The BIG Idea File: Stellar Social Engagement – 5 Social Media Campaigns (and What You Can Learn from the Big Brands)

Ever feel like it’s impossible to achieve the big results of the big brands without the big budget? Well it’s true that big brand advertising is in a league of its own when it comes to advertising budgets, but what is possible is to take the little gems of wisdom and apply them on a smaller scale.

5 Social Media Campaigns (and What You Can Learn from the Big Brands)

#1: Tassimo: The Art of a Simple Assignment – Tassimo launched a social media campaign to give away their Tassimo home systems to key influencers. Good idea. How they did it was an even better idea: person-by-person.

Unlike many social media campaigns that ask people to tell everyone they know, Tassimo won in the social space by keeping the assignment simple: pick two of your social media savvy peers to be the recipients of their own Tassimo!  Easy to understand, easy to do (and you know we’re fond of easy).

Lesson: Don’t expect to turn your fans into your promotion base. Instead give them easy social sharing assignments. Yes, the Tassimo campaign took a lot longer to reach critical mass, but that meant it stayed in the social stream for a lot longer, garnering attention of influencers who were wondering, “How the heck do I get one?”.

#2: EA Active: A Lesson in Integration – The campaign started with a group of bloggers who were using EA Active to shed pounds, a real-time testimonial to the effectiveness of their fitness system (social proof is always a good thing).

What set the EA Active campaign apart was that it integrated traditional advertising into the social media campaign, instead of the reverse. EA Active cast the EA Active bloggers in their television commercials, which also aired on YouTube (continuing the social loop).

Lesson: Social media isn’t a replacement for traditional advertising. Instead think of social media as a tool to augment and amplify traditional advertising. Social integration on a smaller scale: consider engaging bloggers to review your product rather than just advertising online.

#3: White Cloud: The How and the Why of Involving Influencers – Want to influence the people who make the buying decisions? Hire them to engage in an authentic conversation with their peers about your brand.

That’s why White Cloud hired blog ambassadors to write about their products. White Cloud also featured the same bloggers in their print advertising, furthering the engagement loop. The key to their success was finding bloggers who not only fit their brand, but had a position of authority with their target audience.

Lesson: Often big brands engage influencers because they aren’t part of that community – an advantage small business have over big brands is that they ARE part of the community. Engage with the community of influencers who not only have a passion for your brand, but a position of authority within the social sphere.

#4: The Roger Smith Hotel: How to Reward Behavior – Lots of local businesses wonder how to turn their customers into social media fans. How about trying bribery?

That’s exactly what The Roger Smith Hotel did for its customers. Check in with FourSquare and get free bacon. It’s a win-win for everyone: the Roger Smith gets a social media endorsement from its fans and it’s social savvy customers get free bacon (and who doesn’t love bacon?).

Lesson: Your social media promotion doesn’t have to be a multi-million dollar campaign or even something overly complicated like creating a viral video. It can be something as simple as a bonus for becoming a Facebook fan, following on Twitter or checking in on FourSquare.

#5: Dove Singing in the Rain: Show How You ‘Walk the Talk’ – Sometimes you wonder if what is behind a clever marketing campaign is a lot fluff made up by the marketing agency.

Dove took bloggers behind the scenes of their real beauty campaign by hiring 14 of them to star in an online music video. The result? Not only did the bloggers share photos, and video clips from the making-of, but many wrote about their experience with the brand.

Lesson: Let your social media fans ‘get to know you’ (the you that is behind the brand). Dove accomplished it by bringing in the bloggers to get to know the brand up-close and gave them a chance to see for themselves that they walk the talk. On a smaller scale, it can be done by simply sharing a little bit of your personality.