Igniting Brands with Clever Social Media Campaigns
Umpf’s work as a social media agency is fuelled by clever campaigns. Creative social media campaigns that generate buzz, conversations, interaction and engagement. Social media campaigns that are strategic and measurable so you can see the true ROI. We can build a social media strategy for your brand, from a simple piece of advice on how to create a quick social media footprint, to a more in-depth piece of strategic thinking, using social media to drive long-term sales.
Read on for:
- What is a social media campaign or stunt?
- How to plan a social media campaign
- Our 4 favourite Umpf social media campaigns from the last 15 years
What is a social media campaign or stunt?
Unlike day-day-day content creation, which is typically part of a weekly or monthly content plan, a social media campaign:
- Is a standalone initiative with its own objectives
- Usually has a shorter, defined timeframe
- May have separate creative
- Quite often has its own budget
- Would have its own measurable KPIs
- Complements, but is layered on top of, the ‘always on’ social content
- Falls within the wider strategic social media brand objectives
How to plan a social media campaign
If you’re looking for your agency to create a social media campaign or stunt – or if you’re requesting one from your inhouse team – create a brief that:
- Defines what you’re looking to achieve and why
- Has defined objectives and goals
- Includes any specific messaging you want to use, or references to tone of voice
- Has a clearly identified target audience
- Outlines any assets that need to be used, or includes a brief on assets to be created
- Shows a specific budget, or at least a budget range
- Notes any additional requirements such as:
– What social channels to include or omit
– A guide on how many posts to include
– Any specific tactics to use, or not include, such as video, graphics, carousels, reels, etc
- Has a campaign timeline eg:
-When you want queries returned by
-When you want the creative ideas by
-When you want the campaign to start
-When the campaign should end
- Finally, include any examples of social media campaigns or stunts you particularly like or dislike
Our 4 favourite Umpf social media campaigns and stunts from the last 15 years
We have created many memorable social media campaigns since 2009 – here’s four of our favourites:
1. Tweet Pie – The World’s Shortest Recipe Book
Looking back more than a decade, we created a multi award-winning social media campaign for cooking brand Belling (they are still an Umpf client). Back when Tweets had a 140-character maximum limit, we ran a social media campaign where we crowd-sourced recipes and illustrations via social media. The resulting recipe book, ‘Tweet Pie: The World’s Shortest Recipe Book’ was filled with recipes where the copy was no more than the 140 character limit. The book, which was sold in aid of Foodcycle, won a range of awards including the national CIPR Excellence Award for ‘Best Use of Social Media’. The campaign crossed over into PR – the above video is how CNN covered the campaign.
2.World’s First Dog Selfie – social media campaign of the Year
Back in 2015, we created a paw-some, award-winning social media campaign for pet food brand Canidae. At Crufts we launched the world’s first dog selfie booth where dogs could capture their own selfies (by stepping on a pressure sensitive mat) which were then auto-shared on Canidae’s social media channels. Dogs, dog owners, and the internet loved it. Not to mention the client and also award judges (it won ‘Best Social Media Campaign’ at the Northern Marketing Awards ‘Best Low Budget Social Media Campaign’ at the PR Moment Awards and ‘Consumer Relations Campaign of the Year’ at the CIPR Yorkshire PR Awards.) The campaign generated 37 pieces of media coverage including Channel 5 News, The Telegraph, The Independent, and Heat Magazine. Read the full case study.
3. tWItterstitch: Social Media Campaign for the Women’s Institute
To mark 100 years of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI), Umpf produced a creative social media campaign that introduced a modern social media tactic to a historic milestone. The initiative combined traditional craft with digital culture by live-stitching commemorative tweets onto a large-scale wall hanging, blending online engagement with the WI’s heritage of textile art. The campaign attracted widespread recognition, earning awards such as PR Moment’s ‘Social Media Campaign of the Year’. It was also named one of the top social campaigns by Econsultancy and highlighted by PR Week as one of the year’s five best campaigns. Read the full case study.
4. #NHyeS Award-Winning NHS Health PR Campaign
This integrated campaign for Health Education England included a social media first. We created a social media stunt during National Apprenticeship Week where we developed a geotargeted Snapchat filter which displayed one of five available apprenticeship roles (see above). These filters were promoted to Snapchat users at job centres at ten cities in England. This highly targeted campaign (people in job centres are almost exclusively there to look for work) was the first time NHS Health Education England had used Snapchat as a marketing tool. See the full case study.