Marvel| Ant-Man Mini Billboards

To build hype for their upcoming movie, the marketing team behind Ant-Man placed tiny billboards in Australian cities.

Naturally, people reacted in the only way you would expect in 2015 when seeing something out of the ordinary, they posted pictures of it on social media. This is a genius way to get people talking about your brand, without asking them to.

Airbnb| #treehousetuesdays

A great way to get people excited about your brand is to offer them the chance to experience something unique. With #treehousetuesday, Airbnb features photos of actual listings in their service that allow you to spend the night in a real-life tree house. Judging from the engagement on this photo, I'd say it's working well for them. 

Head any direction from this Washington state treehouse, and you’ll find something extraordinary to explore. A five-mile stroll north gets you to quaint village-within-the-city Fairhaven, find the majestic Skagit River Valley 20 minutes south, head east for the waterfalls of the North Cascades, or venture west to board a ferry to the San Juan Islands. #TreehouseTuesday Click the link in our bio to check out this listing's nature-inspired design. Photo cred: @moneal

A photo posted by Airbnb (@airbnb) on Apr 26, 2016 at 5:19pm PDT

Offbeat Bride| Altar Your Thinking

Offbeat Bride is a wedding website that brings high-quality content curation to social media -- pinning their own content and other useful content for their followers to explore.

Their Pinterest account is a must-follow for brides-to-be, providing ideas for engagement photos, wedding venues, dresses, and much more, along with some of the most creative wedding ideas you've ever seen.

While more of an every practice than a campaign, their sharing attracts a great deal of fan attention and interaction. 

Samsung| Celebrity Selfie

Who could forget the star-studded selfie from the 2014 Oscars that received 1 million retweets in 45 minutes? While this isn't technically a campaign, it was a great accidental social marketing by Samsung. 

Diesel| Road to Tokyo #forsuccessfulliving

To celebrate 30 years in Japan, this week, Diesel created a shoppable video that was shown ahead of its FW16 runway show in Tokyo.

The cinematic short, titled “Road to Tokyo,” follows several Diesel models around the capital as they prepare for their catwalk appearance.

In the film, icons appear over the models. Once clicked, these display the different items they are wearing. Users then have the option to save them to a personal “look book” or follow a link to buy on the Diesel store right there and then.

Part of its #forsuccessfulliving campaign, the video is unusual in that it aired ahead of the catwalk — meaning users had an earlier peek into the collection to “see-now-buy-now” before the press and attendees. This is a trend that’s featured heavily in New York Fashion Week.

Welcome to Tokyo Diesel style. Click on our bio to watch the full story. #fw16

A video posted by Diesel (@diesel) on Sep 6, 2016 at 5:03am PDT

Oreo|

Oreo found a great way to engage their fans by posting DIY content on Vine. Fast tips like these do very well on the platform and it gave Oreo a unique opportunity to engage with their fans and see how they engage with their product. 

Pepsi | #LiveForNow

This might be difficult for most companies to pull off unless you have a large enough budget to make room for these special effects. As part of Pepsi's #livefornow campaign, they created this incredible bus shelter in London that's designed to get funny reaction from people. This is one you really have to watch. 

Doritos | #crashthesuperbowl

Doritos utilizes two great strategies in this campaign: highlighting user-generated content and building off of the buzz from a huge event -- the Superbowl. This social media contest allows fans to submit their Doritios commercials and the winner gets their video on TV during the Superbowl, along with other cool prizes.

Kohls | #PeterSomForKohls

A lot of brands are undecided on how to leverage Google+, because it doesn't fit neatly into one category of social media. However, Kohls has found a way to leverage the popularity of influencers to promote their Peter Som line of clothing on Google+ -- while still keeping it fun for the fans.

CapitalOne | Personable Brand Voice

Banks and other financial institutions generally don't do a great job of connecting with people through social media. (Amex is the notable exception.) However, CaptialOne does a great job of consistently posting snappy and relatable content on their LinkedIn page. This is a reminder that "serious" businesses can get away with keeping it casual on social media.

Tiffany | Tiffany Blue by

Sugar Pop Wishes shows you can position your brand around nearly anything to increase brand awareness -- in their case it's around their signature blue. Instagram users posts tens of thousands of photos with the hashtag #tiffanyblue and many of the blue items have nothing to do with Tiffany. 

40th birthday cake balls 🎂4⃣0⃣ #sugarpopwishes #cakeballs #40thbirthday #turning40 #tiffanyblue #tiffanybluecake #bentonville #homemade

A photo posted by Sugar Pop Wishes (@sugarpopwishes) on Aug 21, 2015 at 12:36pm PDT

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.