

An entire staff created for the campaign stayed in Sochi to document the athletes' journeys with photos, videos, and other content. The campaign resulted in 78,000+ uses of the campaign hashtag #itaddsup, a 12% increase in overall social audience, and 97 million brand impressions.

Biltwell | Fan Helmet Art

Biltwell sells motorcycling accessories and does a great job of keeping their fans engaged and passionate about their brand using their Facebook fan page. 

One way they do this is by sharing fan-shared helmet art on their timeline. Fans get their 15 minutes of fame and Biltwell gets to show off the awesome things people do with their products and "delight" their fans in the process.

GE | #6SecondScienceFair

GE launched a campaign hosting a #6SecondScienceFair on Vine and Tumblr where they re-vined posts from people using this tag to encourage interest in science, increase engagement, and build GE's reputation as an innovator. 

The particular Vine below highlights what happens when you combine milk, food coloring, and dish soap. It has been liked 130,000 times and re-vined 105,000 times.