The Best Social Media Campaign
In our modern-day, brands are trying to find ways to showcase who they are, what their product is, and how they can make the consumer’s life better through social media and in their marketing strategies. Apple is a very well-established brand that has had a very successful marketing and social media campaign titled “Shot on iPhone”. The campaign started in 2015 using images with the three words Shot on iPhone. The next year, 2016, Apple turned it into a user-generated content campaign and contest. They still do the contest annually with the winning images being included in their ads. Apple asked iPhone users to use the #ShotOniPhone with image submissions from iPhone users around the world who wanted to showcase a part of themselves and their culture. The #ShotOniPhone is still a popular user-generated content social media campaign today.
As social media managers or marketers, we can learn from the goals and strategies of Apple’s #ShotOniPhone campaign. One of the first steps in the #ShotOniPhone campaign was starting at the top of the funnel and attracting current followers and consumers to particpate in the campaign.Here are some takeaways I believe were Apple’s goals and strategies.
Goals
Increase in Engagement
One of the goals of this campaign was for Apple to increase engagement on their page and engagement from iPhone users. Apple shared images that used the #ShotOniPhone hashtag on their social media page. In sharing user-generated content Apple is engaging with consumers and consumers can create content with the idea to tag Apple with the hope of getting shared on their page. Apple sharing the user-generated content lets their followers see and be challenged to take great images on their iPhones too.
Increase in User Generated Content
The #ShotOniPhone campaign is focused on user-generated content. Followers of Apple and social media users can use the #ShotOniPhone hashtag to be seen by Apple. The #ShotOniPhone has over 20.5 million posts on Instagram. INCLUDE LINK The hashtag feed is full of pretty images shot with an iPhone camera. The hashtag for the campaign invited followers to create and share content for the promotion of the iPhone camera.
Showcase Apple’s Camera Technology
The social media campaign not only invited iPhone users to create content, the campaign asked iPhone users to get the best shot possible with their iPhone camera. Sharing breathtaking images from an iPhone can cause the viewer of the image to think about how great of technology the Apple iPhone is.
Strategies
Use a hashtag that is easy to remember
The #ShotOniPhone is easy to remember for followers to use when sharing their user-generated content with the brand. It is easy in remembering because the hashtag is simple and used the word iPhone in it. This strategy helped with the increase in user-generated content.
Create hype for the campaign with a contest
Even though it started in 2015, Apple still hosts the contest annually with judges. The winner can have their images used in billboards and advertisements for Apple. Using the strategy to build hype around the campaign with the use of user-generated content assisted in building engagement on Apple’s post and their interaction with followers.
Challenge consumers to be creative
One of the reasons Apple started the campaign in 2015 was to encourage users to share photos taken on iPhone that inspired them, shared a story, or could educate others about the individual’s culture. Now that this campaign has been happening for over five years iPhone users who are creating content with the #ShotOniPhone know what kind of images Apple is looking for in the contest. Seeing the past winning images can inspire iPhone users to be creative in their iPhone photography. The strategy of building a challenge for followers to be creative with their iPhone photography assisted in reaching the goal of showcasing Apple’s iPhone camera technology.
