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How to write a social media case study (with template)

Written by by Jenn Chen

Published on  October 10, 2019

Reading time  8 minutes

You’ve got a good number of social media clients under your belt and you feel fairly confident in your own service or product content marketing strategy. To attract new clients, you’ll tell them how you’ve tripled someone else’s engagement rates but how do they know this is true? Enter the case study.

Social media case studies are often used as part of a sales funnel: the potential client sees themselves in the case study and signs up because they want the same or better results. At Sprout, we use this strategy with our own case studies highlighting our customer’s successes.

Writing and publishing case studies is time intensive but straight forward. This guide will walk through how to create a social media case study for your business and highlight some examples.

What is a social media case study?

A case study is basically a long testimonial or review. Case studies commonly highlight what a business has achieved by using a social media service or strategy, and they illustrate how your company’s offerings help clients in a specific situation. Some case studies are written just to examine how a problem was solved or performance was improved from a general perspective. For this guide, we’ll be examining case studies that are focused on highlighting a company’s own products and services.

Case studies come in all content formats: long-form article, downloadable PDF, video and infographic. A single case study can be recycled into different formats as long as the information is still relevant.

At their core, case studies serve to inform a current or potential customer about a real-life scenario where your service or product was applied. There’s often a set date range for the campaign and accompanying, real-life statistics. The idea is to help the reader get a clearer understanding of how to use your product and why it could help.

Broad selling points like “our service will cut down your response time” are nice but a sentence like “After three months of using the software for responses, the company decreased their response time by 52%” works even better. It’s no longer a dream that you’ll help them decrease the response time because you already have with another company.

So now that you understand what a case study is, let’s get started on how to create one that’s effective and will help attract new clients.

How to write a social marketing case study

Writing an effective case study is all about the prep work. You’ve got to get all of the questions and set up ready so you can minimize lots of back and forth between you and the client.

1. Prepare your questions

Depending on how the case study will be presented and how familiar you are with the client to be featured, you may want to send some preliminary questions before the interview. It’s important to not only get permission from the company to use their logo, quotes and graphs but also to make sure they know they’ll be going into a public case study.

Your preliminary questions should cover background information about the company and ask about campaigns they are interested in discussing. Be sure to also identify which of your products and services they used. You can go into the details in the interview.

Once you receive the preliminary answers back, it’s time to prepare your questions for the interview. This is where you’ll get more information about how they used your products and how they contributed to the campaign’s success.

2. Interview

When you conduct your interview, think ahead on how you want it to be done. Whether it’s a phone call, video meeting or in-person meeting, you want to make sure it’s recorded. You can use tools like Google Meet, Zoom or UberConference to host and record calls (with your client’s permission, of course). This ensures that your quotes are accurate and you can play it back in case you miss any information. Tip: test out your recording device and process before the interview. You don’t want to go through the interview only to find out the recording didn’t save.

Ask open-ended questions to invite good quotes. You may need to use follow-up questions if the answers are too vague. Here are some examples.

• Explain how you use (your product or service) in general and for the campaign. Please name specific features.
• Describe how the feature helped your campaign achieve success.
• What were the campaign outcomes?
• What did you learn from the campaign?

Since we’re focused on creating a social media case study in this case, you can dive more deeply into social strategies and tactics too:

• Tell me about your approach to social media. How has it changed over time, if at all? What role does it play for the organization? How do you use it? What are you hoping to achieve?
• Are there specific social channels you prioritize? If so, why?
• How do you make sure your social efforts are reaching the right audience?
• What specific challenges do organizations like yours face when it comes to social?
• How do you measure the ROI of using social ? Are there certain outcomes that prove the value of social for your organization? What metrics are you using to determine how effective social is for you?

As the conversation continues, you can ask more leading questions if you need to to make sure you get quotes that tie these strategic insights directly back to the services, products or strategies your company has delivered to the client to help them achieve success. Here are just a couple of examples.

• Are there specific features that stick out to you as particularly helpful or especially beneficial for you and your objectives?
• How are you using (product/service) to support your social strategy? What’s a typical day like for your team using it?

The above quote was inserted into the Sprout Lake Metroparks case study . It’s an example of identifying a quote from an interview that helps make the impact of the product tangible in a client’s day to day.

At the end of the interview, be sure to thank the company and request relevant assets.

Afterwards, you may want to transcribe the interview to increase the ease of reviewing the material and writing the case study. You can DIY or use a paid service like Rev to speed up this part of the process.

3. Request assets and graphics

This is another important prep step because you want to make sure you get everything you need out of one request and avoid back and forth that takes up both you and your customer’s time. Be very clear on what you need and the file formats you need them in.

Some common assets include:

• Logo in .png format
• Logo guidelines so you know how to use them correctly
• Links to social media posts that were used during the campaign
• Headshots of people you interviewed
• Social media analytics reports. Make sure you name them and provide the requested date range, so that if you’re using a tool like Sprout, clients know which one to export.

4. Write the copy

Now that the information has been collected, it’s time to dissect it all and assemble it. At the end of this guide, we have an example outline template for you to follow. When writing a case study, you want to write to the audience that you’re trying to attract . In this case, it’ll be a potential customer that’s similar to the one you’re highlighting.

Use a mix of sentences and bullet points to attract different kinds of readers. The tone should be uplifting because you’re highlighting a success story. When identifying quotes to use, remove any fillers (“um”) and cut out unnecessary info.

5. Pay attention to formatting

And finally, depending on the content type, enlist the help of a graphic designer to make it look presentable. You may also want to include call-to-action buttons or links inside of your article. If you offer free trials, case studies are a great place to promote them.

Social media case study template

Writing a case study is a lot like writing a story or presenting a research paper (but less dry). This is a general outline to follow but you are welcome to enhance to fit your needs.

Headline Attention-grabbing and effective. Example: “ How Benefit turns cosmetics into connection using Sprout Social ” Summary A few sentences long with a basic overview of the brand’s story. Give the who, what, where, why and how. Which service and/or product did they use? Introduce the company Give background on who you’re highlighting. Include pertinent information like how big their social media team is, information about who you interviewed and how they run their social media. Describe the problem or campaign What were they trying to solve? Why was this a problem for them? What were the goals of the campaign? Present the solution and end results Describe what was done to achieve success. Include relevant social media statistics (graphics are encouraged). Conclusion Wrap it up with a reflection from the company spokesperson. How did they think the campaign went? What would they change to build on this success for the future? How did using the service compare to other services used in a similar situation?

Case studies are essential marketing and sales tools for any business that offer robust services or products. They help the customer reading them to picture their own company using the product in a similar fashion. Like a testimonial, words from the case study’s company carry more weight than sales points from the company.

When creating your first case study, keep in mind that preparation is the key to success. You want to find a company that is more than happy to sing your praises and share details about their social media campaign.

Once you’ve started developing case studies, find out the best ways to promote them alongside all your other content with our free social media content mix tool .

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A Guide How to Create Social Media Case Studies that Convert (with Template)

As you already know, moving leads through the sales pipeline is no easy feat. In the world of digital marketing, it takes an average of 18-21 touchpoints to convert a lead. If you want any chance of pushing prospects down the funnel, you have to directly communicate the value of your product or service and one of the best ways to do this is with case studies. 

Putting together a compelling social media marketing case study is one of the most powerful strategies for attracting future customers or digital agency clients. But it’s not easy. In this article, we’ll go over the ingredients of a winning case study and how to deliver said case study in the most effective way. We’ll also include a template that you can go by. 

Let’s dive right in.

The importance of social media case studies 

There’s a lot of content out there. Your potential customers are constantly bombarded with whitepapers, e-books, 10-step guides, newsletters and unpalatable sales hype. To get the attention of prospects today you have to demonstrate your product or service’s value, not just talk about it. 

B2B buyers today don’t have time to interpret marketing messages that aren’t concise and relevant. That means that instead of aimlessly beating around the bush about how great your company is and how terrific your products are, you have to share the real-life experiences customers are having with you and your products. 

Traditional marketing tactics don’t work anymore. We already know that. People nowadays drive their own buying decisions through online research and the importance of social proof cannot be understated. 

About 57% of the customers will only use or buy a business service if it has at least 4 or five-star ratings. It should be noted however that reviews aren’t enough. In fact,  88% of consumers view ratings and reviews as a personal suggestion, not definitive proof of a product’s efficacy. 

Reviews are all well and good but if you’re marketing B2B software or agency services, creating in-depth, data-driven case studies is the way to go. Case studies are extremely effective in the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey when they are actively comparing solutions and providers to solve a problem they’re experiencing. 

As we already mentioned, your prospects are actively researching your products and there’s a 100% chance that they will stumble upon content from your competitors. Having relevant resources like case studies can cement your brand as an authority figure. 

Now that you know why case studies are important it’s time to tackle the creation process. 

The ingredients for a perfect case study 

1. detailed and full of data .

Have you ever read a case study where a business states they “doubled traffic” for the customer in their case study, and wondered if that meant they went from 50 to 100 visits or 5,000 to 10,000 visits?

The point of a case study is to highlight the exact ways your product or service has helped a customer. The most compelling case studies hit prospects in the face with how amazing your customers’ results were, meaning you need to include numbers. Lots of them. Here’s an example: 

Instead of saying “How client X got more sales thanks to us”, use “How client X increased their sales by X% in X days thanks to us” 

This step may sound like a no-brainer but it’s absolutely essential to use relevant data when crafting your social media case study, especially if you run a digital agency. Include statistics like a decrease in ad spend, an improvement in engagement or increase in organic followers.

It’s important to remember that not everyone is as familiar with analytics and KPIs as you are, so break down the complicated sections into digestible bits that anyone can understand. Provide context as you go along so the data flows with the overall narrative of the case study. 

Include some eye-catching visuals like picture proof or real-time dashboards so the reader can envision the positive potential of your product or service. 

2. A complete, compelling story 

Storytelling is a powerful marketing strategy that has stood the test of time. A great social media case study uses narrative techniques to put readers in the subject’s shoes. 

When crafting your subject’s persona, be sure to include: 

• Who is the sample customer, what do they do and why do they do it?
• What were the customer’s goals?
• What were the customer’s needs?
• How did you satisfy those needs and help the customer meet their goals?

As a rule of thumb, structure your case study by splitting up the main takeaways into three easy snippets: The challenge, the impact you had, and the outcome. This way you make sure that your case study isn’t all over the place and concludes with the reader being wowed. 

Furthermore, you want to carry the story through and show how your business helps your customers long-term. You want your product or service to become a cornerstone of your customers’ workflow, something they simply can’t live without.  When you conclude the “outcome” section of your case study, include ways customers can use your business further down the line. 

When it comes to creating a compelling story, throwing in some emotional benefits alongside the hard numbers is absolutely necessary. Did your solution improve workplace morale, free up time or overall take a load off of your subject’s shoulders? Ask for a quote from the case study subject to make things more personal and relatable. 

To really drive the narrative home, use quotes from your team as well. Any potential prospects will love discovering how your team overcame certain hurdles and delivered the end result. Interview your graphic designer or content manager and get them to break down the project into steps. This will help prospects further familiarize themselves with your organization and how your team thinks and operates, a connection that can help keep you top-of-mind when leads are ready to convert. 

3. Compelling visuals 

Using visuals and images to enrich the case study experience is a key element of a comprehensive marketing case study. But cramming in screenshots and haphazard designs is sure to have an adverse effect to what you were hoping for. 

You want your case study to be a joy to read and as such it’s important to keep a few key rules in mind:       – Write a catchy headline that gives a clear idea of what the case study is about 

• Leave plenty of negative space when arranging your visual elements. You don’t want a busy mess of visuals that’s hard on the eyes 
• Ensure that your visual elements compliment the data and written content of your case study. 
• Keep your target audience in mind. What kind of creatives would they be drawn to? What fonts, visual cues and tones would keep them hooked? It goes without saying to add your company’s unique branding as well. 
• The information you present should flow like a story. The graphic elements, along with the text should guide the reader’s eye through the study from beginning to end. 

To spice things up, consider adding multimedia elements such as videos, PDFs, and images to make the case study more engaging. 

When getting together the creative assets for your case study, be sure to include headshots of the actual customer, dashboards of results (graphs are great for visual storytelling) and screenshots of any social media posts that were created during the campaign (if relevant). 

You can use tools like Kontentino’s social media a n a l y t i c s tool to implement custom metrics and create stunning reports. 

Relatable to your target audience 

If you’re at the point where you’re sharing success stories, chances are that you know who your ideal customer is. When crafting a case study, you want to write to the audience that you’re trying to attract. The readers of your study will most likely be very similar to the customers you’re writing about.

People who will read your case study most likely have a decent understanding of what your business is and what you can offer. They’re already somewhere in the middle of your funnel and as such it’s time to take advantage of personalization . Now you may need to create multiple case studies tailored toward different audiences, but it’s sure to pay off in the long run. 

Reflect on the project you’re highlighting in the case study and think about who the customer was. What industry were they in? What kind of client were they? Were they visually-oriented? Did they appreciate heavy-handed analytical reports, a good story or a combination of the two? 

These insights can help you nail down the written tone and show potential clients that you understand their specific needs, are comfortable in their niche and can apply strategies in accordance to their use-case.

Different ways to deliver a social media marketing case study

If you just created an amazing case study that’s sure to knock readers’ socks off, you want people to find it. This means populating every channel at your disposal with your content so your potential customers can’t miss it. 

 Youtube is the second-largest search engine in the world and the platform’s algorithm holds the potential to show your video to a whole new audience. While YouTube’s algorithm is often iffy, writing a catchy title, detailed description and creating an effective thumbnail are good ways to keep your video in the algorithm’s favor. 

In addition, you’ll want to link your full case study in the comments and get viewers to land on your website. 

• Social media 

If you’re creating a social media case study, using social media to share said case study should be a no-brainer.

 Break down the content of your case study into bite-sized chunks for Instagram or Facebook, post analytics dashboards from the study on Twitter and link the study in a LinkedIn post to spice up your profile. The shareable nature of social media may lead to your case study going further than just your own site.

• Embedded in other types of content  

Case studies can also be embedded in other types of content like blog posts, newsletters, guides or ebooks. Go through your current pieces of relevant content and link to your case study to provide extra value. 

3 winning social media marketing case study examples 

Now that we’ve gone over the components of a winning social media case study, let’s check out some real world examples. 

1. “How ERA Belgium Provides Great Content for Franchise Businesses with Kontentino,” by Kontentino 

A thing to note regarding this case study is how Kontentino not only highlighted the impressive data but also how the product helped solve a core pain point for ERA Belgium’s franchises .

Highlighted in the middle of the case study is a bold quote from the client that helps solidify Kontentino’s KontentBase product as a must-have tool for franchises. When creating your own case study, consider your product and who’s needs it addresses. Align your customer quotes and data and results reports to match exactly what your target audience is looking for. 

The Konetino case study also includes a CTA at the end so any potential prospects could directly contact the support team.

2. “How an SEO Agency Helped an Artisan Bakery Increase Organic Traffic by 214%,” is a very well written case study by Semrush

This comprehensive case study by Semrush is a perfect example of pinpoint narrative structure and proper formatting. The study flows like a well-written story and guides the reader through the subjects, conflicts and resolutions without a hitch. The tasteful addition of dashboards and bullet points ties the case study up perfectly. 

3. “How Good Dye Young Increased Their Monthly E-commerce Revenue by 305%,” an impressive storytelling case study by Mailchimp 

This case study by MailChimp is full of personality and storytelling. While MailChimp did include impressive numbers, the centerpiece of this case study is the people. The subjects in the case study are referenced casually by their first names, their journey is explored in-depth and there’s no shortage of quotes from them. The imaging MailChimp uses only emphasizes the human side of the relationship between them and the customer. 

Keeping you on track with your social media case study 

So now you’ve got a solid idea of what a comprehensive case study should include and you’ve seen the techniques we’ve covered in action. Now it’s time to go over a full template to ensure you stay on track when creating your awesome social media case study. 

Social media marketing case study template 

Outline: Case Study Title

Customer: Customer’s full name 

Company: Company’s name 

Industry: The industry the customer operates in (if applicable) 

Video: Link to a video version (if applicable)

Author: Author’s name 

Case study title

A short introduction of the customer. 

 Be sure to highlight:

• The customer’s name and a little bit about them.
• Why you and your customer were a perfect fit 
• The key successes your customer had after working with you 

Introduce your customer 

In this section, provide a more in-depth overview of your customer. If it’s an individual, explain the person’s background in the context of your product/service. If it’s a business, talk about the company’s background, industry and any recent successes or milestones they have had. 

Describe the problem 

Explain the challenge or opportunity your customer faced before they did business with you. This could be either a reactive reason (i.e. the customer had an issue that needed to be addressed) or a proactive reason (i.e. there was an untapped potential that was unleashed by working with your business).

Why (Customer Name) Chose (Your Company)

In this section, speak about the decision process of your customer. Speak about how they discovered you, your possible competition and what made them ultimately decide to do business with you.

How (Your Company) Responded 

Here, explain what happened once your business started working with your customer. What was addressed first, and why? How did your customer feel about working with you in the early days?

The Results

In closing, speak to the results your customer saw after working with you. This section can be supported by statements, quotes, visuals, graphs, and metrics. Whatever you decide to include, be sure it illustrates how much of an impact your company made on your customer. 

Call-to-Action

Use this section to move your readers down the funnel. Add a CTA that encourages readers to either join your newsletter or get in touch with your sales team.

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How to Write a Social Media Case Study: A Handy Template for Agencies

When you’re talking to prospective clients during the sales process, they may want to see proof that you can achieve the results you’re promising them. So why not show them an example of your past achievements?

A social media marketing case study that’s full of persuasive data and client quotes is the perfect way to demonstrate the success customers can expect if they enlist your services.

Though it may take some time to produce, a well-put-together case study is worth the effort. In this article, we’ll explain how to create a social media success story, with some key things to include. And to help you get started, we’ll provide you with an example based on one of our own case studies.

Using quintly, you can automate the whole process of social media data collection , and use the data you’ve collected to create compelling marketing reports and case studies. Learn more about how to collect and analyze your clients’ social media data in a single platform.

What is a social media case study?

A social media case study is an in-depth exploration of one of your biggest client success stories. It describes how you helped them solve their problems and reach their goals.

Often, case studies focus on a specific campaign designed to achieve a certain result. Perhaps your clients wanted to improve ROI on social media by 20%. Or, maybe they were struggling to make an impact on Facebook and looking to improve performance on that channel.

The case study should be based on conversations with your clients and include lots of quotes from them throughout. It should also include evidence and data to back up the claims.

You can publish case studies on your company’s website or blog, and share them with leads as part of your sales funnel.

How to write a social media success story

A customer success story must be relatable, persuasive, and interesting enough to make sure that prospective leads will actually read it. Every marketing case study is different and will follow your client’s unique business and story. While there’s no one-size fits-all approach, there are some elements we think are important to include. If you’re not sure where to begin, here’s a few ideas to get you started.

1. Reach out to your client

First, you need to ask the right clients to participate in your case study. Choose a company that came to you with a specific problem or goal, and with your help has been able to overcome challenges and achieve great results.

Ideally, the featured business should be similar to the ideal clients you are hoping to attract , so that potential clients can relate to their problems and desires.

You’ll need to reach out and make sure they’re happy for you to feature them in the case study, and don’t mind investing some of their time. It may take a while for all the decision-makers to agree and sign off on the project, so allow plenty of time for this process. Once you have their agreement, you can start preparing to interview them.

2. Conduct an interview for your case study

The client interview is one of the most important steps because their feedback will become the backbone of the case study. 

You could send your client over a list of questions and ask them to respond by email. However, it’s better to set up a conversation with one or two representatives from the company , either by phone or video call, so you can have a more natural conversation and get deeper insights.

It’s important that you don’t go into a client interview cold. Being prepared means doing your research so that you won’t waste your or your client’s time.

Before the call, send over your questions so that they can start thinking about their answers. You should also request any assets or information you might need for the case study, such as the company logo and images you’ll want to use.

Ask lots of open-ended questions that elicit detailed responses. Try to cover every angle so you won’t have to go back and forth later for further clarification.

Here are a few example questions:

• Why does social media matter for your brand?
• What were your biggest challenges regarding social media marketing?
• How have our services helped you overcome those challenges?
• What’s changed in your social media and marketing strategy since we began working together?

Check that it’s ok to record the call so you can focus on the conversation and not have to worry about taking notes. A transcription software such as Otter.ai (available with a free plan) can help you record audio and transcribe it.

3. Compile data from social media analytics

Along with customer quotes, backing up your good work with social media data will go a long way. 

When it comes to persuading new clients that you’ve got what it takes to help them overcome their challenges and reach their objectives, there’s nothing more convincing than hard data.

It shows that your past campaigns have objectively performed well, and you’re not just interpreting your results as positive. And, it builds trust with prospective customers because it shows that you’re committed to tracking your own progress and keeping yourself accountable. 

Graphs and screenshots also help to make your case study more engaging. You can use them to break up big chunks of text with visuals.

Select the most eye-catching and impressive metrics to include in your case study. If you are using a social media platform such as quintly, you can take screenshots from your dashboards to illustrate the points you’re talking about.

You can include some data comparing your client’s performance with their competitors. 

For example, the graph below shows that even though Barcelona FC and Real Madrid shared roughly the same number of posts on Facebook in the selected period, the Catalan football club had a higher Interaction Rate than its rival:

You can also contrast the client’s current numbers against past results to show the improvement. 

For example, the following graphs show a month-to-month increase in FC Barcelona’s Interaction Rate on Instagram. 

Retrieving high-quality data and presenting it in an easy-to-understand format is essential for creating an effective case study. And, it can shape the way your case study is going to look, depending on what specific data points you decide to focus on. So make sure you have all the necessary metrics and dashboards set up before you begin writing your content. 

4. Write your case study

When you’ve got your client’s responses to your questions and you’ve picked out some key data points to include, it’s time to focus on the content of your case study.

To write an engaging case study, you must first grab the reader’s attention with a great headline that’s brief and clear. It can also mention the company name and a specific result they achieved.

Your headline could be something like: “Company A achieves X% increase in social media conversions with help from Y campaign”.

As a subheading, summarize the contents of the case study in a single sentence so that even those who don’t read the full article will get an idea of what you achieved.

Format your case study as a story with your customer  as the protagonist. This can help to grab the reader’s attention and take them on a journey with you.

When telling the story, remember to: 

• Describe where they began – the problems they were facing and the goals they wanted to achieve.
• Explain what tactics you used to help them, and why you decided on this strategy.
• Talk about how these tactics began to improve their results and bring them closer to hitting their social media KPIs and increasing ROI.
• Keep the focus on your customer , using their own words to describe the situation.

Style and formatting matter . Your case study should be informative yet easy-to-read. So use conversational language and make sure the tone of voice is in keeping with your brand and appealing to your target customer.

Bullet points, short paragraphs, and images are good to break up the text. Make sure quotes and impressive statistics stand out, and cut down unnecessary words from quotes to keep them on-topic.

Case study example

At quintly, we use case studies to highlight the outstanding results that our customers have achieved. 

For inspiration, you can read our social media case study on Benefit Cosmetics and how they increased their engagement by 50% using our platform.

Let’s go through this case study step by step so you can use it for creating your own.

1. Write a headline and a summary

The headline must attract people’s attention straight away. We did this by mentioning the company name, and a specific result achieved: 50% increase in engagement.

We’ve then summarized the case study in one sentence providing a key takeaway of what our client was able to achieve.

2. Provide background on the company

Who is your client? What do they do, and who is their target customer? Giving some background on your client will help readers relate to them.

Here, you can see that we provide some basic stats relating to the company and what the brand believes in.

3. Highlight key results

Select a few of your most impressive metrics and make them stand out. We’ve chosen three metrics here that clearly demonstrate the success of our campaign.

4. Describe the problem or challenge

What wasn’t working well for your client before they contracted your services?

In our case study, we used quotes from Toto Haba, Senior Vice President of Global Digital at Benefit to highlight the critical need for the company to produce great content and engage its audience through social channels.

We explained the problems they were facing, and how using quintly helped them overcome them.

In your case, it could be that your clients don’t have enough expertise in data tracking to effectively analyze their social media campaigns and create new strategies.

There may be various ways in which you've helped your client get better results, so don’t be afraid to talk about them here, using direct quotes as much as possible.

5. Conclusion

You can close your report by summarizing once again the benefit that your clients has achieved. 

Or, you can use another quote from your client’s team, as we have done in our case study:

Collect and track data for your success stories

Collecting and analyzing data for case studies doesn’t have to be a hassle.

With quintly, you can automate the whole process and access a wealth of high-quality metrics and dashboards. 

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Top 3 Social Media Case Studies to Inspire You in 2024

Discover three successful social media case studies from top brands and learn how to create one. Benefit from their strategies and mistakes to ensure the success of your next campaign.

Social media is every marketer’s safe haven for branding and marketing.

And why not?

More than 50% of the population is active on social media, and more are signing up with every passing second.

In a recent poll by HubSpot, 79% of the respondents have made a purchase after seeing a paid advertisement on social media .

This isn’t just a happenstance.

It’s the constant efforts that these brands put behind their dynamic presence on social media, that counts.

But how do they captivate their customers’ attention for this long despite the budding competitors?

Well, that’s something that we’ll reveal in this blog.

We shall assess 3 different social media case studies by top brands who are best in their niches. Their game is simple yet effective.

How effective? Let’s take a look.

Social Media Case Study 1: Starbucks

Starbucks and social media are a match made in heaven. Being one of the sensational brands online, they are stirring the social media world with their strong presence.

They brew the right content to elevate the experiences of their coffee lovers. But how do they nail marketing with perfection every single time? Let’s find out.

Starbucks in Numbers

Starbucks mastered the advertising transition from offline fame to online undertaking. They use each social media with a varied goal to target pitch-perfect reach. Drawing in more customers than ever before, they strike the right balance in content across multiple platforms.

Key Takeaways

Though not every company has a Starbucks budget to promote and spend lavishly on social media marketing, here are some quick takeaways that will undoubtedly help.

1. Chasing Trends

Be it any event, brands must take the advantage to showcase their viewpoints and opinions. Successful brands like Starbucks jump into the bandwagon and leave no stone unturned to make their voice count in the trending list.

Here’s one such social media campaign example from Starbucks.

Starbucks is a firm believer in LGBTQ+ rights. When the pride wave surged, Starbucks came forward and reinstated its belief through the #ExtraShotOfPride campaign.

Starbucks joined hands with the Born This Way Foundation to raise $250K to support the LGBTQ+ community. Throughout the social media campaign, they shared quotes and stories of various Starbucks employees cherishing the pride spirit.

2. Less is More

Social media is not about quantity but quality. Starbucks follows the “less is more” principle to maintain the quality standards, even in the caption. Spamming followers’ feeds with constant posting is a big no-no. Starbucks shares 5-6 posts per week on Instagram and 3-4 weekly posts on Facebook .

Creative and crisp! That’s what defines a Starbucks caption. This post with 111+k likes is no exception. Nothing is better than a minimalist post with a strong caption.

3. User Generated Content is the King

Ditch the worry of creating content every day when you can make use of user generated content. Starbucks makes sure to retweet or post its loyal customers’ content. User generated content postings starkly improve brand credibility.

Look at this Facebook post made out of customers’ tweets. The new Oatmilk drink got the appreciation shower by some, and Starbucks couldn’t resist but share it with others. It saved them efforts on content brainstorming, plus they got free PR.

4. Building Rapport

Building rapport with the audience is an unsaid rule to brand fame. Social media has now taken the onus of dispensing quality service by aiding brands in prompting faster replies .

Starbucks is always on its toe to respond to customers actively solving concerns, expressing gratitude, or reposting. That kind of proactive service definitely deserves love and adoration.

5. Loads of campaigns

Starbucks is known for its innovative social media campaigns. Be it a new product launch or any festivity around the corner, Starbucks always turns up with a rewarding campaign.

In this social media campaign example, Starbucks introduced #RedCupContest with prizes worth $4500 during Christmas of 2016. A new entry came every 14 seconds.

The grand total of entries was a whopping 40,000 in just two days. Indeed Starbucks knows how to get the most out of the festive fever.

6. Content mix

Last but not least, the content mix of Starbucks is inspiring. They create tailored content for every platform.

The official youtube channel of Starbucks comprises content in varied hues. From recipes to even series, Starbucks is the ultimate pioneer of experimenting.

Even on Instagram, they use all the features like Guides, Reels, and IGTV without affecting their eye-popping feed. Starbucks also follows the design consistency for its aesthetic content mix.

Starbucks has proved time and again to be a customer-centric brand with their unrelenting efforts.

Social Media Case Study 2: Ogilvy & Mather

Ogilvy & Mather needs no introduction. Founded by David Ogilvy, the ‘Father of Advertising’ in 1948, the agency continues the legacy of revolutionizing marketing long before the advent of social media.

The iconic agency helps several Fortune 500 companies and more make a massive impact on their audiences worldwide.

Ogilvy & Mather knows its game too well and never fails to astonish. Not just high-profile clients, Ogilvy nails its marketing with perfection every single time.

Keep on reading.

Ogilvy & Mather in Numbers

They use social media to target pitch-perfect reach. Drawing in more hype than ever before, they know how to strike the right balance and bring out emotions with their heart-warming campaigns.

Not every company has David Ogilvy’s legacy or even affluent clients to boast of, but here are some quick takeaways that will undoubtedly help you become a pro marketer.

1. Integrating Values

Ogilvy stands apart from the crowd, creating trends. They leave no stone unturned to communicate values.

Proud Whopper is one such social media campaign by Ogilvy that was an instant hit on the internet. People were offered whoppers in rainbow-colored wrappers, with a note that said, “Everyone’s the same on the inside.” This was to reinstate the importance of LGTQ+ rights.

The campaign got 1.1 billion impressions, $21 million of earned media, 450,000 blog mentions, 7 million views, and became the #1 trending topic on Facebook and Twitter.

Ogilvy made a remarkable #Tbt video to honor this momentous event showcasing their supremacy in creating impactful campaigns.

2. Quality over Quantity

Ogilvy believes in the “ Quality supremacy ” to maintain their high standards, even in post captions.

Arbitrary posting isn’t a part of their agenda. They share 5-7 posts on Instagram and Facebook weekly.

Direct and very precise. That’s what defines an Ogilvy caption. This post is no exception. They have exhibited the success of their client work by describing the motive behind the campaign and sharing the ad they created for raising awareness.

3. Adding Credibility

Won awards? It’s time to boast! Because that’s the most authentic way of establishing trust among your clients. It bears proof of your excellence.

Look at this pinned Twitter post. Ogilvy won the Global Network of the Year by the very prestigious London International Awards. It also earned Regional Network of the year for Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe.

What better than this to give its audience an idea about Ogilvy’s roaring success and undoubted potential?

4. Being Innovative

Building rapport with the audience is an unsaid rule to brand fame. And that’s why you need to tell stories. Social media has become an indispensable medium to spread your stories far and wide.

Ogilvy shares its historical tale of existence and how it has adapted to the challenges of the changing world. The team extensively talks about their adaptation to the latest trends to stay on top always.

5. Brainstorming Uniqueness

Being unique is what propels you on social media. People are always looking for brands that do something different from the herd. So your task each day is undeniably brainstorming unique content.

KFC wanted more of its customers to use its app. Well, Ogilvy and KFC decided to hide a secret menu in the app, which was a mass invitation for the download without being salesy at all. Results? Downloads up by 111% at launch!

6. Inspire Your Peeps

Inspiration is everywhere. But how do you channelize and mold it as per your brand guidelines? The renowned brands move their audience, filling them with a sense of realization. Who doesn’t seek validation? We all need quotes and inspiration to live by.

Ogilvy has dedicated its entire Pinterest profile to inspiration. The profile has numerous insightful infographics that encourage you to pursue marketing when your spirits run low. And that’s how it brings out the very essence of being the marketing leader: by inspiring its followers.

Got some good ideas for your branding? We have created templates and tools to help you execute them hassle-free. Tread on further and download the Trending Hashtag Kit for 2024 to get into action.

Social Media Case Study 3: PewDiePie

YouTube king with 111 Million subscribers on PewDiePie Channel, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, has defied all norms. One of the most prolific content creators of the decade, Felix was on the list of World’s 100 Most Influential People by Time Magazine in 2016.

Needless to say, he is still relevant to this day and has a massive following on social media. Not just for branding, the Swedish YouTuber leveraged social media to give himself a new identity and opened doors to fame and a successful career.

What was the cause of this extraordinary trajectory?

Let’s find out.

PewDiePie in Numbers

PewDiePie likes to keep his social media raw and unfiltered. That’s why subscribers love to have a glimpse of his everyday life and follow him on other social media platforms as well. Here’s a quick snapshot of that.

Felix took the early bird advantage and started creating content when it wasn’t even popular practice. We can’t go back in time, but we can definitely learn a lot from his social media success.

1. Start Now

If you are still skeptical about making the first move, then don’t. Stop waiting and experiment. It’s better late than never.

Social media is in favor of those who start early because then you create surplus content to hold your audience . You quench their thirst for more quality content.

PewDiePie started creating videos in 2011 and live-streamed his gaming sessions with commentaries. It was something new and completely original. Ever since, he has continued to make thousands of videos that entertain his audience.

2. Gather Your Tribe

Being a content creator, PewDiePie knows his act of engaging his audience very well. He strives to build lasting connections and encourages two-way communication. As a result, his followers like to jump onto his exciting challenges.

Felix treasures his gaming community. He frequently asks his followers to take screenshots and turn them into funny memes . He gives them tasks to keep them engaged and amused .

3. Collaboration and Fundraising

Once you reach the stage and gain popularity, people want to see more of you with their favorite personalities. That’s what Felix does.

He collaborates with multiple YouTubers and brands and puts out exclusive content for his followers. He also goes for multiple fundraising campaigns to support vital causes and social wellbeing.

Here’s one such social media campaign example. PewDiePie supported the CRY foundation and raised $239000 in just one day to bring a positive impact for children in India. He thanked all for their contribution and taking active participation towards a noble cause.

4. Keep it Real

Felix likes to keep his content fluff-free. You get to witness raw emotions from an unfiltered life. This instantly appeals to the audience and makes the posts more relatable .

Apart from that, he also uses storytelling techniques to narrate his experiences, adding a very personalized touch to each of the videos.

Here’s a video of Felix where he and Ken from CinnamonToastKen discuss what can be possibly done with a million dollars around the world. The topic is quite intriguing.

More than 3.8M people have watched it and 216K of them liked it as well, proving that you need not always sweat to create complex content. Even the simplest ones can make the cut.

How to Write a Social Media Marketing Case Study

Many small businesses struggle when it comes to social media marketing. But guess what? Small businesses can slay the competition with a powerful tool: the social media case study.

These social media case studies are success stories that prove your hustle is paying off. Here’s how to weave a case study that showcases your small business wins:

Building Your Brag Book

• Pick Your Perfect Project:  Did a specific social media campaign drive a surge in sales? Highlight a product launch that went viral. Choose a project with impressive results you can showcase.
• DIY Interview:  Don’t have a fancy marketing team? No worries! Record yourself talking about your challenges, goals, and the strategies that made a difference.
• Data Dive:  Track down social media analytics! Look for growth in followers, website traffic driven by social media, or engagement metrics that show your efforts are working.

Now that you have all the ingredients, it’s time to cook a brilliant case study

Crafting Your Case Study

• Headline Hunt:  Grab attention with a clear and concise headline. Mention your business name and a key achievement (e.g., “From 100 to 10,000 Followers: How We Grew Our Bakery’s Social Buzz”).
• Subheading Scoop:  Briefly summarize your success story in a subheading, piquing the reader’s interest and highlighting key takeaways.
• The Business Struggle:  Be honest about the challenges you faced before tackling social media. This will build trust and allow other small businesses to connect.
• DIY Social Strategies:  Share the social media tactics you used, such as engaging content formats, community-building strategies, or influencer collaborations.
• Numbers Don’t Lie:  Integrate data and visuals to support your story. Include charts showcasing follower growth or screenshots of top-performing posts.
• Simple & Straightforward:  Use clear, concise language that’s easy to understand. Bullet points and short paragraphs make your case study digestible and showcase your professionalism.

Remember: Your social media case study is a chance to celebrate your achievements and build businesses. So, tell your story with pride, showcase your data-driven results, and watch your brand recognition soar

Social media campaigns are winning hearts on every platform. However, their success rates largely depend on your year-round presence. That’s why being consistent really does the trick.

We’re sure you must have learned a few things from the above-mentioned social media case studies .

To excel further at your social media marketing, use our FREE Trending Hashtag Kit and fill your calendar with everyday content ideas.

On downloading, you get 3000+ hashtags based on each day’s theme or occasion. You also get editable design templates for hassle-free social media posting.

What are you waiting for? Download now.

Frequently Asked Questions

🌟 How do I start a social media campaign idea?

Here’s how you can start a social media campaign:

• Finalize your campaign goals
• Brainstorm personas
• Pick a social media channel
• Research your competitors and audience
• Finalize an idea that’s in trend
• Promote the campaign
• Start the campaign
• Track the performance

🌟 What are the different types of social media campaigns?

Different types of social media campaigns are:

• Influencer Campaigns
• Hashtag Challenges

🌟 Why is social media campaign important?

Social media campaigns have various benefits:

• Boost traffic
• Better Conversions
• Cost-effective Marketing
• Lead Generation
• PR & Branding
• Loyal Followers

🌟 What are some of the best social media campaign tools?

Some of the best social media campaign tools are:

• SocialPilot

🌟 What are the top social media sites?

The top social media sites are:

About the Author

Sparsh Sadhu

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20 Best Social Media Marketing Case Study Examples

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How would you like to read the best social media marketing case studies ever published?

More importantly, how would you like to copy the best practices in social media marketing that are based on real-world examples and not just theory?

Below, you’ll find a list of the top 20 social media case study examples along with the results and key findings. By studying these social media marketing studies and applying the lessons learned on your own accounts, you can hopefully achieve similar results.

Table of Contents

Social Media Case Study Examples

793,500+ impressions for semrush on twitter  – walker sands social media case study, viral oreo super bowl tweet  – social media case study.

This is a popular case study to learn valuable insights for B2C marketing. During Super Bowl XLVII, the lights went out in the football stadium and the Oreo brand went viral with a single tweet that said “Power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.” Read the historical account of that famous social media marketing moment from the people who lived through it so you can gather ideas on how to be better prepared for future social media campaigns that you can take advantage of in real-time.

Facebook Posting Strategy That Lead to 3X Reach & Engagement  – Buffer Social Media Case Study

In this social media case study example, you’ll find out how Buffer cut its Facebook posting frequency by 50% but increased the average weekly reach and engagement by 3X. Hint: The strategy had to do with creating fewer, better-quality posts, that were aimed at gaining higher engagement.

Achieving a 9 Million Audience by Automating Pinterest SEO  – Social Media Case Study

This is a good social media marketing case study for marketers who use Pinterest. Discover how Chillital went from 0 to 9 million engaged audience members and 268 million impressions. You’ll learn about the step-by-step research process of finding where your audience lives and breathes content, get a detailed analysis of how the author used Pinterest to generate brand awareness, and learn about using community-driven content promotion to scale social media results.

5X Increase In App Installs from TikTok  – Bumble Social Media Case Study

With the use of TikTok on the rise, social media case studies are now being shared about how to get the most value out of marketing on this platform. This one, in particular, is good to read because it explains how Bumble, a dating app, used TikTok more effectively by following the mantra, “Don’t Make Ads, Make TikToks”. This case study in social media marketing resulted in a 5X increase in app installs and a 64% decrease in cost-per-registration.

330% Increase In Reach for the Make a Wish Foundation – Disney Social Media Case Study

Check out this case study to find out how the Make-A-Wish Foundation increased its social media reach, audience, and engagement by partnering with Disney in a Share Your Ears campaign. The strategy was simple: ask people to take a photo of themselves wearing Mickey Mouse ears, post it on social media with the hashtag #ShareYouEars, and a $5 donation would be made to Make-A-Wish. The results were unbelievable with over 1.7 million posted photos and 420 million social media impressions. This led to a 15% audience increase on Facebook and a 13% audience increase on Instagram with a total increase of 330% in social media reach and a 554% increase in engagement during the campaign.

How 3 Schools Used Social Media Advertising to Increase Website Traffic & Applications – Social Media Case Study

Client case studies – lyfe marketing social media case study.

LYFE Marketing is a social media management company that helps clients gain new customers, generate sales, and increase brand exposure online. This page includes several of its top social media marketing case studies along with the approach and key results from each campaign. It’s packed with screenshots of the social media posts and engagement metrics so you can understand how each strategy worked for success, and get inspiration for your own campaigns.

3X Leads for a Local Business – Vertex Marketing Social Media Case Study

This is a good case study about finding the right balance between organic reach with social media posts and paid reach with social media marketing ads. You’ll find out how Vertex Marketing helped a local kitchen and bath remodeling business increase the number of leads by 3X. As for the return on investment (ROI) for this campaign, each lead for the client was worth about $10,000. The result was 6,628 audience reach, $12.43 average cost per conversion, and 18 conversions.

235% Increase In Conversions with Facebook Ads Funnel – Marketing 360 Social Media Case Study

This is one of Marketing 360’s case study examples that demonstrates the effectiveness of a Facebook ads sales funnel for B2B marketing. An ads funnel is a series of social media advertisements that target a specific audience at each stage of the buyer’s journey. By mapping out the buyer’s journey and creating a social media marketing ad campaign for each stage, you can guide new leads through the sales funnel and turn them into paying customers. This case study resulted in a 235% increase in conversions for a truck lift manufacturer.

15% Increase In Social Media Followers In 6 Months – Hootsuite Social Media Case Study

This is one of the best social media marketing case studies available online for businesses in the hospitality industry. Find out how Meliá Hotels International incorporated social media directly into its business model, both as a channel for client communication and as a platform to listen and learn about client needs and preferences. As a result, Meliá Hotel’s social media following grew from 5 million to 6 million in six months; an increase of more than 15%.

The Impact of Social Signals On SEO – Fat Stacks Social Media Case Study

This is a good case study for understanding the effect social media can have on SEO. By building links for a web page on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc, the rankings for long tail keywords improved in Google’s search engine.

96 Link Clicks for a Vacation Rental – Maria Peagler Social Media Case Study

As the title of this social media case study example suggests, you’ll learn how Maria Peagler helped a vacation rental get 96 clicks out of 3,274 audience reach on a single Facebook ad; about a 2.9% click-through rate (CTR). What’s most important about this B2C example is those clicks were of the highest quality the client could receive because Maria dug into the analytics to find out the best time during the day to post the ad and the perfect age groups to target while also using specific language to only drive clicks that would more likely convert.

Vienna Tourist Board Uses an Instagram Wall to Attract Tourists – Walls.io Social Media Case Study

Complete instagram marketing strategy for sixthreezero – vulpine interactive social media case study.

This is an in-depth case study on social media marketing with Instagram. You’ll discover how Vulpine Interactive was able to turn an existing, unmanaged account into a strong company asset for Sixthreezero, a bicycling company that uses ecommerce to drive sales. There was a lot of strategy and planning that went into growing the account by 39%, increasing website traffic from Instagram by over 300%, and achieving 77,659 total engagements. Inside, you’ll get the complete social strategy, tactics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and results

Twitter Marketing Success Stories – Social Media Case Study

How 3 big brands use pinterest for marketing – smartinsights social media case study.

This is a case study page by SmartInsights with an overview of how 3 big brands use Pinterest for marketing. Although it’s a quick read, you can learn some valuable tactics that Nordstrom, Sephora, and Petplan are using to market their brands on this social media platform.

25+ TikTok Social Campaign Results – Chatdesk Social Media Case Study

Reddit for business: meet your maker – social media case study.

Want to learn how to use Reddit to market your business online? This new social media marketing case study page by Reddit called “Meet Your Maker” showcases the people behind some of the most innovative and creative brand activations on our platform. Examples include campaigns by Adobe, Capcom, and noosa Yoghurt.

How Boston University Uses Snapchat to Engage with Students – Social Media Case Study

With more than 75% of college students using Snapchat on a daily basis, it became clear that Boston University had to make this platform a primary marketing channel. This social media case study outlines all of the top strategies Boston University uses to connect with prospective and current students.

What Is a Social Media Case Study?

A social media case study is an in-depth study of social media marketing in a real-world context. It can focus on one social media tactic or a group of social media strategies to find out what works in social media marketing to promote a product or service.

Are Case Studies Good for Social Media Marketing?

Summary for social media marketing case studies.

I hope you enjoyed this list of the best social media marketing case study examples that are based on real-world results and not just theory.

As you discovered, the social media case studies above demonstrated many different ways to perform well on social platforms. By studying the key findings from these case study examples, and applying the methods learned to your own accounts, you can hopefully achieve the same positive outcome. New social media case studies are being published every month and I’ll continue to update this list as they become available. So keep checking back to read the current sources of information on social media.

How to write an effective social media marketing case study: 9 important things for agencies and freelancers to include

Alexander Chafe

Table of contents

As a social media agency or freelancer with established client relationships, you’ve surely developed an impressive portfolio of projects and results. You’re an awesome marketer, which prospective clients need to see as you grow your business. A social media marketing case study is a great tool to showcase your services in a relatable way and win clients. 

To help you create a powerful case study that stands out, we’ve outlined a fool-proof process for case study design and 9 things you must include. 

What is a social media marketing case study? 

A social media case study is a detailed review of how your services helped a specific client achieve their goals. 

Case studies are common research tools in science and business. But rather than a dry, academic analysis, you want to create a customer-focused story that potential clients can easily relate to. Leads should identify with the successful client’s character and see you as their expert guide. Keep this in mind as we explain how to create a case study for social media. 

“You need to have case studies that directly support your core product benefits and features. Your goal should be to show how your customers succeeded because of your key value props.” - Henry Brown , Head of Growth, Gadget

How to write a social media case study 

An effective case study requires thoughtful planning, research and analysis, and (of course) great writing. After reviewing case study guidelines from various academic , marketing , literary , and scientific sources, we’ve summarized the process into 5 easy steps.  

I. Set goals and prepare for research 

The first step is to set a goal for the case study to determine what kind of story you want to tell.      

You likely have social media clients that fit different personas. Some may be small organizations with a one-person marketing team and limited budget needing advice on social media content planning. Other clients may be full marketing teams looking for direction on scaling their paid and organic social channels. Each type of client has a very different narrative. 

Now consider your target customer. You’ll want to create a case study they identify with by highlighting work you’ve done for a client with similar objectives. Choose a related client with impactful results and ask if they’d be interested in being featured in a case study. (If you have multiple target customer personas, plan to write a case study for each). 

With a defined focus, brush up on the client account, schedule interviews with key decision-makers in the organization, and prepare case study interview questions. 

II. Conduct client interviews 

Client interviews are a great way to gather research for your case study and add context to your story. You likely know your client’s social media goals, current tactics, and what results they’ve seen. But, what do you know about their situation before working with you, why they chose your agency, or how they’ve enjoyed your working relationship? 

By asking these questions and digging deeper, you can further define their character throughout your marketing case study. It’s a great idea to share case study questions with your client before the interview, so they can come prepared. 

During the interview, ask open-ended questions that follow a narrative to encourage discussion. Start by asking about the client’s background, how they managed social media before working with you, why they chose an agency or freelancer, and the challenges they faced. Then you can discuss how you’ve worked together to help them succeed and how they’ve grown.

Don’t be afraid to ask why or other follow-up questions to gain further insight. At this stage, you want to gather as much info as possible to make your case study relatable.   

Conclude the interview by thanking your client for their time and summarizing any follow-ups. If you want to feature specific results or content in your social media marketing case study, discuss how it will be used and get any necessary approvals. 

III. Gather reports and results

When reading a case study, prospective clients will want to see results. So, gathering data and reports that show your client’s success is an important part of case study research. 

You can include expected metrics like reach and engagement of social campaigns . Brandon Moore advises also going beyond these metrics and incorporating tangible results related to a client’s overall business objectives. 

“A compelling case study should detail how a campaign increased foot traffic, boosted online sales, or lowered customer acquisition costs. Highlight how your efforts improved customer retention rates or increased average deal size. You may have to dig for this data, but these metrics paint a stronger picture of the real impact social media has on business growth and are exactly what companies will be looking for when evaluating potential social media marketing services. Demonstrating this isn't always easy, but it will set your case study apart from other vendors that haven’t gone deep enough.” - Brandon Moore , Director of Content Marketing at Vendasta & Founder of Sendies

With this information, it’s time to start thinking about your case study’s framework.  

IV. Analyze research and create a case study outline 

The next step in designing your social media marketing case study involves analyzing your research and planning the format of your case study. 

Review all the information you’ve gathered and organize it into the following categories: Client background, problem or opportunity identification, goals, solution execution, and results. Each of these topics can become sections when writing your case study.      

V. Write and summarize the case study

This is where writers shine! When writing B2B case studies, use clear and simple language. Incorporate plenty of white space, bold key points, and separate sections with headings. This makes everything scanable. 

Include data and reports to showcase results, as well as samples of work that was produced for the client. Also, keep in mind that you’re telling a story. Prospective customers should be able to identify with the client you’re featuring and follow their journey from problem to success. Adding quotes from interviewees is a great personal touch. 

After writing the full case study, summarize up to 5 key points and the most impressive results. This can be included at the beginning of your case study or in an infographic to give readers a quick snapshot.  

What is the format for writing a social media marketing case study?

In its simplest form, a case study format should showcase a problem or opportunity, how it was solved, and related results. But, there’s much more you can do to stand out. Based on our research, we’ve compiled a list of 9 things an effective case study must include.  

1. A great headline

First, it’s important to have a great headline. Headlines should be descriptive and specific, so readers understand what they’ll learn from reading further.   

For example, a general headline like “How HeyOrca helped a company plan social content” doesn’t grab attention. With few details, it’s unclear what the case study is about or who it’s meant to target. Many companies plan social media content, so this isn’t a powerful claim. 

Let’s compare this to a more detailed headline: “A social media team saved 60 hours and more than $4,000 in a month using HeyOrca.” (Yes, those are real results !) Notice how the additional detail makes this headline more relatable and showcases desirable results. This is the type of headline you want for your case study! 

(If we’ve piqued your interest, get in touch to learn more about HeyOrca’s social media management tool for agencies and freelancers .) 

2. Case study summary or infographic

Effective case studies also have a summary or infographic at the beginning that outlines key points and metrics. This allows readers to quickly understand the story and decide where they should read further. Ultimately, leading with the right info will catch attention and make leads want to learn more. 

3. Client background info

Business case studies should include background details of the client or organization being featured. This section provides context and humanizes the narrative, so potential customers who fit the same persona identify with their character and want to follow their path to success. 

4. Problem description

A description of the problem or opportunity your client faced before you began working together is essential. This explains why they chose to work with your agency and how they were managing social media before seeking your expertise. The problem described should be relatable to target customers, making the story more impactful.  

5. Client goals  

Some may include goals in the problem or opportunity section, but this is important to call out. Clearly outline the client’s primary and secondary goals for social media, so readers can see how they were achieved by working with your agency. 

6. Executed solution 

In this section of your social media marketing case study, you describe how you worked with your social media client to solve their problem and lead them to success. It can outline specific strategies, tactics, processes, etc. that you suggested and executed. This is a great section to showcase your expertise and what prospective clients can expect when working with you. 

7. Results 

Of course, marketing case studies must include results. This is your opportunity to highlight impressive metrics and revisit your client’s goals to showcase the progress on each one. 

“Protecting the bottom line and mitigating risk is important for many prospective clients. Good case studies add those proof points and make the impact of projects crystal clear.” - Kurt Dunphy , Director of Growth, Spellbook

8. Clear writing 

While we touched on this in the steps above, it deserves repeating. Use clear and simple language throughout your case study. Write like a human! Potential clients don’t want to read complicated wording they have to work to understand your message. Make things easy, be brief, and keep the focus on your client’s story (this is what leads will relate to).   

9. Supporting images 

Add supporting images and graphics throughout your case study. This breaks up all the text and helps show results and the work you’ve done with the client. Include examples of posts, as well as reports and analytics. 

“Many case studies from agencies discuss the experience of working together, but don’t show any work, so you have to dig into their portfolio to connect the dots. If everything is packaged together, it’s easier for your prospect.” - Kurt Dunphy , Director of Growth, Spellbook

Other social media case study tips

In addition to our guide above, here are some other tips and tricks to create an effective social media marketing case study: 

1. To get started, consider finding a social media case study template to work with. Hubspot has free downloadable case study templates you can customize for your brand. 

2. Consider getting approval for writing case studies upfront during your sales or agency onboarding process, or making it part of your social media management contract . - Kurt Dunphy , Director of Growth, Spellbook ‍

3. Leverage your content by repurposing quotes, results, and other elements on multiple channels.   

4. Be creative and design a case study in a nontraditional format — make a video, a case study infographic or a podcast case study series. 

5. Create a case study presentation that you can use when pitching new clients. There are some great Canva social media templates to help with your PowerPoint. 

Social media case study examples

To help you put everything into practice, here are some marketing case study examples you can use for inspiration. 

#paid and Precision Nutrition 

#paid uses case studies to showcase how brands like Precision Nutrition achieve results with creator content. They use a simple case study template that includes a descriptive headline, key metrics, client background info, client goals, campaign details, and results. 

Slintel and Leoforce

Slintel created a case study to showcase how Leoforce used its sales intelligence tool to get more leads and sales meetings. This example does a great job of showcasing Leoforce’s challenges before using Slintel and the results of using their tool. The case study layout also uses a lot of visuals, white space, and clear language, making it easy to understand.

Trello and Desk Plants 

Trello’s case study about how Desk Plants used its platform to get more organized and increase sales is an awesome example of storytelling. There’s certainly room for improvement with its layout — visuals and headings could help break up all the text! But Trello does a great job of humanizing the main character, which helps create a personal connection. 

How long should a marketing case study be? 

Most sources suggest that B2B marketing case studies should be between 500-1,500 words. Some can be summarized in a page, while others may be up to 5. However, don’t have 5 pages of just text — this should include plenty of images, work samples, white space, and reports, as well as a summary of the case study that’s 100 words or less at the beginning. 

Why do agencies and freelancers use social media case studies? 

First and foremost, marketing case studies are a proven sales technique. According to research collected by Ascend2 , case studies are one of the most trusted content by marketers. 

There are many other benefits of case studies: 

1. They build trust and credibility since they’re based on research and customer testimonials.

2. They showcase different customer perspectives , which helps potential clients relate to the story. 

3. When done right, they’re a low-pressure sales tool . Instead of typical sales calls or pitches, case studies are essentially long-form customer reviews. 

4. They show and tell what it’s like to work with you as an agency or freelancer, your work, and the potential results.   

“Case studies do a lot of lifting across the marketing funnel. Traditionally, they're looked at as a sales enablement tool to help close deals with prospective customers. But, they're also impactful assets that brands should leverage at the top of the funnel to drive brand exposure and engagement. Social proof goes a long way!” - Henry Brown , Head of Growth, Gadget

Build your case (study)

Social media marketing case studies are great for showcasing your work as an agency or freelancer. A major advantage of case studies is that they follow your client’s perspective and are based on results, building trust and credibility. Hopefully, our guide will help create a powerful case study to win clients and utilize your social media management expertise. 

Alexander is a marketer and content writer with a passion for strategy and simplicity. Working with businesses across diverse industries, he delivers tailored marketing solutions and stellar written content.

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11 Facebook Case Studies & Success Stories to Inspire You

Published: August 05, 2019

Although Facebook is one of the older social media networks, it's still a thriving platform for businesses who want to boost brand awareness.

With over 2.38 billion monthly active users , you can use the platform to spread the word about your business in a number of different ways -- from photos or videos to paid advertisements.

Because there are so many marketing options and opportunities on Facebook, It can be hard to tell which strategy is actually best for your brand.

If you're not sure where to start, you can read case studies to learn about strategies that marketing pros and similar businesses have tried in the past.

A case study will often go over a brand's marketing challenge, goals, a campaign's key details, and its results. This gives you a real-life glimpse at what led a marketing team to reach success on Facebook. Case studies also can help you avoid or navigate common challenges that other companies faced when implementing a new Facebook strategy.

To help you in choosing your next Facebook strategy, we've compiled a list of 11 great case studies that show how a number of different companies have succeeded on the platform.

Even if your company has a lower budget or sells a different product, we hope these case studies will inspire you and give you creative ideas for your own scalable Facebook strategy.

Facebook Brand Awareness Case Studies:

During the 2017 holiday season, the jewelry company Pandora wanted to boost brand awareness in the German market. They also wanted to see if video ads could have the same success as their other Facebook ad formats.

They began this experiment by working with Facebook to adapt a successful TV commercial for the platform. Here's a look at the original commercial:

The ad was cut down to a 15-second clip which shows a woman receiving a Pandora necklace from her partner. It was also cropped into a square size for mobile users. Pandora then ran the ad targeting German audiences between the ages of 18-50. It appeared in newsfeeds and as an in-stream video ad .

Results: According to the case study , the video campaign lifted brand sentiment during the holiday season, with a 10-point lift in favorability. While Pandora or the case study didn't disclose how they measured their favorability score, they note that the lift means that more consumers favored Pandora over other jewelers because of the ad.

Financially, the campaign also provided ROI with a 61% lift in purchases and a 42% increase in new buyers.

Video can be memorable, emotional, and persuasive. While the case study notes that Pandora always had success with ads and purchases, the jeweler saw that a video format could boost brand awareness even further.

In just 15 seconds, Pandora was able to tell a short story that their target audience could identify with while also showing off their product. The increase in favorability shows that audiences who saw the ad connected with it and preferred the jeweler over other companies because of the marketing technique.

Part of Pandora's success might also be due to the video's platform adaptation. Although they didn't create a specific video for the Facebook platform, they picked a commercial that had already resonated with TV audiences and tweaked it to grab attention of fast-paced Facebook users. This is a good example of how a company can be resourceful with the content it already has while still catering to their online audiences.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame , a HubSpot customer, wanted to boost brand awareness and get more ticket purchases to their museum. Since they'd mainly used traditional customer outreach strategies in the past, they wanted to experiment with more ways of reaching audiences on social media.

Because the museum's social media team recognized how often they personally used Facebook Messenger, they decided to implement a messaging strategy on the Hall of Fame's official business page.

From the business page, users can click the Get Started button and open a chat with the Hall of Fame. Through the chat, social media managers were able to quickly reply to questions or comments from fans, followers, and prospective visitors. The reps would also send helpful links detailing venue pricing, events, other promotions, and activities in the surrounding area.

Since the Messenger launch, they claim to have raised their audience size by 81% and sales from prospects by 12%. The company claims that this feature was so successful that they even received 54 messages on an Easter Sunday.

Being available to connect with your audiences through Messenger can be beneficial to your business and your brand. While the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame boosted purchases, they also got to interact with their audiences on a personal level. Their availability might have made them look like a more trustworthy, friendly brand that was actually interested in their fanbase rather than just sales.

Facebook Reach Case Study:

In early 2016, Buffer started to see a decline in their brand reach and engagement on Facebook due to algorithm changes that favored individuals rather than brands. In an effort to prevent their engagement and reach numbers from dropping even further.

The brand decided to cut their posting frequency by 50%. With less time focused on many posts, they could focus more time on creating fewer, better-quality posts that purely aimed at gaining engagement. For example, instead of posting standard links and quick captions, they began to experiment with different formats such as posts with multi-paragraph captions and videos. After starting the strategy in 2016, they continued it through 2018.

Here's an example of one an interview that was produced and shared exclusively on Facebook.

The Results: By 2018, Buffer claimed that the average weekly reach nearly tripled from 44,000 at the beginning of the experiment to 120,000. The page's average daily engagements also doubled from roughly 500 per day to around 1,000.

In 2018, Buffer claimed that their posts reached between 5,000 to 20,000 people, while posts from before the experiment reached less than 2,000.

Although Buffer began the experiment before major Facebook algorithm changes , they updated this case study in 2018 claiming that this strategy has endured platform shifts and is still providing them with high reach and engagement.

It can be easy to overpost on a social network and just hope it works. But constant posts that get no reach or engagement could be wasted your time and money. They might even make your page look desperate.

What Buffer found was that less is more. Rather than spending your time posting whatever you can, you should take time to brainstorm and schedule out interesting posts that speak directly to your customer.

Facebook Video Views Case Studies:

Gearing up for Halloween in 2016, Tomcat, a rodent extermination company, wanted to experiment with a puppet-filled, horror-themed, live video event. The narrative, which was created in part by their marketing agency, told the story of a few oblivious teenage mice that were vacationing in a haunted cabin in the woods. At peak points of the story, audiences were asked to use the comments to choose which mouse puppet would die next or how they would die.

Prior to the video event, Tomcat also rolled out movie posters with the event date, an image of the scared mouse puppets, and a headline saying, "Spoiler: They all die!"

Results: It turns out that a lot of people enjoy killing rodents. The live video got over 2.3 million unique views , and 21% of them actively participated. As an added bonus, the video also boosted Tomcat's Facebook fanbase by 58% and earned them a Cyber Lion at the 2017 Cannes Lions awards.

Here's a hilarious sizzle reel that shows a few clips from the video and a few key stats:

This example shows how creative content marketing can help even the most logistical businesses gain engagement. While pest control can be a dry topic for a video, the brand highlighted it in a creative and funny way.

This study also highlights how interactivity can provide huge bonuses when it comes to views and engagement. Even though many of the viewers knew all the rats would die, many still participated just because it was fun.

Not only might this peak brand interest from people who hadn't thought that deeply about pest control, but interactivity can also help a video algorithmically. As more people comment, share, and react to a live video, there's more likelihood that it will get prioritized and displayed in the feeds of others.

In 2017, HubSpot's social media team embarked on an experiment where they pivoted their video goals from lead generation to audience engagement. Prior to this shift, HubSpot had regularly posted Facebook videos that were created to generate leads. As part of the new strategy, the team brainstormed a list of headlines and topics that they thought their social media audience would actually like, rather than just topics that would generate sales.

Along with this pivot, they also experimented with other video elements including video design, formatting, and size .

Results: After they started to launch the audience-friendly videos, they saw monthly video views jump from 50,000 to 1 million in mid-2017.

Creating content that caters to your fanbase's interests and the social platform it's posted on can be much more effective than content that seeks out leads.

While videos with the pure goal of selling a product can fall flat with views and engagement, creative videos that intrigue and inform your audiences about a topic they relate to can be a much more effective way to gain and keep your audience. Once the audience trusts you and consumes your content regularly, they might even trust and gain interest in your products.

Facebook App Installs Case Study:

Foxnext games.

FoxNext Games, a video game company owned by 20th Century Fox, wanted to improve the level of app installs for one of its newest releases, Marvel Strike Force. While FoxNext had previously advertised other games with Facebook video ads, they wanted to test out the swipe-able photo carousel post format. Each photo, designed like a playing card, highlighted a different element of the game.

The add offered a call-to-action button that said "Install Now" and lead to the app store where it could be downloaded. FoxNext launched it on both Facebook and Instagram. To see if the carousel was more efficient than video campaigns, they compared two ads that advertised the same game with each format.

Results: According to Facebook , the photo ads delivered a 6% higher return on ad spend, 14% more revenue, 61% more installs, and 33% lower cost per app install.

Takeaways If your product is visual, a carousel can be a great way to show off different elements of it. This case study also shows how designing ads around your audience's interest can help each post stand out to them. In this scenario, FoxNext needed to advertise a game about superheroes. They knew that their fanbase was interested in gaming, adventure, and comic books, so they created carousels that felt more like playing cards to expand on the game's visual narrative.

Facebook Lead Gen Case Study:

Major impact media.

In 2019, Major Impact Media released a case study about a real-estate client that wanted to generate more leads. Prior to working with Major Impact, the Minneapolis, Minnesota brokerage hired another firm to build out an online lead generation funnel that had garnered them no leads in the two months it was active. They turned to Major Impact looking for a process where they could regularly be generating online leads.

As part of the lead generation process, the marketing and brokerage firms made a series of Facebook ads with the lead generation objective set. Major Impact also helped the company build a CRM that could capture these leads as they came in.

Results: Within a day, they received eight leads for $2.45 each. In the next 90 days, the marketing firm claimed the ads generated over 370 local leads at the average cost of $6.77 each. Each lead gave the company their name, email, and phone number.

Although these results sound like a promising improvement, readers of this case study should keep in mind that no number of qualified leads or ROI was disclosed. While the study states that leads were gained, it's unclear which of them lead to actual sales -- if any.

This shows how Facebook ad targeting can be helpful when you're seeking out leads from a specific audience in a local area. The Minneapolis brokerage's original marketing and social media strategies weren't succeeding because they were looking for a very specific audience of prospective buyers in the immediate area.

Ad targeting allowed their posts to be placed on the news feeds of people in the area who might be searching for real estate or have interests related to buying a home. This, in turn, might have caused them more success in gaining leads.

Facebook Engagement Case Study:

When the eyewear brand Hawkers partnered up with Spanish clothing brand El Ganso for a joint line of sunglasses, Hawkers' marketing team wanted to see which Facebook ad format would garner the most engagement. Between March and April of 2017, they launched a combination of standard ads and collection ads on Facebook.

While their standard ads had a photo, a caption and a call-to-action linking to their site, the collection ads offered a header image or video, followed by smaller images of sunglasses from the line underneath.

Image from Digital Training Academy

To A/B test ad effectiveness of the different ad types, Hawkers showed half of its audience standard photo ads while the other half were presented with the collection format. The company also used Facebook's Audience Lookalike feature to target the ads their audiences and similar users in Spain.

Results: The collection ad boosted engagement by 86% . The collection ads also saw a 51% higher rate of return than the other ads.

This study shows how an ad that shows off different elements of your product or service could be more engaging to your audience. With collection ads, audiences can see a bunch of products as well as a main image or video about the sunglass line. With a standard single photo or video, the number of products you show might be limited. While some users might not respond well to one image or video, they might engage if they see a number of different products or styles they like.

Facebook Conversion Case Study:

Femibion from merck.

Femibion, a German family-planning brand owned by Merck Consumer Health, wanted to generate leads by offering audiences a free baby planning book called "Femibion BabyPlanung." The company worked with Facebook to launch a multistage campaign with a combination of traditional image and link ads with carousel ads.

The campaign began with a cheeky series of carousel ads that featured tasteful pictures of "baby-making places," or locations where women might conceive a child. The later ads were a more standard format that displayed an image of the book and a call-to-action.

When the first ads launched in December 2016, they were targeted to female audiences in Germany. In 2017, during the later stages of the campaign, the standard ads were retargeted to women who had previously interacted with the carousel ads. With this strategy, people who already showed interest would see more ads for the free product offer. This could cause them to remember the offer or click when they saw it a second time.

Results: By the time the promotion ended in April 2017, ads saw a 35% increase in conversion rate. The company had also generated 10,000 leads and decreased their sample distribution cost by two times.

This case study shows how a company successfully brought leads through the funnel. By targeting women in Germany for their first series of creative "baby-making" ads, they gained attention from a broad audience. Then, by focusing their next round of ads on women who'd already shown some type of interest in their product, they reminded those audiences of the offer which may have enabled those people to convert to leads.

Facebook Product Sales Case Study

In an effort to boost sales from its Latin American audiences, Samsung promoted the 2015 Argentina launch of the Galaxy S6 smartphone with a one-month Facebook campaign.

The campaign featured three videos that highlighted the phone's design, camera, and long battery life respectively.

One video was released each week and all of them were targeted to men and women in Argentina. In the fourth week of the campaign, Samsung launched more traditional video and photo ads about the product. These ads were specifically targeted to people who'd engaged with the videos and their lookalike audiences.

Results: Samsung received 500% ROI from the month-long campaign and a 7% increase in new customers.

Like Femibion, Samsung tested a multiple ad strategy where the targeting got more specific as the promotions continued. They too saw the benefit of targeting ads to users who already showed interest in the first rounds of advertisements. This strategy definitely seems like one that could be effective when trying to gain more qualified leads.

Facebook Store Visits Case Study:

Church's chicken.

The world's third-largest chicken restaurant, Church's Chicken, wanted to see if they could use Facebook to increase in-restaurant traffic. From February to October of 2017, the chain ran a series of ads with the "Store Traffic" ad objectives. Rather than giving customers a link to a purchasing or order page, these ads offer users a call-to-action that says "Get Directions." The dynamic store-traffic ad also gives users the store information for the restaurant closest to them.

Image from Facebook

The ads ran on desktop and mobile newsfeeds and were targeted at people living near a Church's Chicken who were also interested in "quick-serve restaurants." The study also noted that third-party data was used to target customers who were "big spenders" at these types of restaurants.

To measure the results, the team compared data from Facebook's store-reporting feature with data from all of its locations.

Results: The ads resulted in over 592,000 store visits with an 800% ROI. Each visit cost the company an average of $1.14. The ROI of the campaign was four times the team's return goal.

If you don't have an ecommerce business, Facebook ads can still be helpful for you if they're strategized properly. In this example, Church's ads targeted locals who like quick-serve restaurants and served them a dynamic ad with text that notified them of a restaurant in their direct area. This type of targeting and ad strategy could be helpful to small businesses or hyperlocal businesses that want to gain foot traffic or awareness from the prospective customers closest to them.

Navigating Case Studies

If you're a marketer that wants to execute proven Facebook strategies, case studies will be incredibly helpful for you. If the case studies on the list above didn't answer one of your burning Facebook questions, there are plenty of other resources and success stories online.

As you look for a great case study to model your next campaign strategy, look for stories that seem credible and don't feel too vague. The best case studies will clearly go over a company's mission, challenge or mission, process, and results.

Because many of the case studies you'll find are from big businesses, you might also want to look at strategies that you can implement on a smaller scale. For example, while you may not be able to create a full commercial at the production quality of Pandora, you might still be able to make a lower-budget video that still conveys a strong message to your audience.

If you're interested in starting a paid campaign, check out this helpful how-to post . If you just want to take advantage of free options, we also have some great information on Facebook Live and Facebook for Business .

Don't forget to share this post!

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How to Post Case Studies on Social Media

• June 1, 2021
• Using Case Studies

Once your Case Studies are finished, social media is the best place to share them. However, it’s not enough to simply post a link to your Case Study on LinkedIn and hope people will read it. Crafting a strong social media post that compels your audience to read your Case Study requires more strategy and finesse. 

This article serves as your ultimate guide to composing social media posts about your Case Studies that will grab your target audience’s attention. You’ll learn about what parts of the Case Study you should mention in your post and how to write about them in a way that gets people off social media and on your website—and, ideally, joining your client base.

Should You Post Your Case Studies on Social Media?

You know you want to post your Case Studies on social media—but should you? Run through this list of questions to find out:

• Do you have permission from your client to post it? If you don’t have your client’s approval to post the Case Study, don’t post it. Instead, consider reworking the Case Study so that the client is anonymous.
• Does your Case Study convey a compelling story? You’ll wind up with annoyed readers if your expertly crafted social media post lures them to your website but dead ends in boring content. Make sure your Case Study is interesting to read from start to finish.
• Does your Case Study promote what you want to promote? A Case Study is no good to you if it describes how you helped a client solve Issue X when you really want to be known for solving Issue Z. This may lead you to attract work that doesn’t align with your true passion. Hold off on posting and work on creating Case Studies that showcase the areas in which you really want to shine.

Bottom line: If you’ve got the client’s permission and a juicy story to tell that makes you and your client look good, it’s time to create that post.

Tips for Creating Posts About Your Case Studies on Social Media

Follow the format.

A successful social media post about your Case Studies should follow a specific formula—specifically, the same one your Case Studies do! Ensure that your post includes the following elements in this order:

• Headline. Use an intriguing opening sentence to make your post stand out and capture your audience’s attention right away.
• Situation or Problem. Introduce the company and the problem or situation it had.
• Solution and Results. Tease some of the company’s real, specific results that stemmed from the solution you provided.
• Conclusion/Call to Action. Conclude the post with a call to action, such as “Click the link to learn more.”

Keep It Short and Sweet

Be brief when writing a social media post about Case Studies. Most people have short attention spans and a vast sea of content awaiting them on social media. When scrolling through News Feed on Facebook, people typically spend 2.5 seconds with a piece of content if they’re on desktop and even less if they’re on mobile. Make those few seconds worthwhile for the user and offer them something compelling that will make them engage with your post. There are only four key elements to the formula, so your post should be no longer than four fascinating sentences.

Be a Little Mysterious

Share just enough of the Case Study story in your social media post to make someone want to click the link. Remember: The goal is to get people to read the Case Study on your website, and that won’t happen if you give away all the details upfront! Aim for intrigue. Be honest, but be mysterious about the solution and the results, and never give away the ending!

Stick to Company Brand Guidelines

Adhere to your company’s voice and branding when writing your social media post about your Case Study. This helps ensure a consistent client experience, which fosters loyalty and trust. If you don’t have a brand identity, start exploring how to create one.

Make It Personal

Social media is all about making connections, which is difficult to do if your post is too formal or standoffish. Even if your company culture or brand skews more serious, using we and us in your social media posts to refer to your company can help build that bridge between you and your existing and potential clients.

Speak to Your Target Audience

Tailor your social media post about your Case Study for the specific audience you want to reach. For example, if you have a B2B company, use professional terminology to emphasize your experience and understanding of your industry. If your audience comprises the general public, use less formal language and avoid terminology that requires background knowledge to understand.

Use Relevant Images

You have less than three seconds to capture your audience’s attention, so use that time wisely by including an image with your social media post. Images leave a stronger impression than words alone and can make a wordy post easier to digest. Use an image from your Case Study or a photo of your Case Study subject when posting on social media. Remember to choose images that, like your messaging, are on-brand.

Sample of a Case Study Social Media Post

The following is an example of a social media post about a Case Study that adheres to the aforementioned tips:

Posting your Case Studies on social media takes some strategy and skill. However, if you have a solid Case Study, approval from the client, and clear brand guidelines, you can create a post designed to get attention, clicks, and more business.

Need a Case Study to post on social media? Click here to find out how SuccessKit can help you reach that goal.

Stef Mates, SuccessKit's Creative Director, has been writing, designing, editing, and managing a variety of content types for several different industries for more than 15 years. She started at the company as a freelancer in November 2019 and became an official part of the team in June 2021.

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Inspiring Social Media Case Studies from Reputable Brands and Digital Agencies

Brands are more than their products in today’s digital world. Memorable brands are the ones who know how to engage with their target audience effectively through their social media channels. In this article, we have curated the best social media case studies of all time.

Being on all social media platforms is not necessary; however, it is important to be successful if you exist in one. There are a lot of brands inspiring us with their effective social media strategies. They are powerful enough to start a movement, raise awareness, and change the way people think or buy.

Almost 4 billion people are using social media today worldwide. That fact clearly shows how huge potential there is to reach out to your buyer persona.

Social media marketing services comprise organic social media, paid social media, community management, social listening, feed-based / dynamic ads, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, LinkedIn ads, Snapchat ads, TikTok ads, Reddit ads, Quora ads, and so on.

Effective social media case studies come from either an experienced social media marketing agency or a very successful in-house social media team of famous brands. It is not easy, but so effective that you shouldn’t neglect it.

In this article, we have gathered the best social media marketing case studies by both brands and digital marketing companies to inspire your upcoming work.

Top Social Media Marketing Agencies with Effective Case Studies (in the DAN Ecosystem)

• Fenty Marketing

The Good Marketer

Social media 55, spark social agency, emote digital, hallam agency.

The LOOKOUT Sri Lanka is the top Luxury Private Villa in Sri Lanka. CEEK Worked closely with the brand and the project consisted of Website Development, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Content Creation and Paid Targeting services. The LOOKOUT social media was created by CEEK to showcase the beauty of the country and the villa itself in light of the increase in tourism around Sri Lanka and the country’s strong domestic growth in the use of social media. It has been established as a site that people enviously desire to stay at just for the aesthetics without taking into account the high level of service thanks to high-quality content and a highly active social media marketing strategy. Below you can find an example of the influencer marketing campaign:

Did you know that one of DAN’s member agencies has earned a prestigious social media award?

Favoured, well-known digital marketing agency, has been shortlisted for the UK TikTok Ad Awards . This recognition celebrating excellence in creativity and performance on social media platforms praises the agency’s ability to craft campaigns that resonate with audiences on TikTok.

DAN member agency, Favoured’s award-nominated campaign was designed for a leading beauty brand, aiming to enhance visibility and engagement on the popular social media platform. The campaign is powered by in-depth audience research, the creation of an engaging storyline, and strategic collaborations with TikTok influencers. By creating high-quality content production and a branded hashtag challenge, Favoured captured the attention of its target demographic while carrying out significant user interaction and brand awareness.

The results of Favoured’s campaign were outstanding, with a substantial increase in likes, shares, and comments. Additionally, they achieved a notable rise in user-generated content through the hashtag challenge.

Fenti Marketing 

The social media approach that Fenti Marketing created for a neighborhood bakery is evidence of their skill in strategy and creativity. By leveraging humor and excellent content, Fenti Marketing improved the bakery’s brand on social media and produced measurable financial gains. 

Let’s go back to the beginning:

The bakery, known for its artisanal biscuits, faced stiff competition and needed a campaign to highlight its unique products and engage and captivate its target audience. The DAFenti Marketing worked closely with the bakery to refine its brand message, focusing on the artisanal quality plus unique flavors of its biscuits. The messaging emphasized the playful and quirky nature of the brand, aiming to create a distinct identity on social media. 

Fenti’s campaign centered on humorous and visually appealing social media posts, featuring the biscuits in unexpected and amusing scenarios. The digital agency focused on high-quality photography and witty captions to create content that resonated with the target audience and encouraged social sharing. The result? Check it out.

The Good Marketer is another agency that has demonstrated its expertise by implementing a comprehensive social media strategy for one of its clients, The House Outfit . 

The client, an e-commerce business specializing sustainably, sought to enhance brand awareness, engagement, and sales through social media platforms. The Good Marketer crafted a tailored social media strategy focusing on key platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. They produced high-quality, visually appealing content aligned with the brand’s sustainable values, including product photos, lifestyle images, infographics, and video content. At the same time, influencer partnerships played a pivotal role in expanding the brand’s reach and credibility.

The Good Marketer planned to engage directly with followers through comments, messages, and interactive stories and yes, fostered a strong community spirit and increased traffic to the client’s website.

@thehouseoutfit #fyp #interior #interiordesign #art #home #homedecor ♬ original sound – theoriginaltiktoktrends

Since working with The House Outfit, the DAN-member agency has:

• Achieved an average Facebook ROAS of 5.45 over 3 months,
• Increased sales value by 791.10%,
• Generated 1065 purchases,
• Got a 52% increase in online store sessions, 
• Achieved a 13% increase in overall sales in less than 3 months.

Want to hear the full story of The Good Marketer works for The House Outfit? Head out this way . 

When it comes to developing a comprehensive social media strategy tailored to the brand & target audience, Social Media 55 is a well-known name in the DAN ecosystem. 

Studio Cody Caissie faced the challenge of increasing their online visibility and improving their search engine rankings, partnered with Social Media 55. 

Social Media 55 developed a comprehensive social media strategy that included sharing high-quality content across various platforms. These efforts were designed to build a loyal community, increase brand visibility, and drive more traffic to Studio Cody Caissie’s website, enhancing its SEO performance at the end of the day.

Social Media 55 X Studio Cody Caissie highlights the critical role of social media in boosting SEO performance &  the importance of integrating social media strategies into overall digital marketing efforts.

Spark Social Agency works with a variety of well-known brands from a selection of different industries, one of them being Johnson&Johnson. Spark is a boutique social media marketing agency. This enables Spark to provide J&J with fast turnaround and greater impact than larger agencies they’ve traditionally worked with.

When J&J collaborated with Spark, the brand needed to pivot social content to reach an updated audience for multiple J&J brands such as Band-Aid, Aveeno Baby, and Tylenol. Additionally, the company sought assistance so that J&J brands could be more active on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels. For various J&J brands, Spark produces a monthly stream of captivating social content. Social posts on their monthly content calendar now feature short-form video, which has a significantly higher interaction rate than previous content.

All these efforts resulted as the following:

• 1,600% increase in engagement per post for Band-Aid
• 110% increase in engagement per post for Motrin
• Produced 40 assets for J&J baby brands in 3 weeks.

Since it might be difficult to convey complex ideas using social media advertising, Australian digital marketing agency Emote Digital believes that you need excellent and simple-to-read content as well as targeted audience marketing. Emote Digital ran campaigns for the Bakers Delight Franchise over the course of a year that included frequent content and creative improvements to prevent user fatigue. Utilizing a variety of advertising channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google, Youtube, and more, the agency developed a broad-reaching campaign to identify the relevant leads first. Emote Digital assisted Bakers Delight in growing its franchise network by using a variety of top and bottom of the funnel methods to improve the quality of the leads.

These are the outcomes:

• 45% Increase in conversions from social media,
• 29% increase in franchise enquiries over 12 months.

LOOP is a fully charged digital agency that explores the intersections between design, digital technology and content marketing for leading brands. They have offices in New York, Sydney, Berlin and Copenhagen.

LOOP has worked with a lot of famous brands through social media case studies. My favorite one between those is their influencer marketing campaign with PUMA . They actually have run more than one case study with them. We will be focusing on the one with PUMA and Usain Bolt.

As a human being, we can be attracted by the brands which are preferred by the people we admire, just like Usain Bolt. In LOOP’s social media case study with PUMA and Usain Bolt, they let Usain Bolt tell his story in his point of view. We can, of course, find a lot of articles explaining his background, achievements etc. However, they can never be as effective as Usain Bolt’s own words.

With this social media campaign, PUMA has reached 4.7 million views and 828,000 engagement with 41.2 million total reach . You can check LOOP’s website to see the full case study and get information to work with them for your social media campaigns.

Hallam is a UK-based social media marketing agency founded in 1999. Since then, they’ve they have combined strategic thinking, creativity, and technical know-how to develop integrated digital marketing strategies that produce the only outcome that matters: business success. Four of the eight gas distribution networks in the UK are owned and managed by their customer, Cadent Gas, who needed to develop their brand and raise awareness of this aspect. The goal of Hallam’s comprehensive video-based campaign was to promote the true stories of the “Cadent Heroes” across various service areas.

Three campaigns were created to provide Hallam the chance to plant positive seeds and take ownership of constructive topics. Their earned Media and Creative Teams worked together to create a landing page that served as the organization’s main hub of information. The 5 Campaigns attracted a significant number of views during the course of their 6-month run. The video showing a day in the life of a Cadent Gas Limited employee received over 4 million views . The campaigns generated nearly 15 million impressions overall, exceeding the initial goals and expectations.

Now, we all agree that the design crafted to be both eye-catching and shareable, encouraging followers to repost and engage means so much on social media management. 

Knowing that the DAN-member agency KOTA teamed up with Floan to ensure that every element of the brand – from their tone of voice to their visual aesthetics – reflected their mission. 

Inspired by boundless skies, KOTA meticulously crafted a cohesive digital experience that embodies Floan’s vision and values.

The comprehensive branding effort included designing Floan’s tone of voice and creating a seamless social media experience. Each detail was thoughtfully integrated to resonate with Floan’s audience, fostering a strong and consistent brand presence. 

Here is a quick glimpse of the brand’s Instagram profile: 

The Most Effective Social Media Marketing Case Studies by Reputable Brands

There are many brands that use social media in the best possible way. With the rise of social media platforms such as TikTok, brands have changed the world of social media marketing and became even more creative and popular online. Below you’ll find our all time favorite social media marketing case studies by the big names:

Tesla & Elon Musk

Apple – shot on iphone.

With no doubt, Apple is very fast and effective when it comes to social media marketing. Their case studies are leading the industry.

With their social media case study #ShotOnIphone, millions of pictures and videos are shared on social media platforms.

It clearly shows that people do not need other cameras to take pictures or videos as long as they have their iPhones with them.

This campaign is not only followed by the general public, but also by the famous singers and bands such as Selena Gomez and Florence + The Machine. Some singers took their videoclips with an iPhone whereas some of them have used an iPhone on their concert tours in the world.

This campaign has been used in all the social media platforms. However, as it is more related to taking pictures and videos, of course, the hashtags are more common on Instagram.

If you just scroll down your Instagram feed, we promise that you will see a lot of pictures with the hashtag #shotoniphone, which indicates this social media case study is known by the world. You can read our article on Apple’s digital marketing strategy , in which we explore how the company got to be one of the most well-known names in the world, to discover more about the brand’s worldwide success.

Starbucks – #WhatsYourName

Starbucks is remembered for its successful social media campaign to support transgender and gender-diverse youth on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and traditional advertising.

Brands will be memorable with where they stand for the social phenomena. In this social media case study, Starbucks UK partnered with Mermaids to understand the gender-diverse youth better and create a way to support them.

If you buy and post photos of your mermaid tail cookie with the campaign hashtag, you help to raise funds for Mermaids.

Disney – Share your ears

Disney’s digital marketing strategy is ever successful, making the company one of the leading media and entertainment brands in the world. Celebrating 90 years of Mickey Mouse, Disney created a social media campaign with the hashtag #ShareYourEars on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For every photo shared with the hashtag, Mickey Mouse donated $5 to Make-A-Wish®.

Make-A-Wish® is a nonprofit organization helping to fulfill the wishes of children with a critical illness. At the end of the case study, Disney donated $2 million to the organization.

This has been one of the greatest social media case studies of all times with 1.77 million photos shared and 420 million social media impressions.

Always – #LikeAGirl

Equality of the sexes is another controversial phenomenon in the world. It has been placed in the cultures and languages so strongly that sometimes we don’t even realize how sexist we might sound.

“Like a girl” is a phrase in English and many more other languages, which is mostly used as an insult to women. Always definitely raised awareness for this subject with their social media case study #LikeAGirl. I promise if you watch the video below, you will be more careful with the expressions, idioms and phrases you say or hear in your daily life:

Airbnb | We accept

There are different ways to use social media effectively. It can depend on the brands, target audience, brand culture and identity. Some brands might prefer to speak up for a social phenomenon whereas some prefer to stay silent and unbiased.

There can be some situations where you are expected to explain something, for example, if your company or a branch of your brand is accused of something. What you say/share there is very critical which can affect the life of your business.

Airbnb was accused of discrimination in 2016, which they answered with their “Community Commitment”. After a few months, the US banned travel to some countries with a Muslim majority. That has created a chance for Airbnb to create a social media case study, #WeAccept. This successful campaign has reached over 87 million impressions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Doubtlessly, they handled this critical situation really well with their video below:

Nescafé – Really Friends?

You might not be using Facebook now as much as you used to do. However, Facebook can be still a powerful platform for your social media campaigns depending on your target audience. Certainly, Nescafe’s marketing strategy proves it right.

Our Facebook friends can be from our childhood, the neighbourhood we used to live 20-30 years ago, a friend circle who we are not in touch with any more, etc. Sometimes, when we scroll down in Facebook feed, we don’t feel so close to some of these old friends. Regardless of their age, I’m sure everyone feels the same way every now and then.

With this fact in mind, Nescafé France ran a successful social media case study on Facebook, which is their biggest platform.

This video is an example of emphasizing with your buyer persona and affecting them emotionally so that they feel attached to your brand:

Tesla is a leading brand for electric vehicles. We might not know the CEOs of similar companies; however, the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk is known by people all around the world. Considering the way he is using social media, we can even say that he is an influencer. Despite the marketing methods of other major companies, Tesla’s marketing strategy is distinct, exactly like its social media marketing.

Tesla’s social media marketing way is going to be a little different from what we have discussed in the other examples above. The reason is below:

When there is a new product launch or an update regarding one of their services, Elon Musk shares some spoilers on his social media – before Tesla announces it officially. His followers are very interactive which also shows a successful social media engagement case study as a brand.

Tesla doesn’t even need to do influencer marketing as its CEO is already a powerful influencer who has dedicated followers for the brand.

If you feel like this wasn’t enough, make sure to check out social media campaign ideas for more inspiration.

Hope you have enjoyed reading our article. If you are interested in creating effective social media case studies for your business, you can check our list to partner with a social media marketing agency.

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Social Media Case Studies That Will Inspire You

Social media case studies to inspire your next campaign.

This is a list of social media case studies that will give you the opportunity to learn the basics of running great hashtag campaigns and get some great ideas for your next project.

I am adding new social media case studies to this list every day, so feel free to bookmark this article. For ease of navigation, I grouped the case studies by industry.

Social media case studies for different industries

• eCommerce and Retail
• Event planning

eCommerce and retail social media case studies

Beyerdynamic: hashtags and social commerce.

Authentic user-generated content curated and displayed on a website can help turn user-generated content into sales. Here’s  a great example  of how beyerdynamic, a German manufacturer of audio equipment, is using a social wall as part of its eCommerce website. The social feed connects user-generated content to the products in beyerdynamic’s online store.

Life is Good: A hashtag campaign for donations

Hashtag campaigns are an excellent tool when it comes to raising donations for a good cause. They boost awareness for an issue and offer an easy way to donate money. The method works well for businesses setting up a donations-for-posts type of campaign, where they donate X amount of money for each post published with a specific hashtag.

One such campaign was the #SomethingGood campaign by clothing brand Life is Good. For every Tweet with the hashtag #SomethingGood, the company donated $1 to the Life is Good Kids Foundation (to which the brand already donates 10% of its profits). The Foundation works to help disadvantaged kids heal from trauma. Read the full #SomethingGood case study .

Kids in the Kitchen: Our best practice for hashtag campaigns

We loved the #KidsInTheKitchen hashtag campaign from NatureFresh™ Farms. The great thing about it is just how much it did right, which makes it an excellent best practice example for those who want to learn more about hashtag campaigns.

Among many other things, I love how clear the campaign was about what kind of user-generated content they were looking for. The #KidsInTheKitchen campaign used the campaign microsite as well as various posts on Instagram to very clearly lay out how to take part in the hashtag campaign. This is something that makes it a lot easier for people to submit user-generated content because they know what the brand would like to see from them.

There’s a lot more to be said about this awesome campaign, and you can read all about it in the #KidsInTheKitchen case study .

Education social media case studies

Case western reserve university: social media strengthens campus community.

The Case Western Reserve University campus in Ohio has set up a large-scale social wall in the campus’ main social hub. At this point, the wall has been up for almost three years, bridging the gap between online and offline for the university’s students, staff, alumni, and university sponsors.

The multi-storey, two-part LED media wall is the first thing you see when walking into the building, and it prominently shows the two CWRU social walls. The media wall serves as a point of information and connection for the campus community. With content supplied from various departments around the university, there’s always something new to see on the wall.

There’s so much more interesting information about how CWRU uses the social walls and what they’ve learned and improved over the years of using them. You can read all about it in our CWRU case study .

The State University of New York engages students in a university-wide initiative

SUNY uses a social wall for events connected to a university-wide initiative that aims to provide support for victims and survivors of sexual and interpersonal violence. Students and community members post photos and messages which are shown on the social wall during events. This helps attendees engage individually and collectively with the program in real-time.

Events Social Media Case Studies

Dmexco: big trade show, big on social media strategy.

DMEXCO, an annual trade fair for the digital marketing and advertising industry, displayed social media content posted by visitors using their official hashtags on various points throughout the sprawling event location. Among them were two social walls incorporated into big digital signage screens along the DMEXCO Boulevard.

The large displays hung from the ceiling on this thoroughfare of the trade show were clearly visible to visitors and introduced the social wall and hashtags.

Walls.io excellently lends itself to being displayed on big screens. We even have some layouts created especially for big displays, like our Bricks layout , for example.

Healthcare social media case studies

Janssen is using a social media feed to share the latest innovations.

Janssen, a pharmaceutical company, is using a social wall to share information about their latest news. They display the social wall prominently on their homepage to allow their visitors to easily explore their latest achievements and activities. By using a real-time social feed, they keep their website up to date with content they already created for their social media channels. Read the full case study .

Rochester Regional Health uses social media to spread joy during the crisis

Rochester Regional Health, a health services organisation in the New York area, has used a social wall to build a digital neighbourhood that brings hope, warmth, and a spirit of kindness to everyone in their community during the COVID-19 outbreak. They encourage their community to post and interact, which creates a sense of belonging. Especially during times of isolation, the social wall offers a way to maintain engagement with the community and to uplift their mental well being. Read the full case study.

University Hospital Münster uses social media to educate their visitors and patients

University Hospital Münster stands for cutting-edge medicine within the German hospital landscape. They use a social wall on their homepage to educate the public, provide a behind-the-scenes look into their work and disseminate information about their latest progress in research. They also use it for fundraising and to encourage people to donate blood or goods.

Nonprofit Social Media Case Studies

Miriam’s kitchen supports the homeless during pandemic using social media.

People on social media can help increase the visibility and support of the sometimes forgotten frontline workers — those who are taking care of vulnerable neighbors experiencing homelessness.

The team at Miriam’s Kitchen continues to provide vital services to the homeless in the D.C. area. Part of the effort is a campaign to drum up support, both financial and material, to ensure Miriam’s Kitchen can continue to work.

We’re happy to support them with a social wall and we talked to Mei Powers, Chief Development Officer at Miriam’s Kitchen, to find out more about how the microsite and social wall are helping the charity continue to do its work. Read the full case study!

Tourism social media case studies

Vienna tourist board uses social media to attract tourists.

The official online travel guide for the city of Vienna offers information about sights, event and hotel bookings, and historical information. They are using a second social wall on a microsite that is dedicated to Viennese modernism to engage with visitors and citizens alike. They display stunning visual content on their social walls that makes you want to visit those places in the city. Read the full case study .

What makes a great social media case study

Ultimately, a great campaign happens because you put everything you’ve got into it. You plan properly, you execute well, and you stay on your toes to manage whatever comes your way during the run of the campaign. However, our case studies have shown us that there are a few things that can help campaigns stand out.

Draw attention to your social wall and hashtags

For one, drawing attention to your social wall helps boost people’s awareness of the hashtag. And one way to do that is to display your social wall on big screens at the location where they’re most likely to draw attention.

Both DMEXCO and CWRU have implemented big walls, albeit in completely different ways. For a short-term event, you will likely have to use what’s available at your location — from digital signage to whatever displays are feasible.

Meanwhile, if you’re setting up a social wall long-term as CWRU has done, it can absolutely make sense to create a specific solution that works for the space you have. The media wall in the Tink building is impressive, but it is also absolutely clear that a lot of work and planning has gone into its creation and maintenance.

Embrace social commerce; it’s here to stay

beyerdynamic combines user-generated content and eCommerce into social commerce, but they will definitely not be the last to do so. Social commerce is a big trend, and we believe it will continue to be just that.

We already know that user-generated content is effective at convincing potential customers to buy, so it makes sense to use UGC to actually fuel purchases. Make it easy for your fans to get straight from another user’s recommendation to the product they’re praising. Shorten the journey and start converting better.

Hopefully, you will let our showcases inspire you to make your own campaigns even better. And, who knows, maybe it’ll be your own project being praised in this blog post.

A Comprehensive Dive Into Social Media Marketing Case Studies

Nowadays, social media goes far beyond chatting with friends on Facebook. Where we’re all connected online, it’s more than just a way to keep in touch with friends. Business owners all over the world are finding it to be an extremely useful tool.

Think about how social media has changed over the years. In the beginning, it was all about talking to your buddies online.

But as time passed, it became a big deal for companies too. Now, it’s a key part of integrated marketing campaigns for all sorts of businesses, no matter how big or small. It helps them connect with the people who might want to buy their stuff.

Social media marketing has grown into something really important for people who want to sell stuff. It’s a cool way to talk to potential customers and get them interested in what you’re selling.

To prove how powerful social media can be, we’ve put together some awesome social media case studies about how it has changed everything.

So, let’s know more about it!

Listen To The Podcast Now!

The significance of social media case studies.

Before we delve into the specifics of these social media case studies, it is imperative to underscore the vital role they play in the realm of digital marketing.

A Social media marketing case study serves as tangible, real-world evidence of successful strategies, offering invaluable insights and actionable takeaways applicable to businesses of all sizes.

Case studies are like beacons in the digital marketing world as they provide a clear path forward by showcasing what has worked for others.

These real-life success stories serve as a source of inspiration and guidance, offering a roadmap for businesses looking to harness the power of social media.

The Influence of Social Proof

As inherently social beings, we often find ourselves seeking assurance from the experiences and achievements of others when making decisions.

In the same way, social media case studies provide a compelling form of social proof, instilling confidence in potential clients by demonstrating the viability of specific strategies.

When consumers see concrete evidence of how a particular social media strategy led to success for a business, it not only validates the effectiveness of that strategy but also builds trust.

This trust is a critical element in the decision-making process for consumers, making them more likely to engage with and ultimately support a brand.

Decoding the Science Behind Successful Social Media Marketing

Airbnb’s spectacular ascent.

In the annals of business history, Airbnb’s meteoric rise from a struggling startup in 2008 to a global hospitality juggernaut is nothing short of remarkable.

This particular case study on social media serves as a quintessential illustration of how Airbnb harnessed the power of user-generated content and tapped into the emotional resonance of travel to create a viral sensation.

Airbnb’s journey is not just a success story; it’s a masterclass in the art of storytelling through social media.

By encouraging users to share their travel experiences through captivating photos and videos, Airbnb not only engaged its audience but also created a sense of community. This sense of community is a potent driver of brand loyalty and advocacy.

The lesson from these social media case studies is clear: storytelling is at the heart of effective social media marketing. It’s not just about promoting products or services; it’s about crafting narratives that resonate with your audience on a personal level.

Navigating Challenges through the Lens of Social Media Marketing

Mcdonald’s “our food, your questions” campaign.

Even titans like McDonald’s, one of the world’s most iconic brands, encounter public skepticism. Facing questions about the quality of their food, McDonald’s responded with the “Our Food, Your Questions” campaign.

This insight, among other social media case studies, delves into how the fast-food giant used transparency and active social media engagement to rebuild trust with consumers.

McDonald’s recognized that addressing consumer concerns head-on was not just a PR move but a strategic decision. By openly addressing questions and concerns about their food, they demonstrated transparency and a commitment to quality.

This level of transparency resonated with consumers, fostering a renewed sense of trust.

Well! In the quest for social media success, having the right tools at your disposal is paramount. Socinator offers a comprehensive solution for automating, managing, and optimizing your social media campaigns. With Socinator, you can!

Let’s know how Socinator can help marketers to create a powerful impact on multiple social media platforms in just a few clicks!

Socinator: Your Social Media Partner

While we’re on the topic of effective social media strategies, it’s essential to mention Socinator—a powerful tool that can enhance your social media marketing efforts.

Socinator is your partner in optimizing and automating social media campaigns across various platforms.

Here is what Socinator offers to its users:

• You can schedule posts to be published automatically on a specific date, so you don’t have to post them yourself, especially when you’re busy.
• Socinator offers automation capabilities for a variety of tasks, including commenting, liking, following, unfollowing, following back, and reposting.
• Additionally, the tool assists you in discovering and extracting hashtags, identifying target audiences, and with the posting of profile pictures.
• With Socinator, you can efficiently handle numerous accounts, remove posts, block followers, send out broadcast messages, and engage in live chats.

Now, let’s continue exploring more insightful social media case studies that showcase the potential of social media marketing.

Small Enterprises, Monumental Successes

Blendjet’s ingenious instagram-first strategy.

BlendJet, a portable blender company, captured the imagination of Instagram users worldwide with their creative and engaging content.

This social media case study highlights the potential for even modest-sized enterprises to flourish in the digital arena when armed with a well-crafted social media strategy.

BlendJet’s success story underscores the importance of understanding your audience and choosing the right platform for your brand. Instagram, with its visually appealing format, was the perfect canvas for BlendJet’s marketing efforts.

This strategy helped them reach a global audience and fostered a vibrant and engaged community of users.

The Metrics of Social Media Triumph

Hubspot’s data-driven odyssey.

HubSpot, a recognized leader in inbound marketing, embarked on their social media journey with data and analytics as their guiding stars.

This particular case study on social media elucidates how HubSpot meticulously employed metrics such as engagement rates, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value to fine-tune and optimize their social media campaigns.

HubSpot’s approach is a testament to the power of data-driven decision-making in social media marketing. In a world flooded with data, it’s crucial for you to know which metrics matter most to your business.

Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and analyzing the data can provide invaluable insights into what’s working and what needs improvement.

Also Read 11 Social Media Marketing Ideas for Non-Profit Charity Organization 5 Remarkable Marketing Campaigns for Your Brand Schedule Instagram Posts For Consistent Success

Unveiling Trends and Innovations in Social Media Marketing

Tiktok’s explosive evolution.

TikTok, the trailblazing short-form video platform, took the world by storm with its innovative approach to content creation. In this social media case study, we embark on a journey to understand the meteoric rise of  TikTok and contemplate its profound implications for the future of social media marketing.

TikTok’s success is a testament to the power of embracing emerging trends. In an ever-evolving digital landscape, staying ahead of the curve is essential.

TikTok’s emphasis on short, engaging videos tapped into the changing preferences of a younger audience. Businesses that adapt to new platforms and formats can gain a competitive edge in the market.

Extracting Insights from Social Media Case Studies

Key takeaways to supercharge your social media strategy.

After immersing ourselves in the captivating narratives of these social media case studies, it is essential to distill the key insights that can invigorate and enhance your own social media marketing efforts.

From the art of storytelling to the science of data-driven decisions, these case studies offer an abundance of actionable wisdom.

As we wrap up our exploration of these social media case studies, let’s summarize the key takeaways that can elevate your social media strategy:

• Storytelling Matters: Craft compelling narratives that resonate with your audience.
• Transparency Builds Trust: To foster trust, it is important to address any concerns in an open and transparent manner.
• Platform Fit: Choose the right social media platform for your brand and audience.
• Data-Driven Decisions: Use metrics and analytics to refine your strategies continuously.
•  Embrace Trends: Stay adaptable and explore emerging trends to remain relevant.

Having a strong online presence is crucial for business success in digital world. Social media case studies are like success stories and guides that can inspire and help you navigate the ever-changing world of social media.

As you embark on your own social media journey, remember that these case studies aren’t just tales of success; they’re like maps showing you the strategies to succeed in the exciting and always-changing world of social media marketing.

Social media is a big, ever-changing place. To do well here, it’s not about luck; it’s about making smart choices, being creative, and staying flexible as trends shift. So, get ready for your social media adventure.

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Social Media Marketing Case Studies: How to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business

Social media is a powerful tool that can be used to grow your business. By using social media effectively, you can reach a wider audience, build brand awareness, and generate leads. In this article, we will look at some social media marketing case studies to see how businesses have used social media to achieve their goals.

Case Study 1: Starbucks

Starbucks is a coffeehouse chain that has used social media to significant effect. They have a large following on all major social media platforms, and they use social media to engage with their customers, promote their products, and share their brand stories.

One of Starbucks' most successful social media campaigns was their #ShareACupOfKindness campaign. This campaign encouraged people to share acts of kindness with their friends and family. The campaign was a huge success, and it helped position Starbucks as a brand committed to kindness and compassion.

Case Study 2: Nike

Nike is another company that has used social media effectively. They have a strong presence on all major social media platforms and use social media to connect with athletes, sports fans, and fitness enthusiasts.

One of Nike's most successful social media campaigns was their #JustDoIt campaign. This campaign featured inspiring stories of athletes who overcame challenges and achieved their goals. The campaign was a huge success, and it helped to position Nike as a brand that inspires people to be their best selves.

Case Study 3: Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a company that has been using social media for many years. They have a strong presence on all major social media platforms and use social media to connect with people worldwide.

One of Coca-Cola's most successful social media campaigns was their #ShareACoke campaign. This campaign featured personalized Coke bottles with people's names on them. The campaign was a huge success, and it helped position Coca-Cola as a brand about sharing happiness and connection.

These are just a few examples of how businesses have used social media to grow their businesses. By following the standards of these companies, you can use social media to achieve your business goals.

Here are some additional tips for using social media marketing to grow your business:

• Set clear goals:  Before you start any social media marketing campaign, it's essential to set clear goals. What do you want to achieve with your social media marketing? Do you want to increase website traffic, generate leads, or make sales? Once you know your goals, you can tailor your social media marketing strategy accordingly.
• Target your audience:  Not all social media users are created equal. It's important to target your social media marketing efforts to your target audience. This means understanding your target audience, what they care about, and where they spend their time online.
• Create engaging content:  The key to social media marketing is engaging your audience. This means creating interesting, informative, and relevant content for your target audience.
• Measure your results:  It's key to measure the results of your social media marketing efforts so you can see what's working and what's not. This will help you adjust your strategy accordingly and improve your ROI over time.

By following these tips, you can use social media marketing to grow your business and achieve your goals.

Whether you're looking for a quick overview of the platform's inner workings or want to directly talk about your specific needs, we've got you covered.

Social Performance Measurement For Agencies

9 Incredible Social Media Case Studies Every Social Marketer Should Read

Sahail Ashraf posted on 25 August 2015

The best brands in the world own social media.

Using their creative teams to the full, they pull out all the stops to create social campaigns that help to push their message and boost sales.

In this post, we look at some of the best case studies out there on social media, and pick out a few lessons to be learned.

Oreo and its fantastic use of a power cut during a Super Bowl clash has become part of social media legend. But if you want to see how it was done and how it all worked, head here for a case study on it.

Because we picked such a big stage, we decided to have a social media command center, so that we could respond in real time to buzz

Always be listening to your audience, and keep your finger on the pulse of current events.

These guys have been killing it on social media for some years, but they have managed to tap into one platform that some companies find very difficult: Google Plus. This case study goes in depth to find out how the clothing company uses the platform to engage with fans.

We want our followers on Google+ to feel that what they get is unique

Regular, relevant posting on Google+ makes a huge difference.

GoPro has that insanely unique feel that makes it a cool brand anyway, but this YouTube case study really shows how they manage to corner the market on the video platform. Don’t forget a lot of this stuff is user generated too.

It is really neat to see people’s passion coming forward

If your audience are in love with your product, let them evangelise about it.

Sony can’t really put a foot wrong on social, and the veteran company has nailed it again with their approach to Pinterest, This study shows exactly how they manage to get it right.

The excitement about Pinterest got the web team to get really creative and figure out a way to make it work.

Research what other people are pinning, and do it better.

Honda has always been that little bit more creative than other companies. This time it knocked it out of the park with this incredibly clever Pinterest move. Check out the case study here.

This gave Honda exposure to many more followers than it could have had on its own.

Carry out a spin on user-generated content by finding influencers and encouraging them to market for you.

Air Asia are not the biggest airline in the world, but they created a very exciting campaign a couple of years ago that really demonstrated how to use social effectively on a number of different levels. They gave away a plane on Facebook.

The winner of the competition didn’t receive a free plane (obviously) but instead the opportunity to take 302 of their Facebook friends on a plane journey from Australia to Malaysia. The campaign was a huge success, with the ability to tag ten friends in the photo of the plane and its seating plan.

To say this was a huge success is a bit of an understatement however. As the case study shows , 20% of the entire Australian Facebook audience saw the campaign.

The viral aspect is what made the difference here, with everyone involved having 302 other potential people involved too.

The biggest Facebook friendship test ever conceived. It grew from local, to national to international news, generating PR value of $1,627,593.

Use your audience to create momentum.

Cisco used to do traditional product launches, with plenty of press releases and some rather dry presentations. Then they discovered social and found that, if they were a little more clever about things, people would listen more readily.

Using YouTube, Facebook and Twitter among other channels (including Second Life) this product launch went so well it has changed the way the company now does things. Enjoy reading this detailed case study and think about how you can tap into your customer’s innate need to have fun.

If they’re playing games, that’s how they want to engage and that’s who they are.

Find out what your audience loves and tap into that with your content.

Coca Cola is a huge brand and it has one of the most recognisable logos in the world. Right now, it’s FB reach is absolutely massive and something that couldn’t possibly be bettered, right?

Well, the way Coca Cola uses its Facebook presence is a lesson for all businesses everywhere. The ability to tailor pages and even content geographically has been clearly understood by Coca Cola. And it has done this well, with infrequent posting not being an issue, simply because the aim is to reinforce the brand through a variety of pages.

And it works. Really well, in fact. Coca Cola isn’t in danger of losing it’s well over 60 million fans on Facebook , but it knows that keeping that brand strong is simply a matter of using a channel to its full potential.

one of the privileges that comes with its international celebrity is the ability to leave its Facebook page unattended for long periods of time.

Use the platform’s filters and settings to tailor your content to segments.

Standard Life were not early adopters on social by any means, and it took them some time to get things right. But they have totally maximised their Twitter usage so that it has become second nature for them now to find leads and develop massive customer engagement. They have cracked the evangelist route, where Twitter followers become your best selling tool by waxing lyrical about your service on the platform. They did this by targeting the right people to follow and then building up engagement.

It has worked really well. The case study shows that 72% of the followers the company now has are financial advisors, which is the community the company wants to reach.

Over the past 18 months we’ve managed to grow our number of followers organically, engaging in conversations only where appropriate.

Follow the right people and keep things specific on Twitter. It pays. Literally.

These case studies make for good reading, but for the small business it’s all about taking one step at a time. Use a couple of the takeaways here to start structuring your social strategy. It makes sense that you should follow the right people on Twitter, and get selective for example. Pretty soon, you’ll have a social strategy with a solid foundation to build upon.

Need the ‘right numbers’ for an all-out attack on social but don’t know where to start? How about fully automated social metrics, all delivered by the nicest guys on the planet? Try Locowise on a trial basis, and learn how to rock social media with the data to back you up.

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You are here: Influencer Marketing Hub » Social Media » Valuable Insights from Social Media Platform Case Studies Based on Real-Life Success Stories

Valuable Insights from Social Media Platform Case Studies Based on Real-Life Success Stories

For brands, it can be a struggle to understand how each social media platform works and how to use them for marketing. To grow your brand this year, get inspiration from actual social media platform case studies where we go through real-life applications so you can learn what works and what doesn’t when it comes to social media marketing.

Valuable Insights from Social Media Platform Case Studies Based on Real-Life Success Stories:

Why social media marketing is still relevant, social media platform case studies to gain insights from, key metrics to monitor the effectiveness of your social media campaigns, be guided by learnings from social media marketing case studies, frequently asked questions.

More than 50% of shoppers discover and purchase new products through social media . By 2024, the number of these social buyers is projected to reach over 110 million—and that’s in the US alone. Millennials, along with digital natives Gen Zs and Gen Alphas, are known to purchase directly from social channels. This consumer base is just too massive to ignore. Moreover, the power of social media also goes beyond the internet. After discovering products online, many social media users eventually buy them in physical stores.

Social commerce stats also prove how effective these social media platforms are for marketing. With most consumers spending several hours each day on social media, these platforms are undoubtedly the best places to reach them. Implementing social media marketing strategies to stay visible in these spaces—especially ones frequented by the younger generation—is a prime opportunity for revenue growth.

The following case studies give us a glimpse of how different brands successfully implemented their campaigns. These studies contain a wealth of insights and strategies that you can apply to your own marketing initiatives.

1. Purr-fectly Viral: Whisker’s Litter-Robot LR4 Conquers the Internet

Agency: Ubiquitous

Platforms: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok

Whisker has been providing paw-parents with self-cleaning litter boxes for over two decades. In 2022, they launched their 4 th generation Litter-Robot: the LR4. Wanting to dominate the pet market with their latest innovation, they sought the services of Ubiquitous to amplify the marketing of Litter-Robot LR4.

Strategy: 

Ubiquitous used a combination of in-house influencers and existing relationships with other agencies to expand the influencer pool. The budget was strategically divided among Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Instagram and TikTok aimed for broad awareness, while YouTube targeted serious buyers with high-intent content like tech reviews.

The agency used their proprietary technology to find influencer pet owners with engaged audiences and disposable income. Once the key influencers were identified, they were given specific guidelines to create content with some space for creative freedom. During an eight-week period, multiple posts were published on the three platforms, such as unboxing videos or clips of cats using LR4.

The campaign was a success across all platforms. The 130 posts that went live amassed a total of 68.1M views, 7.3M engagements, and a cumulative CPM of $7.27. Litter Robot saw site visits surpassing the 100K mark, and over one hundred transactions translated into an additional six-figure revenue.

Key Takeaway:

The Litter-Robot LR4 campaign underscores the power of strategic influencer marketing and the effectiveness of a multi-platform approach to maximize impact. The careful selection of influencers, diversification of platforms, and leeway given to campaign partners in terms of creative expression all contributed to the success of the campaign.

2. Illuminating Holiday Success: Energizer Makes Portable Lighting “Bunny-Famous”

Agency: Viral Nation

Platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram

Most well-known for its iconic bunny and long-lasting batteries, Energizer sought to extend its brand appeal by positioning itself as the top choice for portable lighting. It was set on making its new products—the Energizer Headlamp and the TAC 700 Flashlight—household must-haves during the holidays and beyond. To do so, they enlisted the help of Viral Nation to launch a multi-platform marketing campaign. 

To boost sales during the holiday season, the campaign was focused on highlighting the new Energizer products as great stocking stuffers. Viral Nation engaged six influencers to publish content on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram and drive viewers to purchase directly from Energizer’s dedicated Amazon product pages.

Each influencer received both the products and integrated Energizer into their holiday-themed content.  The partners did unboxings, point-of-view reviews, and even hosted appearances by the beloved Energizer Bunny.

Viral Nation’s metrics speak for themselves: 832K interactions, 806K views, and 4.6K clicks. The campaign achieved substantial reach across platforms and successfully directed traffic to Energizer product pages.

The authentic and diverse promotional content led to a success that lit up the holidays, and the influencers effectively positioned Energizer as the go-to brand for portable lighting. The content they created not only drove awareness but also contributed to increased sales during the crucial retail period.

This Energizer campaign shows influencer marketing as a bright approach to holiday marketing. It highlights the effectiveness of tailored social media marketing strategies during key seasons. The strategic collaboration with influencers and campaign implementation on multiple platforms help brands shine brightly in the eyes of consumers.

3. Astronomical Success: Samsung Sees Galactic Growth of its Galaxy App Store 

Agency: Moburst

Platforms: Facebook, X (Twitter), and other channels

To enhance user experience, Samsung launched a dedicated app store in the US called the Galaxy Apps. Noticing slow engagement, they aimed to boost marketing to increase app downloads, user retention, and revenue for the app. They also wanted to raise brand awareness and promote the personalization features of Galaxy devices. To create and implement effective marketing campaigns, they sought Moburst's services.

Moburst implemented a comprehensive strategy of leveraging various media channels to target distinct audience segments. They did micro-segmentation and tailored their campaigns to specific user interests: Gamers were directed to the gaming section, Galaxy advocates were guided to the Made for Samsung section, and design enthusiasts were offered font and theme options for personalized phone customization.

The targeted campaigns and personalized approach led to a significant increase in app downloads that translated into a substantial revenue boost. Galaxy Apps downloads surged by 79%, and revenue increased by 36%. Social media engagement also saw an astronomical rise, with Facebook followers skyrocketing by over 1,400%.

Samsung’s collaboration with Moburst is a good example of how to run micro-segmented mobile marketing strategies on social media platforms. By understanding the diverse preferences of Samsung's vast user base, Moburst was able to craft tailored campaigns that resonated with specific audience segments.

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4. Cobra Kai Chop: Netflix High Kicks Campaign on TikTok

Agency: NeoReach

Platform: TikTok

The Cobra Kai series is one of the most successful shows in Netflix history. Following the immense success of the first two seasons, Netflix pulled out all the stops to make the third season equally successful.

To build hype before the release of Cobra Kai 3, Netflix collaborated with NeoReach in crafting social media marketing campaigns. The agency formed an eclectic roster of influencers from its vast pool and designed a campaign focused on creating buzz. The platform of choice for this campaign was TikTok, which at the time was still a burgeoning social media platform with highly engaged users.

NeoReach tapped its pool of influencers to heighten the anticipation for the upcoming season. The lineup included creators from various backgrounds to ensure a wide-reaching and culturally diverse promotion in major countries worldwide.

The agency used TikTok’s interactive Cobra Kai Chop filter that allowed influencers to creatively incorporate the brand into their content. Using the hashtag #CobraKaiChop also enhanced visibility and awareness.

The campaign achieved remarkable results, with 2.8M+ views from paid content and 4.6B views from #CobraKaiChop. But the campaign’s success was not just in views. It also delivered 24K+ in engagement value and an ROI of 2.76X.

The success of the Cobra Kai Chop campaign gives marketers a glimpse of how to effectively leverage emerging social media platforms. It emphasizes the need for creative content strategies and diverse influencer rosters to resonate with different audience segments.

5. Fresh Strategies: HelloFresh Delights Users with TikTok Culinary Adventures 

Agency: Hype Factory

HelloFresh—the pioneers of fresh food and meal kit delivery services—wanted to boost views and conversions within its niche market. To achieve this, they collaborated with Hype Factory to create a recipe for marketing success.

Hype Factory engaged 24 large entertainment influencers and gave them full creative freedom to make content that highlighted the features of HelloFresh. To enhance visibility and engagement, the campaign used Spark Ads with discount codes and direct links in the bio. Reposting the content as Reels or Stories on Instagram further expanded the reach beyond TikTok.

With a 4.03M reach and 13.3K clicks, the campaign definitely elicited strong engagement. The genuine interaction of the creators with their audience was key to the campaign’s success.

The HelloFresh campaign serves as a reminder to adapt to evolving consumer trends and the constantly changing dynamics of social media platforms. It also stresses the importance of embracing the creative freedom of influencers to pave the way for more authentic brand engagements.

Monitoring metrics is important for measuring the effectiveness of your current campaigns and optimizing subsequent ones. For social media marketing, here are some of the key metrics you need to keep a close eye on:

This refers to the number of social media users who have seen your posts and gives you an idea of the approximate size of your audience. A broader reach often translates to increased visibility. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are forecasted to be the leading channels for social commerce , so you might want to focus on amplifying reach on these platforms. 

Impressions

This measures the overall visibility of your content. It refers only to the total number of times your posts have been viewed, regardless of whether they have been clicked or not. This will help you gauge how frequently your audience encounters your posts.

This metric consolidates the number of likes, comments, mentions, shares, and clicks on your posts. High engagement shows that your audience finds your posts interesting or valuable. 

Bounce Rate

The bounce rate is expressed as the percentage of users who navigate away from your social media page after a few seconds. A high bounce rate indicates that your content does not resonate with your audience and signals a need to revamp your strategy and tailor your content to align with your audience’s needs.

Customer Sentiment

This indicates the overall attitude or feelings of your audience towards your brand and is often assessed through comments and sentiment analysis. By understanding customer sentiment, you can tailor your future marketing content and shape your online reputation.

Each case study offers valuable lessons that emphasize the importance of strategic influencer collaboration, multi-platform approaches, and tailored strategies. The proven success of these campaigns brings to light the universal principles that underpin effective social media marketing.

Still, every business is unique. Tweak the strategies you learned from these social media platform case studies to align them with your brand’s distinct goals. Determine the right social media channels for your business and focus your efforts there. The future unfolds a vast canvas for innovative marketing campaigns—paint it with insights gleaned from the compelling case studies we shared.

How can social media platform case studies help me craft marketing strategies for my brand?

Case studies show how marketing strategies are implemented in real life. They showcase proven tactics and actionable insights that help other brands implement similar strategies for their own businesses. 

Why is the selection of social media platforms important for marketing success?

While most people have multiple social media accounts, each platform still has its own nuances and appeal to different consumer segments. Choosing a social media platform is the same as choosing the right channels for broadcasting your message to the right audience. To amplify reach and engagement, focus on platforms where your target audience is most engaged.

How do I apply the key takeaways from social media platform case studies to my brand?

Identify similarities between your brand and the featured case studies, then tailor the successful strategies to align with your unique goals, audience, and industry. Use the case studies as inspiration to innovate and optimize your own social media marketing efforts.

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Nursing students’ use of social media in their learning: a case study of a Canadian School of Nursing

Catherine m. giroux.

1 Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, 145 Jean-Jacques Lussier Pvt, OttawaOttawa, ON K1N 9A7 Canada

Katherine A. Moreau

2 Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

Associated Data

Due to the qualitative case study nature of this research, the data generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available to maintain the anonymity of the study participants. Data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Social media has diverse applications for nursing education. Current literature focuses on how nursing faculty use social media in their courses and teaching; less is known about how and why nursing students use social media in support of their learning.

The purpose of this study was to explore how nursing students use social media in their learning formally and informally.

This exploratory qualitative case study of a Canadian School of Nursing reports on the findings of interviews ( n  = 9) with nursing students to explore how they use social media in their learning. Data were analyzed using a combined deductive and inductive coding approach, using three cycles of coding to facilitate category identification.

Results and conclusions

The findings demonstrate that participants use social media for formal and informal learning and specifically, as a third space to support their learning outside of formal institutional structures. Social media plays a role in the learning activities of nursing students studying both face-to-face and by distance. Accordingly, social media use has implications for learning theory and course design, particularly regarding creating space for student learning communities.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-022-00977-0.

Social media are online platforms that allow users to connect with other users, curate lists of connections, and interact with each other within the same online platform [ 1 ]. They have applications for both formal and informal learning in health professions education (HPE). Formal learning refers to planned educational experiences, such as courses or assignments [ 2 ] whereas informal learning refers to what is learned through extracurricular activities [ 3 , 4 ]. With social media, formal learning may include such activities as using YouTube videos in class, while informal learning may involve students scrolling through Twitter and finding relevant learning content on their leisure time. Within the HPE literature, social media have been shown to facilitate electronic communication, networking, and real-time collaboration [ 5 , 6 ]. They have also assumed key educational and communicative roles during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 7 – 9 ]. Furthermore, they continue to allow individuals to engage in independent, informal learning on their own terms and in places of formal education, work, or broader social circles [ 10 ]. Several studies demonstrated how social media can be used to facilitate clinical and professional performance tasks, question-and-answer sessions, and the exploration of complex topics collaboratively; social media can also provide professional learning opportunities and facilitate networking with international practitioners [ 11 – 14 ]. Moreover, instructors have used Twitter to provide students with formative feedback in assessment, stimulate reflection and sharing, share daily learning goals, hold journal clubs, notify students of recent topical publications, and orient learners to clinical sites and educational rotations [ 15 – 17 ]. The literature suggests that the connections that students make using social media can translate to opportunities for mentorship and scholarship [ 18 ]. Moreover, social media may also engage geographically dispersed individuals to create or share content, collaborate in groups, and ultimately form a virtual community [ 19 , 20 ].

Within the nursing education literature, social media is well described as a tool selected by faculty for diverse formal teaching and learning purposes. For instance, several studies described using blogging to facilitate reflections as a teaching strategy for topics such as cultural competence, empathy, the therapeutic relationship, transitions to practice, and self-care [ 21 – 25 ]. The feedback system of the blogging interface provided students with opportunities to practice their reflection and problem-solving skills [ 26 , 27 ]. Some studies used social media to simulate patient encounters or transition experiences for nurses [ 25 , 28 , 29 ]. For example, Thomas et al. used a blog to simulate a new nurse who had just transitioned to practice; the blog was written from the new nurse’s perspective to help final year nursing students consider issues of delegating and supervising, adapting to change, risk and quality management, and legal and ethical issues as they prepared to transition to practice [ 25 ]. Students had to read the blog and post responses. Other studies focused on using Facebook or YouTube as collaborative and interactive tools to help nursing students prepare for examinations like the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) [ 30 – 32 ]. Still, issues of professionalism arose in the nursing education literature, with some studies noting concerns about students’ online behaviour and potential implications for their reputations and licensure [ 5 , 33 ]. A 2021 narrative review found that learning about digital professionalism concepts as they relate to social media influenced how students behaved online [ 34 ]. Despite these potential professionalism implications, social media appears to be an effective tool to support formal learning in nursing education. A 2018 systematic review explored the effectiveness of using social media in nursing and midwifery education [ 35 ]. The authors found that the collaborative, interactive, and semi-synchronous nature of social media platforms may support knowledge and skill acquisition in nursing students.

Much of the extant undergraduate nursing education literature explores how social media is used in formal learning, specifically from the perspectives of the faculty who select the platforms to suit specific assignments or learning goals. Studies that focus on undergraduate students’ use of social media tended to explore specific platforms used and data analytics (i.e., hashtags used, number of views or shares). Less is known about how and why undergraduate nursing students themselves select social media platforms as an adjunct to their formal and informal learning activities. Thus, this exploratory qualitative case study aimed to address how and why undergraduate nursing students use social media to support their learning.

Theoretical considerations

Social learning theories like social constructivism are appropriate for framing studies involving social media because they view learning as an active and collaborative process [ 36 – 38 ]. Social constructivism is based on three assumptions: (1) meanings are constructed by humans as they engage with the world they are interpreting; (2) humans engage with their world and make sense of it based on their historical and social perspectives; and (3) the basic generation of meaning is social, arising from the interaction with a human community [ 36 ]. Social constructivism claims knowledge is acquired when subjective meanings are created in interaction with others, drawing on material from previous experiences to guide learning [ 36 – 38 ]. This study was informed by social constructivism, which influenced our research questions, data collection instruments, and approaches to data analysis.

Research design

The objective of this study was to explore how students at one Canadian School of Nursing used social media to support their learning. We addressed this objective through an exploratory qualitative single case study. Yin [ 39 ] describes a case study as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth within its real-world context even when the boundaries between the context and phenomenon may not be evident. Case studies comprise an all-encompassing method, which influences the logic of design, data collection techniques, and approaches to data analyses. Case study research is particularly useful for answering how and why questions; single case studies are appropriate for cases that are critical, unusual, revelatory, and longitudinal [ 39 ]. Our study site represented a critical case since the variety of program delivery methods and modalities were critically aligned with social constructivism. The study site also represented an unusual case, with four distinct program options – including a distance program – for students to achieve a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) degree. This was a unique program in Canada at the time of the study. The study site did not have any social media policies published to their public-facing website during the time of the study, nor did they have any public-facing references to using social media formally in their programs published on their website.

Case study site and participants

This study took place at a small, relatively northern, Canadian university with a student population of approximately 5,090 students [ 40 ]. The School of Nursing, which includes 1191 students, offers four distinct, English-language, options for students to complete their BScN degree. These options include: 1) a standard four-year direct-entry nursing program; 2) an onsite Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) to BScN bridging program for students who previously obtained an RPN diploma and who are looking to subsequently obtain their BScN degree; 3) a part-time blended learning RPN to BScN bridging program for students currently working as RPNs who are looking to obtain their BScN; and 4) a second entry accelerated program for students who previously obtained an undergraduate degree. Only two of the nursing programs occur at the case study site itself. The second entry program is held in a large city to the south of the case study site. Additionally, students who partake in the RPN to BScN bridging program through blended learning live geographically dispersed throughout the province in which the case study site is located. Given the different program options, the participants in this study consisted of a mixture of face-to-face students and distance students. Additionally, due to the nature of the program options, some participants had pursued their nursing program as their first degree while others were already working as RPNs and had returned to school to obtain their BScN degree.

Participant recruitment and data collection

Participants were purposively recruited from a previous study, which consisted of a digital artifact collection that explored what content nursing students shared to their Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts related to learning [ 41 ]. The twenty-four nursing students who participated in our previous study were contacted by email and invited to participate in this qualitative case study exploring how and why nursing students use social media to support their learning. These students were identified as potential participants because they had confirmed using social media for learning and thus, would be information-rich interviewees for the present study. All potential participants were provided with a Participant Information Letter and Informed Consent form. The data for this study were collected using semi-structured interviews. All interviews were conducted virtually via Zoom in the Fall of 2019, using a semi-structured interview guide that had been developed based on the research questions, our theoretical framework, and the literature (refer to Additional file 1 : Appendix). Prior to using the interview guide, it was piloted with two registered nurses. This pilot involved conducting two mock interviews and debriefing the interview guide with the participants to discuss the feasibility and appropriateness of the interview questions. The average interview length was 32 min, with the shortest being 21 min and the longest being 44 min long. We piloted the interview guide with two registered nurses prior to commencing the study. Each interview was audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interview participation was incentivized with a $20 gift card to a local coffee chain.

Data analysis

We took a combined deductive and inductive approach to coding and analyzing the interview transcripts. We sought to achieve theoretical sufficiency, which is the stage at which codes and categories manage new data without requiring further modification [ 42 ]. To do this, we conducted three cycles of coding in MAXQDA (v.18.2). In the first cycle, a preliminary codebook − which was informed by our research question, theoretical framework, and the literature − facilitated descriptive and process coding [ 43 ]. In the second cycle of coding, we each independently inductively coded the data using both process coding and in vivo coding (i.e., using the participants’ own words) and compared and discussed our coding. In the third cycle of coding, we grouped these summaries into categories, themes, or constructs [ 43 ]. A combination of matrices and networks visually displayed the data and facilitated category identification [ 43 , 44 ].

Reflexivity and trustworthiness

Neither author is a Registered Nurse nor is affiliated with the case study site. Both authors have expertise in conducting educational research within the health professions and were involved in the study conceptualization, data collection, and analysis. We also took steps to ensure that our analyses were credible, dependable, confirmable, and transferable [ 45 , 46 ]. To establish credibility, we engaged in member-checking, wherein we provided the participants a copy of their interview transcripts so that they could ensure that their statements were accurately represented during transcription [ 45 , 47 ]. We also engaged in peer debriefing. In terms of dependability, each of us inductively coded the data, compared our coding, and discussed and resolved any inconsistencies. In addition, we used audit trails as a strategy to ensure confirmability. These audit trails documented each of our decisions made during the research process and would allow an independent auditor to follow our steps and decisions to establish the same conclusions about the data. Lastly, through purposeful sampling and information-rich interviewees, we were able to obtain thick descriptions of how and why the students use social media to support their learning. We also included detailed descriptions of our research processes. This level of description allows others to judge the contextual similarity and transferability of our study findings.

Ethical considerations

The interviews received formal institutional ethical approval (S-08–18-921) and approval from the study site (101916) in August 2019. We reviewed the informed consent form with each participant prior to commencing the interview and addressed any questions that they had. All participants verbally consented to participate in an interview and participants’ consent was recorded using Zoom video conference software, in accordance with our research ethics board approval.

Nine nursing students ( n  = 9) participated in the individual interviews. All participants were female and ranged in age from 18 to 49. Five participants attended classes online in a blended program format that occurred by distance and four participants attended classes face-to-face. The findings demonstrate that participants used social media in numerous ways for both formal and informal learning purposes. Table ​ Table1 1 provides a thematic overview of how the nursing student participants use social media in support of their learning.

Thematic overview of how and why study participants used social media to support their learning

Formal learning

Participants reported using social media for a variety of purposes pertaining to formal learning. Table ​ Table2 2 provides exemplary participant quotes outlining their experiences using social media for formal learning purposes.

Participants’ experiences using social media for formal learning purposes

Sharing and clarifying course content

Several participants reported using social media to share content related to their courses and to clarify course content. Participant 7 explained how “when it comes to having, like, a large quantity of information, I think Facebook’s a better platform for that. Um, you’re able to share different links, you’re able to share pictures, videos, news articles, almost anything, it seems now”. Two participants (Participants 05 and 07) shared contrasting experiences with using social media formally in their distance classes to clarify course concepts. In this instance, a professor had shared YouTube videos in the course. While Participant 7 appreciated the inclusion of videos, Participant 5 found this approach to be lazy, especially since the professor did not create the videos but rather included videos that, according to Participant 5, students would likely search for on their own to assist their learning.

Supplementing university services

Eight participants indicated that Facebook was a good platform to supplement or highlight existing university services. Participant 5 explained how, as a distance student, they used Facebook to learn about the services available to students, like the university’s tutoring service, which Participant 5 found helpful for statistics. Participant 6 described how they used Facebook specifically for sharing course resources, since that platform might be easier at times than the typical learning management system.

Assignments and exams

The participants described using social media as a mechanism to complete their course assignments and to study for course exams and the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX). Social media appeared to be involved in the process of completing assignments; it also appeared to be the product of some assignments. Participant 5 described how “any group projects that we have to do would, which in an online program seems a little silly to me to do group projects but, um, we’d have to find a way to collaborate and it was often over Facebook or that sort of thing”. Participant 1 described creating a social media campaign for their community health class to help parents access vision care for their school-age children. Participant 3 shared how they found posts about how to pass the NCLEX the first time shared to social media and Participant 2 explained how they use social media to review for their course exams by dividing course content up amongst a small group of students and sharing review notes and summaries online. Participant 2 also described using social media platforms like Reddit to understand the patient experience based on what patients choose to share to these sites.

Informal learning

Participants indicated that they used social media for diverse informal learning purposes. Table ​ Table3 3 provides an overview of participants’ experiences using social media for informal learning.

Participants’ experiences using social media for informal learning purposes

Creating community

By far, students shared the value of social media for connecting with peers and the nursing community most frequently. Four participants spoke about how social media promotes connection between distance students. Participant 3 shared how social media “gives you that camaraderie that you’re missing in a classroom environment”. Four out of the five students who identified as an online student cited Facebook groups as being an important mechanism for connecting with their classmates who were spread throughout the province. One participant explained how “there is a group online, uh, [School Name] distance ed students so I use that quite a bit, um, just to get information on classes, um, what to expect from different professors, etc.” Five participants shared how social media helped them combat isolation in their learning. Participant 2 emphasized the importance of social media for connecting distance students, which was important since they did not have the same opportunities to meet their classmates face-to-face. Participant 1 described how participating in Facebook groups helped enhance both the academic and social aspects of their face-to-face learning experience. Participant 4 explained how “we find it’s been really useful, or even like finding little things, like finding rides to clinical and stuff like that. Like obviously not all of us can afford vehicles and stuff like that so just by helping each other out”. In fact, every participant who identified as a face-to-face student ( n  = 4) spoke about the importance of Facebook groups to their learning experience since they contributed to building community and sharing resources.

Similarly, six participants shared how social media connected them with the broader nursing community, outside of their programs and university. Participant 6 described how social media could connect people across the country with experts in the field and the resources they have created. Participant 9 explained how social media could be used to “take my learning outside of the avenues that can be addressed and presented within a program or any program, really. So, it allows you to kind of step outside of that, see what’s happening with other people, how they’re learning…” Participant 1 described how social media allows them to connect with the nursing community on both social and academic levels through sharing memes and experiences on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Participant 3 shared how social media “probably gives a good, like, um, a good alternative perspective on things, other than the teacher’s”.

‘Behind the scenes’ knowledge sharing

While the participants often spoke about content that was publicly available to them on social media, they also shared how they used social media for informal learning purposes in private or ‘behind the scenes’ ways. Five nursing students reported using social media to buy, sell, and share PDF versions of textbooks. Participant 5 shared how “people share PDFs of textbooks and all that sort of stuff, so it’s definitely saved me several hundred dollars”. Two participants expressed how they prefer social media to textbooks. Participant 9 described how their professors are “not the biggest towards textbooks because they said that the second they are printed they are out of date because of how fast information is changing within healthcare”. In this sense, Participant 9 found social media to be a helpful way to stay up to date with information that textbooks did not provide.

Similarly, three participants described using social media to discuss which professors were the best for each class. Participant 2 explained how “we often talk about which professors are the best for specific courses and so those classes tend to fill up really fast”. Participant 5 described how they use social media to ask questions about the university, share their perceptions of certain professors, and discuss which classes should or should not be taken at the same time. While eight of the nine interview participants actively participated in social media groups, three participants shared that the absence of faculty members in the social media groups could be problematic. Participant 2 suggested using more of the collaborative tools available on the university’s learning management system to eliminate some of the need for the social media groups and better include the faculty members. Participant 5 also found the absence of faculty members in the social media groups to be a problem and recommended involving faculty members in the private groups to correct misinformation and answer questions.

Scaffolding knowledge

In addition to sharing resources, three students indicated that the Facebook groups were essential for giving and receiving support throughout their nursing programs. Similarly, five nursing students shared how they use social media to review their clinical skills. Three participants used social media to review IV insertion. Participant 7 described how “I use Instagram, I follow someone, she, her, her tag is IV Queen or something like that, but she gives a lot of intravenous tips on how to insert IVs and how to care for them”. Participant 3 also described using YouTube videos to review IV compatibility. Participant 1 shared how they used YouTube to practice for their IV therapy lab. Participant 1 also described how “we have used some YouTube videos and tutorials and stuff in our labs where we’re able to view, like, for example just last week we were learning about central lines, um, so we looked at a video about how to do the dressing change for a central line”. Participant 1 also described how they use YouTube to learn about skills like ambulating patients prior to starting their surgical rotation so that they would understand what they were about to do on the rotation.

Why use social media

The study participants presented several reasons to use social media in support of their formal and informal learning activities; similarly, they also presented several reasons to be cautious of using social media for these purposes. Table ​ Table4 4 presents an overview of exemplary participant quotations presented thematically.

Participants’ reasons for using or not using social media in support of their formal and informal learning

Credibility and relevance of sources

Seven participants discussed the credibility and relevance of the sources they found on social media. Participant 7 indicated that they find their friends and followers on social media do not tend to share a lot of content that “I don’t consider real, like the fake news, but it’s a lot of more credible sources, like major journal articles and stuff like that”. Participant 4 expressed that students are taking a risk in depending on social media rather than on their books and their notes. Other students, like Participant 6, emphasized the importance of developing critical thinking skills and being able to filter social media posts so that they could appropriately determine which sources were accurate or credible. Participant 8 indicated that relying on social media links provided by course professors was helpful since “you know if the instructors are posting those videos, then you know that they’re credible sources.”

Professors and professionalism

All nine nursing students shared how their professors, programs, and the importance of professionalism influenced their use of social media. Four participants shared that, perhaps with the exception of YouTube videos, their professors did not use social media in their teaching and discouraged its use by nursing students. Participant 6 explained that “social media is kind of shunned a lot in nursing because of that whole idea of don’t post anything, don’t share your clinical experiences and don’t, you know, breach privacy.” In some instances, participants reported that their professors did not use social media in their teaching but encouraged students to use it to complete course assignments, like learning portfolios. Participant 4 shared that “[the professors] really like the idea of us working together on things and utilizing each other to keep on track”, especially as it related to support during clinical placements.” Other participants described their professors incorporating podcasts, videos, and Reddit into their courses, which encouraged their use of social media for learning. Still, several participants expressed concerns related to professionalism on social media. Participant 3 explained how “I definitely avoid posting about like, things that involve substance use. I feel like there’s added pressure on people in certain, in various professions like healthcare and police that you should avoid because you’re supposed to uphold a certain image of the profession.”

Convenience and accessibility

Several participants discussed the convenience of social media. Two participants shared how it was easier for communication purposes than other methods (i.e., emails, calls, texts). Other participants described how social media provided a central repository for resources that could be easily accessed by classmates. However, Participants 3 and 5 highlighted some challenges to accessibility because of using social media for learning, notably poor internet connection and lack of transcriptions or alternative formats.

Engagement and distraction

Four participants shared how they found social media to be an engaging platform for learning in their nursing education. Participant 4 explained how social media helps highlight major class concepts in a variety of formats, which can be helpful for different learners. Several participants spoke about growing up with social media and how their previous experiences motivated them to use it as a tool to support their nursing education. Participant 6 explained how “I kind of grew up with technology and grew up with social media that I just know how to use it and know how to access it and don’t have a problem filtering out what I don’t need.” Despite how participants felt about social media’s potential for engagement, they also found it potentially distracting. This was a common theme amongst both face-to-face and distance students. Participant 2 described ending up in a “Facebook vortex, where I end up being on it for 2 h, not necessarily on that [program specific] group.”

The nursing student participants described multiple ways of using social media to support their learning. None of the students in this study described using social media for the same creative formal experiences as those published by Thomas et al. [ 25 ] wherein a course instructor developed a simulated student on Facebook for nursing students to interact with online. However, a couple of students outlined their experiences being required to use sites like Reddit to learn about the patient experience. Additionally, some participants described how they used social media to develop patient-oriented health advocacy campaigns for healthcare organizations, effectively demonstrating how social media is being used in their formal nursing education. The ways in which the nursing students use social media to support their formal learning demonstrate social media’s collaborative capacity for knowledge and information exchange for both on-campus and distance students [ 6 , 48 , 49 ]. The study participants used social media creatively to support their formal education; for instance, participants referenced program-specific Facebook groups where they could collectively decide on questions that they needed to ask their professors in class. This finding is consistent with that of Junco et al. [ 50 ], where they found social media to be a low-stress method for students to ask questions of their peers and educators.

Informally, participants indicated using social media to refresh their clinical skills before applying them in lab settings or during clinical rotations. While the findings of this study do not directly touch on the use of social media at the point-of-care, studies like that conducted by Hay et al. [ 51 ] demonstrate social media’s potential utility for enhanced clinical learning and patient safety. In this study, two participants described how they use social media, specifically YouTube videos, to help with patient education at the bedside. Moreover, the participants indicated that they took a cautious approach to using social media in their formal and informal learning out of concern for professionalism implications. Several students indicated that they had been warned about the repercussions of unprofessional online behaviour and had adjusted their behaviour accordingly. This finding is similar to that of a previous conducted narrative review by O’Connor et al. [ 34 ] that found that students were likely to change what content they shared using social media after learning about issues of professionalism.

Importantly, the participants in this study appeared to use social media as a third space. Aaen and Dalsgaard [ 52 ] describe the ‘third space’ as being one that emerges in boundaries or overlaps across spheres; they explain that third spaces emerge from a need for discourses that are unavailable or cannot be filled in existing settings. Participants described creating their own Facebook groups for their classes, cohorts, study groups, clinical groups, and programs. The students explained that faculty members were not present in their Facebook groups, although they did sometimes encourage students to join the groups to stay up to date on information. The participants shared that they used the groups to fill gaps in their education. Others described using the Facebook groups to create a sense of community they felt was missing in their distance learning. In fact, this study found that nursing students use social media in their education in several ways that are often hidden or ‘behind the scenes’. Aaen and Dalsgaard [ 52 ] found that Facebook formed a ‘third space’ that combined elements of academic, personal, and social communication that does not typically take place within conventional university structures or spaces. The findings of this study are similar in the sense that the nursing student participants used social media as a mechanism to collaborate, communicate, teach, and learn when traditional university avenues were unavailable to them.

This study has implications for learning theory in connected teaching and learning. Learning theories – and thus, approaches to teaching – have moved from behaviourist to constructivist in the age of technology [ 53 ]. Indeed, social learning theories like connectivism [ 54 ], Communities of Practice [ 55 ], and social constructivism [ 36 ] can reflect the realities of connected teaching and learning because they focus on collective learning and knowing in both physical and digital spaces. In the present study, social constructivism, specifically Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, is evident in the participants’ use of social media for formal and informal learning purposes. Vygotsky [ 56 ] defines the Zone of Proximal Development as “the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with capable peers” (p. 86). The participants in this study described using online social media groups to share information about course requirements, assignment information, and exam tips. Social media also appeared to be a method for students to consolidate, share, and engage in their learning as part of a larger social process. Several participants described experiences of scaffolding learning for their peers either within their own cohort or in cohorts behind them using social media groups. Scaffolding is a key component of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and has applications for online course design; technical scaffolding allows learners to experience just-in-time instruction and be provided with resources to solve problems and generate new learning and understanding collaboratively online [ 57 ]. Thus, the online learning environment should provide learners with the resources, tools, and supports they need to build their own knowledge; scaffolding fades as learners develop their own knowledge and expertise [ 53 ].

Implications for nursing education policy and practice

This study demonstrates that nursing students are using social media in their educational practices both formally and informally. This use of social media has implications for teaching and learning in nursing education. Faculty members must consider the purposes for which nursing students are using social media, especially informally. One finding of this study suggested that nursing students turned to social media to fill perceived gaps – both academic and social – in their learning experience. If faculty members and schools of nursing are aware that social media is being used by nursing students for formal and informal teaching and learning purposes, it can be leveraged to achieve specific competencies and learning objectives. Based on this study, we have highlighted recommendations for nursing education policy and practice.

At the policy level, professional and appropriate social media communication could be included as an educational competency in nursing education programs, if not already stated in guiding curriculum frameworks. The purpose of this recommendation is not to discourage social media use but rather to develop competent online communicators who are equipped to use social media for teaching, learning, advocacy, and knowledge translation purposes. At the institution level, increased training for both faculty members and students on digital literacies, identifying credible online sources, and managing misinformation could help ensure faculty and students feel equipped to use digital tools like social media effectively in their teaching and learning. Finally, at the course level, some participants valued using social media to extend their learning while others were more reluctant to use it; thus, approaching the use of social media with flexibility and allowing for choice is essential. Providing optional opportunities to extend learning may help encourage participation on social media and help students discover how social media platforms can be used as learning tools informally within the nursing profession.

Limitations and future directions

This exploratory qualitative case study included individual semi-structured interviews with nursing students from one Canadian School of Nursing. Despite incentivizing interview participation, we were only able to recruit 9 of the 24 possible participants. It is also probable that those who participated were more interested in social media than those who did not participate. The interviews consisted of self-reported data from the perspectives of the participants. Although participants spoke about how their professors used social media in their courses, the professors’ perspectives were not included in this study, leaving a potential imbalance and area for future research. Moreover, our small qualitative sample did not allow for a stratified analysis based on the program delivery method. This type of analysis would be interesting to conduct with a larger, quantitative dataset. Lastly, while the interview guide included questions about the nursing student participants’ experiences using social media, it did not include questions about their cultural backgrounds. In future, it would be interesting to explore how students’ culture backgrounds influence how and why they use of social media.

Conclusions

The nursing students in this study described and demonstrated using social media to support their formal and informal learning. The participants also used social media as a third space, one that is separate from the traditional confines of the university. Within this space, participants merged their personal and academic discussions to collaborate, share resources, mentor one another, and connect with nursing experts and professional institutions. This use of social media has implications for teaching and learning in nursing education, especially regarding learning theory, scaffolding, and online course design.

Acknowledgements

Not Applicable.

Authors’ contributions

C. G. and K. M. were equally responsible for conceptualizing the study, conducting data collection and analysis, writing the main manuscript text and reviewing the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

No funding was obtained for this study.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

This study received formal ethical approval from the University of Ottawa Social Sciences and Humanities Research Ethics Board (S-08–18-921) and approval from the study site (101916) in August 2019. We reviewed the informed consent form with each participant prior to commencing the interview and addressed any questions that they had. All participants verbally consented to participate in an interview and participants’ consent was recorded using Zoom video conference software, in accordance with our REB approval from the University of Ottawa Social Sciences and Humanities REB (S-08–18-921). We followed Tri-Council ethics guidelines. Our reporting aligns with the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) checklist.

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

In this social media management case study, you’re going to see how we helped boost brand awareness for 3 unique businesses.  

The first example comes from a brand with a line of all-natural beauty products.

We generated 54,874 total fans.

In 11 only months.

Pretty good, right?

It all started with this email we received from another marketing agency:  

“Hey Taliah, Would you like me to connect you with a social media specialist who I know could really help you? […] I have copied our partner Sherman on this e-mail. He owns a phenomenal social media marketing company here in town and I know he can help you with all things digital!”  

As you can see, we are widely known for our social media marketing services .

So much, in fact, other marketing agencies often refer business owners to us who are looking for great social media campaigns.

After a few initial meetings and careful thought, Taliah decided to proceed forward with us.

Today, we’re going to share how we helped Taliah, and other clients, build brand awareness through social media management.

But first (for the newbies) let’s take a look at the benefits of social media management.

Why use social media for business?

In 2017, Statista reported that 81% of the US population (2.34 billion) actively use a social network. According to Adweek, people tend to spend nearly 2 hours a day on social media platforms.

This means it is likely your customers or target audiences are on a popular social media platform.

And your business is able to reach them… potentially every day.

For any savvy business owner or marketer, this alone would be enough reason to use social media marketing for business.

But here’s the icing on the cake.

In 2017, social media is the most cost-effective marketing channels available today.  

You can target by age, gender, location (including zip code):

You can target by demographics:

You can target by interests:

You can even target based on behaviors:

Today, it is possible to reach, fan and engage the exact person within your target audience for as little as $1 in ads (live examples of this later).  

That’s right, $1. The same cost of a burger off the dollar menu.

Think about that.

Now imagine if you had 1,000 people (fans) that followed your business, trusted you and took strong interests in your products/services.

What if you had 2,000 fans?

Or what if you had 54,874 fans like Taliah.

That is a recipe for massive brand awareness…

And that is what this social media marketing case study is all about.

What is the difference between social media management and social media advertising?

Here’s the truth.

Every marketing agency has their own opinion and thoughts of the difference between social media management and advertising.

And honestly, there’s no right or wrong way to describe the two.

We like to break it down like this:

Social media management is centered around a long-term strategy to generate more brand awareness. Typically, this means building up strong relationships with fans or potential customers over 6 – 12 months.

The main KPIs (key performance indicators) for a social media management campaign are:

• Cost per fan
• Cost per engagement
• Response times

Whereas social media advertising is centered around a short-term strategy to generate leads and sales. Typically, this means doing a direct response (click and buy) advertising campaign over 3 – 6 months. Check out our case study on how social media increase sales for a deeper understanding.

The main KPIs for a social media advertising campaign are:

• Conversions
• Cost per conversions
• Cost per click

We often get asked:

“Which approach works best?”

The simple answer is both.

However, the social media management approach is the most effective as you will develop a stronger connection with your audience.

Social media management is like a long term relationship.

Social media advertising is like a one night stand (with potential for more). 

Case Study 1: Social Media Management for Natural Beauty Products

Now let’s take a dive into results of Taliah’s social media management case study.

Between October 1, 2015 – August 31, 2016 we generated:

• 25,468 Facebook Fans
• $0.16 per Facebook Fan
• 20,961 Instagram Followers
• 3,752 Twitter Followers
• 4,693 YouTube Subscribers
• 263,052 Total Engagements
• $0.004 per Engagement
• 146,585 Video views
• $.01 Cost per view

Taliah was able to reach and engage her exact target audience for less than $1.

Actually, less than .20 cents on average. (Cost per fan + cost per engagement + cost per view)

Which is ridiculously good.  

Here’s a screenshot from their ads manager showing 0.16 per fan.

Here’s a look at the $.01 cost per view.

(The cost per view is a lot more effective and cost efficient than traditional TV network advertising).  

Here’s a look at the $.004 engagement cost.

Here are some of the posts with engagement:

Here is a review that their brand manager left for us:

It is safe to say that whatever we did worked, right?

It’s not as simple as many people may think.

This is was the result of careful planning and past experiences.

A proven social media management strategy

It’s true.  

Every business is different and targets a different audience.

The core principles of social media marketing… grabbing a prospect’s attention and building a relationship… remains the same.

We know this because we’ve implemented the same successful approach for more than 278 clients.

Here’s at peek at one of our strategy decks:

As you can see, we break our strategy down into 5 phases:

1: Research of Competitors and Customers

2: Development of Content and Growth Strategy

3: Implementation of Content and Follower Strategy

4: Measure and Reporting

5: Optimization Lifecycle

Let’s dive into the first phase

There are two things we are 99% sure of:

• Your competitors are using social media for business
• Your customers are already on social media

And the 1% chance they’re not…

Would give you a golden opportunity to be there first.   

Otherwise, it makes strategic sense to study the behaviors of your competitors and customers prior to launching any social media campaign.

A careful look at competitors social media posts, growth and ads is good starting point to see what is working and what is not working.

When researching customers we put together a customer avatar.

The purpose of the customer avatar is to have a framework for the ideal customer’s goals, values, pain points, challenges, sources of information, objections and more.

Here’s a screenshot of how we organize the customer avatar:

• Goals and values: What does the customer want from himself? Family? Friends?
• Pain points and challenges: What is the customer frustrated with? What prevents the customer from reaching their goals?
• Sources of information : This is info about where your ideal customer is hanging out online. What blogs are they reading? What conferences do they attend?
• Objections to the sale: Why would the target audience say no to your product? Is it time? Cost? Difficulty to use? Lack of perceived value?

This information allows us to put together a content strategy that will speak directly to that audience.

This is key to grabbing and keep the target audience’s attention.

2. Development of Content and Growth Strategy

Usually, once the research is done amateurs dive straight into managing their social media campaign.  

Don’t make this mistake.

Here’s what we do..

After research, we begin to work on a content calendar.

This content will shed light on what posts we are creating, on what days and why.

It helps make the process transparent for everyone and works towards a consistent model of social media publishing.

In addition, we begin to map out a growth strategy. This usually explains which tactics we will employ in order to build the fans and followers of the brand.

3. Implementation of Content and Growth Strategy

This is what our clients like the most.

The idea of not having to worry about creating posts, building fans, responding to every message and so on…

Here’s an example of our typical timeline:

After contract signed…

• Week 1: Team Kickoff Call and Setup.
• Week 2: LYFE Works on Research, Strategy, and Deliverables (posts and ads)
• Week 3: Edits, Review, and Approval of Deliverables (potentially launch)
• Week 4: Launch Social Media Campaign
• Week 5: Early Checkup and Status
• Week 8: First Monthly Review Call

4: Measurement and Reporting

Many people try social media…

Then say something like:

“Social media marketing does not work for my business.”

Usually.. this is not true.

Most people give up too quickly or don’t know how to measure their progress.

Even if the business is in a narrow lane, you can still create advantages with social retargeting audiences (pro tip).

Therefore, the major key to success in digital marketing is tracking and measurement!

Social media is a very complex marketing channel.

This is because there are so many strategies you can employ on each platform like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google Plus and so on

That is why you MUST track your results against your goals.

In addition, we give our client’s access to a custom social media system that allows them to keep up with the progress 24/7… with the ability tracking every single interaction point.

Here are some screenshots of our tracking and reporting system…

Audience Growth: 

Instagram Activity (Channel Specific Dashboard): 

Best Times To Post (Optimization Analytics): 

5. Optimization Lifecycle

LYFE strives to improve results month over month.

Every team member is dedicated to generating results to help our clients grow.

We study the report and look for ways to optimize/improve for the next month.

For example, if find that educational posts are performing the best then we will spend more time to create educational posts.

The goal of this phase is to make sure we are aware of what’s working and to optimize towards those things to improve results.

Case Study 2: Social Media Management for Forever Diamonds

Forever Diamonds is a jewelry company located in Georgia’s Lenox Mall. The owner, Malik, was looking for ways to grow his store’s awareness in the huge mall.

After only one call, Malik identified that LYFE was the company he trusted and we launched his social media management campaign.

During the period of April 1, 2016 to April 1, 2017 we generated:

• 10,422 Facebook Fans
• $0.34 per Facebook Fan
• 7,656 Instagram Followers
• 45,743 Total Engagements
• $0.03 per Engagement
• 39 Pre-Owned Rolex Watch Offer Claims

As you can see again, Malik was able to reach and engage his fans for less than $1.

But what Malik was really happy about was the 39 Pre-Owned Rolex Watch Offer Claims.

This basically means 39 people set up an appointment and made a commitment to visit the store to buy a pre-owned Rolex..

Here’s a screenshot of Malik’s total fans:

Take a look at the people engaged:

Here’s a glimpse of the content we posted on Facebook to engage his audience:

Here’s a glimpse of the content we posted on Instagram to engage his audience:

In 2017, Forever Diamonds continues to grow their brand awareness that ultimately drives more foot traffic and new customers.

Case Study 3: Social Media Management for Snow Company

Some of you heard about Jacob’s sales success in our SEO results case study.

If not, here’s the quick summary…

Jacob helps run an automotive snow company. He used all our services in generated over 98K in sales within a 5 month period.

A big part of Jacob’s success was the social media marketing component.

Between the period of August 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016 we generated:

• 49,377 Facebook Fans
• $0.19 per Facebook Fan
• 2,826 new instagram followers  
• 205,584 video views
• $.001 per view
• 303,378 people engaged
• $.01 per engagement
• 1,718 Leads
• $2 per Lead

Extremely good, right?

As you can see again, Jacob was able to reach his fans for under $1.

In fact, under $.25 cents!

The best part is…

Jacob was able to achieve these results in under 5 months with our services!

The big key here is their advertising budget. During these 5 months, Jacob spent over $18,241.55.

Which equates to a little bit over $3,000 per month in advertising spend.

A price they were more than happy with considering the revenue generated.

Here’s a look at screenshots that back up our results:

Social media management is a long-term business decision (6-12 months).

The core benefit of social media management is building up awareness and engagement.

Which ultimately builds strong relationships with fans which influence their buying decisions.

Of course, we recommend hiring us if you want to use an experienced team with a proven strategy that works.

If  this sounds good to you then here’s what to do next:

• Go to our contact page
• Fill out all the basic information
• Shortly after you will be prompted to schedule an appointment, pick a time/date that works for you
• Show up for your “get to know you” call with one of our sales consultants.

We’ve driven over 983,287 leads for clients through digital marketing.

Fill in the form below to schedule a call with us., or talk to an expert right now, 404-596-7925.

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Effective Social Media Campaigns: Case Studies

• Key Takeaways

High-quality images, videos, and infographics are vital for capturing attention and conveying messages effectively on social media.

Deep understanding and segmentation of your target audience allow for personalized and impactful messaging.

Utilize analytics to inform your social media strategies, ensuring content and ads are optimized for maximum engagement and ROI .

Effective social media campaigns hinge on visual content, compelling narratives, and audience targeting.

Influencer marketing and data-driven decisions can significantly impact campaign success.

The rise of social media has transformed digital marketing. Today, social media campaigns are essential for brand success. They can reach a global audience, boost engagement, and deliver results. The key is to run effective campaigns. This article acts as a guide, using real case studies to explain how.

We will now explore the strategies behind successful campaigns. The topics include visuals and storytelling. They also cover targeting, ads, influencers, and data use. They cover cross-platform planning and crisis management. We’ll also cover how to measure success with KPIs. Each section includes case studies to provide practical insights for marketers and businesses.

Introduction to Social Media Campaigns

Social media is crucial in digital marketing. It helps businesses reach their audiences. A “social media campaign” is a structured marketing effort across various platforms. This article will explain the importance and relevance of these campaigns.

• The Role of Social Media in Modern Marketing

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are now key to business marketing. They help engage a worldwide audience, boost brand visibility, and enhance loyalty. Being on these platforms unlocks social media marketing’s vast potential.

• Importance of Effective Campaigns for Brand Success

The success of a brand often hinges on its ability to effectively utilize social media. The digital era brought a big change in how consumers act. They now turn more to social platforms for product info, reviews, and recommendations. Therefore, brands that can create and run great social media campaigns have a competitive edge. In this article, we delve into case studies. They highlight the real impact of well-run campaigns on brand success.

• Overview of the Article’s Focus on Case Studies

This article shows how to run successful social media campaigns. It uses real cases as examples. These examples reveal how companies meet marketing goals using social media. By studying successful campaigns, readers learn about key strategies and results.

• The Value of Real-World Examples in Learning

Case studies uniquely blend theory with practice, making them a great learning tool. They show how to use marketing concepts in real situations. They offer lessons for personal marketing efforts. Studying these cases teaches readers patterns. They learn best practices and pitfalls to avoid in social media campaigns.

The Power of Visual Content

Visual content is vital in today’s digital world, especially for social media campaigns. It grabs attention, quickly conveys messages, and leaves a lasting impact. In this section, we’ll look into visual content’s many facets. We’ll also see how it enhances social media campaigns.

• Utilizing Eye-Catching Images and Graphics

Visual content begins with captivating images and graphics. These include striking photos, intriguing illustrations, or attention-grabbing infographics. They quickly engage the audience. Marketers must pick visuals that match their brand and goals. We will also highlight how the right visuals can shape a campaign’s tone and leave a lasting impression.

• The Impact of Video Content

Videos now rule social media. They come in various lengths, from short clips to longer videos. Notably, they engage audiences well. This article explores their use in social media campaigns. It will discuss the benefits of video marketing. For example, it can share complex ideas, evoke emotions, and boost audience interaction. Additionally, it will showcase successful campaigns through case studies.

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• Infographics as a Storytelling Tool

Infographics are great for social media stories. They quickly present information in an attractive way. Here, we will see how they can effectively share data, statistics, and stories. Also, we’ll look at the key design principles. We’ll then share examples of successful campaigns. These campaigns used infographics to educate and engage their audiences.

• User-Generated Content and Its Authenticity

User-generated content (UGC) has become popular for building trust and authenticity. It’s content by customers or brand fans, sharing real experiences and testimonials . We’ll explore its impact on social media campaigns. It boosts authenticity and credibility. Case studies will show how brands have used UGC to strengthen relationships with their audiences.

• Case Studies Showcasing Successful Visual Campaigns

We will show successful social media campaigns using visuals. These include images, videos, infographics, and user content. They’re compelling and effective. We’ll explain how businesses and organizations used these elements. By looking at these stories, readers will learn the strategies and tactics for engaging audiences.

Crafting Engaging Content

In the realm of social media campaigns, crafting engaging content is undeniably a cornerstone of success. Your content is the bridge that links your brand with your audience. It’s crucial to ensure that this link is not just made but also made strong. Here, we delve into the intricacies of creating content that captivates and resonates with your target audience.

• Strategies for Creating Compelling Content
• Know your audience. Engaging content starts with understanding them well. Take the time to research their preferences, interests, and pain points. Tailoring your content to address their specific needs is key to engagement.
• Storytelling Techniques: Storytelling is a powerful tool in the world of content creation. Learn how to weave narratives that not only convey your brand’s message but also evoke emotions and create a memorable impact.
• Building Brand Personality Through Content
• Consistency in Branding: Effective content aligns with your brand’s identity. Explore how to keep messages, tone, and visuals consistent. Do this across all your social media platforms. This will strengthen your brand’s personality.
• Showcasing Brand Values: Engaging content often reflects your brand’s values and mission. Discover ways to infuse your content with your brand’s ethos. This will create a stronger bond with your audience.
•  Interactive Content and Engagement Tactics
• Interactive content, like polls and live sessions, boosts engagement. We’ll show you how to use these in social media to increase participation. Also, response speed, contests, and user-generated content are key tactics for active engagement.
• Case Studies Exemplifying Effective Content Strategies

We’ll use successful social media campaigns to show how to create engaging content. These case studies will highlight strategies that boost engagement and results.

Creating engaging content is a continuous effort. It needs creativity, audience understanding, and adaptability. By applying the strategies in this section, you can make content that grabs and retains your audience’s attention. This approach boosts your campaigns’ success.

Targeting the Right Audience

In social media campaigns, success depends on knowing and targeting the right audience. Identifying your audience is like building a foundation. It sets the stage for your efforts. Here, we explore key aspects of audience targeting. Our goal is to help your social media campaigns succeed.

• Importance of Understanding Your Audience

Before starting a social media campaign, it’s crucial to know your audience well. This step involves deep market research. It is to learn about their age, gender, location, and interests. Understanding your audience helps you create tailored content and messages. The case studies show how brands researched their audience well. This led to successful campaigns.

• Segmenting Your Audience for Personalized Messaging

Once you’ve identified your broader audience, the next step is segmenting it into smaller, more specific groups. This segmentation allows you to craft personalized messages that cater to the unique needs and preferences of each group. We’ll explore various segmentation strategies, including psychographic, behavioral, and geographic segmentation. Real-world examples will show how brands divided their audience. They then delivered tailored content for maximum impact.

• Data-Driven Targeting Strategies

In today’s data-driven landscape, harnessing the power of analytics is paramount. We’ll discuss how data can inform your targeting strategies, enabling you to make informed decisions. By studying user behavior, engagement, and conversion, you can refine your targeting. This will help you reach the right people at the right time. Case studies will highlight instances where data-driven targeting resulted in remarkable campaign success.

• Case Studies Demonstrating Successful Audience Targeting

This section will showcase case studies on audience targeting. It will feature real examples from top brands. You’ll see how they found, divided, and used audience data for successful social media campaigns. These stories will offer tips for your campaigns. You’ll learn to attract and engage potential customers effectively.

Leveraging Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising has become an integral component of modern digital marketing strategies . Businesses need to understand paid promotion, ad formats, budgeting, and measuring ROI. This is key to using social media ads well. In this section, we will delve into key aspects of leveraging social media advertising for successful campaigns.

• Paid vs Organic Reach on Social Media

One of the fundamental decisions in social media advertising is whether to rely on organic reach or invest in paid promotion. Organic reach is the audience your content naturally reaches without paid promotion. Paid reach involves allocating a budget to boost content visibility. It’s crucial to strike the right balance between these two approaches. Organic reach is limited, and algorithms frequently change, making it challenging to reach a wider audience. Paid reach, on the other hand, offers more control over targeting and exposure but requires a financial investment. Businesses must assess their goals, target audience, and available resources. They do this to find the best mix of paid and organic strategies.

• Ad Formats and Placements

Social media platforms offer a diverse range of ad formats and placements to cater to different campaign objectives. Understanding these options is essential for crafting effective advertising strategies. For instance, Facebook provides options such as image ads, video ads, carousel ads , and more. Instagram offers sponsored posts and stories. LinkedIn specializes in B2B advertising, while Twitter has promoted tweets. Every platform has its own strengths and audience. Thus, it’s crucial to choose the right ad format and placement. These choices should match campaign goals. Also, creating engaging ad content for the chosen format is key. It boosts the campaign’s effectiveness.

• Budgeting and ROI Tracking

Allocating a budget for social media ads is strategic. It affects campaign reach and outcomes. It involves setting aside funds for ad spend, creative production, and campaign management. Establishing a clear budgeting strategy ensures that resources are utilized efficiently.

Additionally, tracking ROI is essential to measure the effectiveness of advertising efforts. Tools like Google Analytics and social media platform insights provide data on ad performance. They include click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost per acquisition. Businesses that monitor these metrics regularly can make data-driven adjustments. They can also optimize their advertising spend.

• Case Studies Showcasing Successful Social Media Advertising Campaigns

This section discusses some concepts. We will delve into real-world case studies to illustrate them. The studies exemplify successful social media ad campaigns. These case studies will provide real examples of businesses. They effectively used paid promotion. They chose the right ad formats and budgeted well. They achieved measurable ROI. By reading these success stories, readers can gain insights and inspiration for their own social media ads.

Harnessing the Power of Influencers

In social media campaigns, influencers play a crucial role. They boost brand engagement and reach. This section dives into influencer marketing . It provides tips on how brands can best work with influencers.

• Identifying the Right Influencers for Your Brand

To start a successful influencer marketing journey, you must find influencers who match your brand’s values. They must also match your target audience and goals. This involves meticulous research to pinpoint individuals whose content resonates with your niche. The right influencer will not only bring authenticity to your campaigns but also enhance credibility.

• Collaboration and Partnership Strategies

Once you’ve found potential influencers, the next step is to start collaborations and partnerships. Successful influencer marketing hinges on building authentic relationships with influencers. Brands must craft compelling proposals, outlining the mutual benefits of the partnership. Effective communication, transparency, and negotiation skills are essential in establishing a fruitful collaboration.

• Measuring the Impact of Influencer Campaigns

The effectiveness of influencer campaigns goes beyond mere follower counts. In this section, we delve into the metrics and tools required to measure the true impact of influencer marketing. Brands must monitor engagement, clicks, conversions, and sentiment. This helps measure campaign success. Equally important is calculating ROI. They should also align influencer activities with business goals.

• Navigating Potential Pitfalls

Influencer marketing is not without its challenges. Brands should prepare for influencer controversies, authenticity concerns, and algorithm changes. This section offers strategies to reduce risks and keep influencer partnerships strong.

• Case Studies of Effective Influencer Marketing

We will show you how influencer marketing works. First, we’ll present successful brand stories with influencers. Then, we’ll explain how these influencers boost brand messages. They increase engagement and aid in campaign success. Finally, each example offers lessons for your influencer marketing strategy.

Data-Driven Decision Making

In today’s digital age, data plays a pivotal role in the success of social media campaigns. Marketers and businesses can’t rely only on intuition and creativity. They must use data to make informed decisions that drive results. This section explores the significance of data-driven decision making in social media campaigns and its s.

• Importance of Data in Campaign Decisions

Data serves as the foundation upon which effective social media campaigns are built. It provides valuable insights into audience behavior, content performance, and campaign reach. Marketers can use data to find trends, preferences, and opportunities. This lets them tailor their strategies for maximum impact.

Analyzing data shows businesses the best social media platforms. It also shows them the best content and posting times for their target audience. This data helps in making marketing decisions. It ensures resources go where they are most effective.

• Key Metrics to Monitor for Success

To make data-driven decisions, it’s crucial to identify and monitor key performance metrics. Metrics vary by campaign goals. Common ones include engagement rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate. Also, return on investment (ROI). Each metric provides unique insights into campaign performance.

A high engagement rate shows your content is popular. However, a low conversion rate means you need to optimize. By tracking these, marketers can quickly judge campaign success. They can then tweak efforts to boost results.

• Tools for Social Media Analytics

The availability of advanced analytics tools has made data analysis more accessible to businesses of all sizes. The platforms offer insights and analytics dashboards. They let marketers track metrics within the platform. Additionally, third-party analytics tools provide more in-depth analysis and reporting capabilities.

Tools like Google Analytics, Hootsuite, and Sprout Social help marketers gauge social media success. They offer audience segmentation , content performance tracking, and competitor analysis. This data helps businesses tweak their strategies.

• Case Studies: Highlighting Data-Driven Success

This section shows how data-driven decisions boosted social media campaigns. It features real examples. Businesses used data to improve targeting, content, and strategies. This led to better campaign results.

By studying these case studies, readers will learn how to apply data-driven decision making. Also, they will get inspired by success stories. The stories show how businesses can improve their social media campaigns. They can do this with data-driven methods.

Cross-Platform Integration

• Coordinating Campaigns Across Multiple Platforms

Businesses must be on social media to reach diverse audiences. They should run campaigns on multiple platforms. This ensures a consistent brand message and boosts social media impact. Strategies are key. They help tailor content and messages for each platform, such as Facebook or Twitter. Good coordination guarantees a strong, unified brand experience for all users.

• Consistency in Messaging and Branding

Consistency is key for cross-platform integration. It means keeping your brand’s message, tone, and look the same across all social media. This builds your brand’s identity and makes it more trusted and recognized. To achieve this, create guidelines for your brand. These should detail using the same colors, logos, fonts, and voice.

• Maximizing Reach Through Integration

Cross-platform integration boosts your reach. Each platform has unique users and strengths. For instance, Instagram is great for visuals, Twitter for updates, and LinkedIn for networking. By integrating them, you reach a wider audience. You maintain a consistent brand.

• Case Studies of Successful Cross-Platform Campaigns

To show how cross-platform integration works, let’s consider some examples. First, a clothing brand might use Instagram and Pinterest for ideas. They would use Facebook to chat with customers and Twitter for fast promos. This strategy lets the brand display products, connect with customers, and boost sales. Likewise, a tech company could use LinkedIn for business outreach, Twitter for support, and YouTube for tutorials. These examples show how businesses can blend social media well. They do this to meet goals and engage their audience.

Cross-platform integration isn’t just being on many social media platforms. It’s about creating a strong brand presence on all. This involves coordinating campaigns, staying consistent, and using each platform’s strengths. By doing so, businesses can reach more people and make social media more engaging for their audience. Case studies show the benefits. They highlight how this method can help businesses of any size or industry.

Crisis Management on Social Media

• Preparing for Potential Social Media Crises

In social media, crises can pop up without warning. So, brands must be ready. This means creating a crisis management plan. It should outline scenarios, roles, and communication strategies. First, they need to know what crises might hit. For example, these could be bad customer reviews, product recalls, or social media scandals. Next, brands can detail how to respond. Then, they choose team members and a leader. They also set up monitoring tools to catch problems quickly. This way, they can react fast.

• Handling Negative Feedback and PR Disasters

Negative social media feedback can turn into a crisis fast if not managed well. Brands need clear rules for handling negative comments or reviews. They must respond quickly and with empathy. It’s crucial to admit mistakes and offer solutions. Transparency is vital for maintaining trust during crises. For PR disasters, like product recalls or scandals, brands need a crisis communication plan. This plan should cover messaging, media responses, and a spokesperson. Effective crisis communication means providing accurate information, taking responsibility, and outlining solutions.

• Case Studies Illustrating Effective Crisis Management

To understand crisis management on social media, we should study real cases. Johnson & Johnson’s response to the 1980s Tylenol crisis is a great example. After tampered Tylenol capsules caused deaths, the company quickly recalled all products. It then openly communicated with the public. This strategy restored trust and protected the brand. Another case is Starbucks’ reaction to racial bias in a store. It apologized publicly, shut down for anti-bias training, and kept engaging with stakeholders. Both cases show the importance of being proactive in crisis management.

In today’s fast digital world, creating and running effective campaigns is crucial. This article delves into social media marketing , using real cases as examples. It covers visual content and storytelling. It also includes audience targeting, ads, influencers, analytics, and cross-platform tactics. It also includes crisis management. All are key to a successful campaign.

Social media marketing is always changing and needs flexibility. Strategies that work now might need changes later. But, with the knowledge, insights, and examples in this article, you can better manage it. Your campaigns can do more than just include posts and hashtags. They can build your brand, engage users, and meet goals. Success requires creativity, using data, and learning from others’ wins. Now, it’s time to start your journey to social media success.

• Q. What’s the importance of visual content in social media campaigns?

Visual content grabs attention and boosts engagement, making it a key element in successful campaigns.

• Q. How can I measure the success of my social media campaigns?

Define KPIs, set benchmarks, use analytics tools, and analyze data to gauge performance.

• Q. Why are real-world case studies valuable for marketers?

Case studies provide practical insights and examples of effective campaign strategies.

• Q. What role does influencer marketing play in social media campaigns?

Influencers can amplify brand messages and connect with niche audiences authentically.

• Q. How do I handle a social media crisis effectively?

Preparedness, transparency, and swift response are vital in managing social media crises.

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5 outstanding social media marketing case studies

Do you read social media marketing case studies for inspiration? It’s always a good idea to benchmark against your competitors or pinch ideas from them, but it’s also worth looking at success stories from the biggest brands out there. You might not have their budget, but you can always gain inspiration from their campaigns.

Here are five of the best brands on social and what I think you can learn from them:

1.Mercedes Benz – Repeated, successful social media marketing campaigns

Mercedes Benz seem to win every time with their social media campaigns.  The one that stands out to me was back in 2013 when they created what I still believe to be one of the best Instagram marketing campaigns to date. Mercedes wanted to reach out to the younger audience so they hired five top Instagram photographers to each take the wheel of a new Mercedes CLA. Whoever got the most likes got to keep the car – so they all really worked at it!

By the end of the campaign, Mercedes has received:

• 87,000,000 organic Instagram impressions
• 2,000,000 Instagram likes
• 150 new marketing assets (stunning photos)

What lessons can you learn from this? Could you put your followers up for a challenge and make it into a competition or campaign?

• Can you do a competition that gets people trying out your product first?
• Think about your target audience. What is a prize they would value?
• Like Mercedes you could recruit bloggers/influencers via social media and get them blogging about your service or product. Whoever receives the most engagement wins .

2. Dove – Connecting with their target audience

Is it just me or do all the Dove marketing campaigns make you cry? If you’ve seen their Real Beauty sketches campaign, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Dove’s goal is to make women feel good about themselves. They know their target market and create content that tells a story that women can relate to.

Today I am… pic.twitter.com/VoAf2wRdwa — Dove UK & Ireland (@DoveUK) February 19, 2016

Dove did some research and found that 80 percent of women came across negative chatter on social media. Dove’s goal was to change that and make social media a more positive experience. As a result, Dove teamed up with Twitter and built a tool to launch the #SpeakBeautiful Effect, that breaks down which body- related words people use the most and when negative chatter appears during the day.

According to Dove, women were inspired by their message.

• #SpeakBeautiful was used more than 168,000 times
• Drove 800 million social media impressions of the campaign

Dove know their audience. Knowing your audience is the only way you will engage with them. The best way for this is creating personas. Knowing what life stage they are in, if they’re employed, what their interests are etc. will certainly help you when creating content. Then think about linking your audience to your brand values in order to create something just as successful as Dove’s campaign.

3. Nutella – Incredible content that makes you salivate

Each post makes you want to eat Nutella. There are a lot of people (including me) who take photos of their food before they eat it. Nutella does the same and it works. Nutella isn’t afraid to be fun and creative with different ingredients. Nutella is just a chocolate spread yet they manage to have fun with it. Do you, or could you, have a bit more fun with your brand?

Here are some ideas for having fun with your brand:

• Are you on different social media channels? If you’re B2B you might not think that Instagram is for you, but it can be a great way to demonstrate your brand values by telling a story. Fedex is a great example of this, showing images of their trucks always on the move. This tells a story that they are always delivering and that is the key message we take away.
• Key influencers/bloggers can be a great way to  different types of content and to see how they have fun with your brand (if this is new to you, read our post on the rise of the social media influencer ).
• Instead of posting behind-the-scenes photos at your head office, can you encourage your followers to share their experiences with your brand? Maybe host an event or go out and meet them.

Take your #breakfast bread pudding to the next level with #Nutella ! 😉 pic.twitter.com/k0ko5Nm9iX — Nutella (@NutellaGlobal) May 5, 2016

4. Oreo – Smart content planning and timely delivery

Oreo is another brand that is known for their creative social media marketing. They must have a big design team to produce their content, but it works! They are consistent with their branding and manage to catch onto real time events. We all remember when the lights went out at the Super Bowl and during the half hour blackout Oreo tweeted out:

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC — OREO Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

This was retweeted over 15,000 times.  Are you thinking outside the box about your brand? Plan ahead for events coming up that you might be able to jump on to.

Do you plan your social media content out? If you’re in B2B and don’t currently create content read here for some B2B content marketing tips to help you get started, or check out our B2B marketing strategy tips ebook for 2021.

It’s always a good idea to prepare content ahead of time. If you can schedule content on a monthly basis – perfect, but if not bi-weekly is great. That way you can check what events are coming up and plan content around them. This gives you time for any ad hoc creative to be done, such as jumping on real-time events like the Oreo blackout example above.

5. Airbnb – Stunning imagery and UGC

What might look like a visual travel blog,  Airbnb ’ s content attracts fans with their visually compelling posts. On Instagram, they post user-generated photos from its hosts and guests. The content embraces their new campaign of ‘Don’t just go there, Live there’ which is captured through real photography. Each post receives high engagement, between 3,000 and 14,000 Instagram likes.

This is a great example of thinking slightly outside the box. Airbnb is all about accommodation. They don’t just post images of the inside of people’s homes. Seeing the culture and images of places all over the world comes with the experience of where you stay and that’s what connects with people. Think about your brand: are you just posting about the product/ service itself? Why not tell your followers a story instead?

Thanks for reading. I hope by reading these five social media marketing case studies it has spiked some inspiration! If you need any help with your social media advertising , influencer marketing , or other aspects of your social media strategy, feel free to contact us .

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Case Study: Using Social Media Analytics to Build Solid Engagement for an eCommerce Brand

• 1 July 2021
• Karolina Kurcwald

Experienced social media marketers know this all too well: it’s one thing to grow your followings on different channels and another one to keep your audience engaged.

And the larger the following, the more challenging it can actually get to keep the engagement flowing.

But the e-commerce company Displate shows you can do both, as long as you pay close attention to your performance and keep finding new ways to engage your customers.

In-depth Social Media Analytics

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Building a bond with your audience

Displate is a leading marketplace for the highest quality metal posters and a community of talented artists. They’ve been using NapoleonCat to analyze their social media presence and find ways to reach more customers worldwide. And they’re a fascinating example of building an engaged community around an e-commerce brand.

They have a lot going on when it comes to social media, with numbers like: 

• 1.2 million different designs in their store
• 1.3 million Facebook Page likes
• 645k Instagram followers
• 10M monthly views on Pinterest
• Close to 40k followers on Twitter
• A power-user community on Reddit
• And an original content account getting started on TikTok.

And, as they themselves confirm, each channel has its own place in their social media marketing strategy, with different goals and different content. 

What’s even more important to mention is that they manage all these impressive numbers in a small and engaged team, backed up by helpful tools like NapoleonCat (which we’ll get to in a second.) 

And all because they’re dedicated to building genuine relationships with their customers based on authenticity, trust, and engaging content.

But how do you engage a massive audience like that with social media content?

According to data , 41.2% of marketers rank engagement as their top key performance indicator (KPI) for social and content marketing. And Displate’s marketing team is no exception, with several ways to pursue their goals.

Let’s look at a few themes that stand out – and that you could adopt for your social media strategy, too, to boost engagement.

Being there for their audience. 

This means not just posting content (though the regular posting of relevant content is definitely important), but – most of all – replying to comments and engaging in conversations. 

Displate’s customers are usually passionate individuals keen on discussing their Displate purchases and art in general. So sometimes, it’s enough for the brand to nudge them in the right direction – and they’ll hit it off with other fans in the comments. 

The best engagement a brand could hope for.

Turning one-time buyers into collectors. 

Or, in other words, into repeat customers and then brand ambassadors. As Sebastian of Displate says:

Social media is often the first touchpoint in the customer journey for us, but also the last one. It plays a massive role in building our brand image and community. And as we encourage our customers to become collectors of our products, simultaneously engaging them on social media with passionate discussions, we build a super-engaged community of brand ambassadors.

And this is an essential part of any marketing strategy. Social media with its different networks can be effective at different stages of the sales funnel, for slightly different audiences each time. Any social media strategy should account for that to contribute to a funnel that keeps selling, which is especially important in industries like e-commerce. 

User-generated content (and also user-inspired content) 

It’s really important to listen to your customers – that’s what social media is all about, after all. And the best thing a brand can do for its social media engagement is listening closely enough to get inspired by what its customers are saying. 

And that’s precisely what Displate does:

“We talk to followers and fans all the time, we get inspired by people’s comments and discussions, and our community influences our content creation.”

And it’s not just about the fact that people trust their peers more than brands . And not even just the fact your fans will feel appreciated and seen (though it’s a critical trust-building and engagement-inducing factor). 

But it’s a win-win all the way, providing a brand with engaging content they can adapt and use for self-promotion. And when we look at some stats again , it’s a solution to a severe problem of looking for new and creative ways to build content while also saving time (72.2% of marketers have it).

Right now, we’re focused on our own audiences on 7 or 8 channels, which is really huge (>2 million people already). We’re heading to that point when we’ll be able to engage in other communities, but first things first. Besides socials, we gather our feedback from influencer campaigns ( Twitch, YT), the customer service team (Zendesk, Trustpilot, ads), and our own research (quantitative and qualitative).

And speaking of influencer campaigns…

Working with influencers. 

Displate has an entire strategy around influencer marketing and partnerships, including one-off collabs and long-term relationships. What this helps with is bringing the brand in front of new audiences and into new communities in a way that builds trust and engagement.

Resorting to data once more, 80% of social media live stream viewers say they’re likely to buy a product as a result of the endorsement of their favorite influencers . Influencer campaigns are also a great extension of the user-generated content efforts for a brand. This way, new audiences are encouraged to engage with a brand that might be new to them by the people they already follow and trust.

Win-win again. 

Analyzing social media performance.

And implementing the necessary changes in your social media strategy to boost that performance. We’re going to look at this one in greater detail, as this is precisely where NapoleonCat steps in for Displate.

Displate’s challenges when it comes to analyzing their social media performance

An engaged community rarely happens on its own. Sure, there’s always a chance a brand will go viral, and people will just pick it up and go crazy about it. But even in this case, you’ll come to a stage where you need to put in some more work to sustain the engagement. 

And more often than not, you need to have a few things figured out first, like: 

• where your audience hangs out and when they’re most likely to respond to your content and discussions
• what types of content works best to get them engaged
• what types of content you can produce and if they fit with what your audience wants to see and talk about
• what platforms work best for the different types of content you put out there.

Now with Displate, content ideas come both from their customers and from across the entire company. But it’s the social media team’s job to decide what ideas to use for which channels to get the best results. 

And to do that, they need an analytics tool that will help them see all the numbers very clearly and make what their team calls “data-informed decisions.” Ones that are not purely based on data but that are inspired by it.

This is surely a challenge with this volume of traffic, followings, and interactions. But it’s a must if they want to know for a fact what works and what doesn’t and do more of what does work.

Plus, this knowledge could actually help them generate more content from their users – and again, the type of content others want to see.

The solution

Displate’s team uses NapoleonCat for their social media insights, helping them see all that information at a glance. 

They check their stats daily, weekly, monthly, and even quarterly. The NapoleonCat analytics tool helps them establish their objectives and key results (a.k.a. OKRs) and inform their strategy going forward. 

They can also see what types of content gets their users the most engaged, whether their audience is more likely to respond to videos or static posts (and how that’s different across the different platforms), and where the user-generated content comes in in all of this.

How it works

In NapoleonCat, you can track both your performance and your competitors’ performance. You can monitor metrics that are relevant to your business across different social channels, including:

• audience growth
• reach (organic and paid)
• engagement rate
• interactions and reactions
• post engagement throughout the day
• your most engaging content

With the detailed metrics you can track using the platform, you can be sure you’re going beyond just vanity metrics (which can be great but will often do little to really move the needle for your business) and focus on what can really be tied to things like ROI and your bottom line.

Watch the video below to see exactly what you can track with NapoleonCat and how:

And speaking of the results…

Using a social media analytics tool, Displate has eliminated a big part of the guesswork out of their social media marketing strategy . Which, with the sheer size of their audience and volume of their engagement, is invaluable.

Having all the critical data in one place and creating reports that can be circulated across teams helps understand user behavior and the type of content they’re into. And that supports Displate’s goal of creating an engaged community on social media to raise brand awareness, build trust, but also – ultimately – drive sales (and repeat sales at that.)

“NapoleonCat is a great tool to analyze social media performance, make valuable observations based on data, and create dedicated reports. All packed into an intuitive interface with an added bonus of a helpful, engaged support team.” — Bastek Kłys, Displate

With NapoleonCat:

• The Displate team can see exactly what people react to and when.
• They can track insights daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly and adjust their content and engagement strategy depending on the results.
• It’s much easier for them to define OKRs and then evaluate them based on their actual performance.
• They can make data-informed decisions instead of only acting on their gut. 
• They have a solid overview of all their communication efforts on social media.
• They can evaluate partners and influencers they work with to make sure they’re adding value to both their existing audience and the new audiences they’re reaching.

Social Media Analytics

Analyze your performance on social media and track your competitors on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube – with an all-in-one social media tool.

You may also like:

• How to Analyze Competitors on Social Media
• Top 10 Social Media Analytics Tools for Teams
• Find Your Best Times to Post on Social Media
• The Ultimate Facebook Analytics Tool
• Answers to 15 Common Questions About Instagram Analytics
• Understand Instagram Analytics (Insights)
• Understanding Instagram Stories Analytics
• Get The Most Out Of LinkedIn Analytics
• A Beginner’s Guide to Twitter Analytics
• What Is a Social Media SWOT Analysis?
• Social Media Audit: Step-By-Step Guide

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Social Media in Financial Services: Benefits, Tips, Examples

Is your financial services organization using social media effectively? If not, you’re losing business to your competitors.

Table of Contents

Things are changing fast in financial services, from the rise of crypto to the growth of the fintech app category to the development of robo-advisors. As financial services becomes a more digital industry, social media marketing is becoming a more critical means of promotion in the space.

Even if your organization leans more traditional, social media is a necessary channel to reach younger clients. And you need to be prepared for what’s coming. Gartner found 75% of financial services leaders expect significant changes in the industry by 2026.

Here’s why (and how) to build a financial services social media strategy this year.

Download a free bundle of social media tools for financial services — including post ideas and templates for social media policies, strategies, and reports.

8 reasons to use social media in financial services

1. reach new audiences.

Social media is where Gen Z goes in search of financial information. The oldest members of this age group are turning 25 this year. And they’re starting to hit major milestones that deserve financial advice. 70% of them are already saving for retirement.

Nearly a quarter of 16-to-24-year-olds already use a financial services website or app every month. Ten percent of them already own some form of cryptocurrency.

Source: Hootsuite Global State of Digital 2022 (April Update)

Even if you’re not marketing to Gen Z, social media is an important channel for connecting with new clients. More than three-quarters ( 75.4% ) of internet users use social media for brand research.

2. Strengthen relationships

Building relationships is a key use of social media for finance industry professionals. When it comes to money, everyone wants to deal with someone they know and trust.

Nurturing prospects and clients online is known as social selling . Here’s a quick primer on how it works:

Social media can help identify important financial moments in clients’ and prospects’ lives. For example, LinkedIn is a great place to learn about career changes or retirements. Following clients’ business pages can also give you insight into their challenges.

That said, social selling is usually about building relationships. Sales are a longer-term goal.

When a connection gets a new job or launches a new business, by all means, send a congratulations message. (Nearly 95% of advisors who use social media effectively use some form of direct messaging.)

Keep yourself top of mind. But don’t jump in and try to make a sale.

It’s important to focus on providing trustworthy information and resources. Nearly a quarter of Internet users follow a brand they’re considering purchasing from on social networks. They want to follow and observe for a while before jumping in.

Focus on the client’s needs rather than making the sale.

Grow your client base with the tool that makes it easy to sell, engage, measure, and win — all while staying compliant.

3. Highlight brand purpose and build community trust

Financial services brands now have to show they’re about more than financial returns.

64% of respondents to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer survey said they invest based on beliefs and values. And 88% of institutional investors “subject ESG to the same scrutiny as operational and financial considerations.”

Younger investors are particularly interested in sustainable investing. A Harris Poll for CNBC showed that a third of millennials, 19% of Gen Z, and 16% of Gen X “often or exclusively use investments focused on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) factors.”

And a Natixis report found that 63% of millennials believe they have a responsibility to use their investing to help resolve social issues.

Trust in the financial services sector has grown over the last 10 years. But it’s still the least trusted industry according to the Edelman Trust Barometer. Social media allows you to build trust and address client concerns.

Source: 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer

4. Humanize your brand

People want to deal with trusted financial experts. That doesn’t mean they want their financial services providers to be clinical and cold. Social media provides a great opportunity for you to humanize your brand.

Getting your company’s executives on social media can be a great place to start. After all, it can be easier to trust a person rather than an institution.

Potential clients expect to see your C-suite executives on social. 86% of financial publication readers say it’s important for business leaders to use social media. They trust leaders who use social media more than those who don’t by a ratio of 6 to 1.

Of course, the tone you take will depend on the network you’re using and the target audience you’re trying to reach.

The average advisor uses 4 social networks , with the most successful using 6. The Putnam Social Advisor Survey 2021 found a shift from LinkedIn to Facebook. Advorsors are also inceasingly using Instagram and TikTok.

5. Gain key industry and customer insights

Try using social media for financial services industry research. This is a good way to stay on top of what’s happening in your field.

Does a competitor have a new product offering? Is there an impending PR disaster? Think of social media as an early warning system.

Social media listening can tell you what’s happening in the industry. Here’s how it works:

You can also use social listening to learn about your potential customers and gauge what they want from you.

Also, be sure to keep an eye on your social media analytics . These tools give you insights into the effectiveness of your own social efforts. You can learn what works best. Then, refine your social media marketing strategy for financial service customers as you go.

6. Reduce effort and costs

Social efforts work best when teams, departments, and individual advisors use social media in a coordinated way. Most likely, this involves a shared social media management platform .

A content library is a valuable resource for both employees and brands. Staff has access to pre-approved, compliant content that’s ready to go. Brands have peace of mind when employees post consistent messaging that supports strategic goals.

https://youtu.be/G4LoyLQEpc8

When everything is housed in one central library, there’s no duplication of effort or expense. This pre-approved library addresses financial advisors’ top two concerns about using social media:

• Lack of time
• Fear of making a mistake.

7. Provide unified digital customer service

As the financial industry becomes increasingly digital, customer service needs to follow suit. Customers want to reach out to businesses on the platforms where they already spend their time. That might mean social networks like Facebook or social messaging apps like WhatsApp.

Social customer service tools allow you to coordinate your customer service across all channels. At the same time, you can link conversations to your CRM. This helps ensure you meet compliance requirements for response time as well as record-keeping.

With Hootsuite Inbox , you can bridge the gap between social media engagement and customer service — and manage all of your social media messages in one place . This includes:

• Private messages and DMs
• Public messages and posts on your profiles
• Dark and organic comments
• Emoji reactions

… and more.

The all-in-one agent workspace makes it easy to 

• Track the history of any individual’s interactions with your organization on social media (across your accounts and platforms), giving your team the context needed to personalize replies
• Add notes to customers’ profiles (Inbox integrates with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics)
• Handle messages as a team, with intuitive message queues, task assignments, statuses, and filters
• Track response times and CSAT metrics

Book a free demo

Plus, Inbox comes with handy automations:

• Automated message routing
• Auto-responses and saved replies
• Automatically triggered customer satisfaction surveys
• AI-powered chatbot features

8. See real business results

Put simply, social media affects your bottom line in concrete, measurable ways.

81% of financial advisors who use social media say they’ve gained new business assets through their social efforts. In fact, advisors using social media successfully report an average of $1.9 million in assets gained through social media activities.

Deloitte’s Global 2022 Gen Z and Millennial Survey found that young people’s optimism about their own financial situations is improving. However, both of these generations are overall still anxious about their financial security.

Source: Mood Monitor Drivers, Deloitte Global 2022 Gen Z and Millennial Survey

At the same time, the Natixis Global Survey of Individual Investors found that 40% of millennials—and 46% of high-net-worth millennials—want personal financial advice from a financial advisor. Social media is a perfect place to connect with these new clients.

Source: Natixis Global Survey of Individual Investors: Five Financial Truths About Millennials at 40

Building a social media strategy for financial services: 4 tips

1. focus on compliance.

FINRA, FCA, FFIEC, IIROC, SEC, PCI, AMF, GDPR—all the compliance requirements can make your head spin.

It’s critical to have compliance processes and tools in place, especially to guide independent advisors’ use of social media.

Get your compliance team involved as you develop your financial services social media strategy. They’ll have important guidance on the steps you need to take to protect your brand.

It’s also important to have the right chain of approvals in place for all social media posts. For example, FINRA states :

“A registered principal must review prior to use any social media site that an associated person intends to use for business.”

Get a glimpse into the future of financial services on social media and build a strategy you can bank on.

2. Archive everything

This falls under compliance, but it’s important enough that it’s worth calling out on its own.

According to FINRA: “Firms and their registered representatives must retain records of communications related to their “’business as such.’”

Those records must be kept for at least three years.

Hootsuite’s integrations with compliance solutions like Brolly and Smarsh automatically archive all social media communications. You’ll have your social content stored in a secure and searchable database, complete with the original context.

3. Conduct a social media audit

In a social media audit , you document all your company’s social channels in one place. You also note any key information relevant to each. At the same time, you will hunt down any impostor or unofficial accounts so you can have those shut down.

Start by listing all the accounts your internal team uses regularly. But remember—this is just a starting point. You’ll need to look for old or abandoned accounts and department-specific accounts.

While you’re at it, make note of the social platforms where you don’t have any social accounts. It might be time to register profiles there. (TikTok, anyone?) Even if you’re not ready to use those tools yet, you might want to reserve your brand handles for future use.

We created a free social media audit template to help keep all your research organized as you tackle this work.

4. Implement a social media policy

A social media policy guides social media use within your organization. That includes accounts for your advisors and agents.

Reach out to all the relevant teams within your organization, including:

• Information security
• Human resources
• Public relations

All these teams should have input. This will help you maintain a consistent brand identity while reducing compliance challenges.

Your policy will also define team roles and approval structures so everyone understands the workflow of a social post. This clarity upfront can help reduce frustrations that social media might not move as quickly as some would like.

Using social media for finance industry purposes can also come with security risks. Include a section in your social media policy that outlines security protocols for the less-sexy aspects of social media. For example, prescribe how often to change passwords and how often software should be updated.

Best social media campaigns for financial services

1. current x mrbeast.

Current is a financial services company that primarily offers mobile banking services through an app. To build brand awareness, they partnered with high-profile influencers including Hailey Bieber and Logan Paul.

I offered a military squad $100,000 if they could successfully hunt me down in a day, GO WATCH THE NEW VIDEO! — MrBeast (@MrBeast) December 10, 2021

In particular, they developed an ongoing collaboration with the influencer MrBeast. Two of the resulting social videos reached the number 1 top trending video spot on YouTube. As a result of the campaign, Current saw a 700% increase in money requests through the app and became the number 5 finance app in the Apple App Store.

2. BNY Mellon #DoWellBetter

BNY Mellon developed a campaign to highlight the positive impacts of their high-net-worth clients. Featuring beautiful portraits and video interviews, the campaign showed how sound investing and wealth management through BNY Mellon allowed them to build the resources to effect positive change.

Telling client stories is a good way for financial institutions to create a human connection on social media platforms.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcN-eqFOqqM/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

3. CloudTax influencer campaign targeting Gen Z

This Canadian tax software startup partnered with several influencers. They mainly used TikTok to reach a Gen Z audience. Founder and CEO Nimalan Balachandran told Global News influencer marketing drove around a quarter of the company’s growth.

Their influencer videos embraced the unique TikTok look and feel. This allowed them to connect with the platform’s community in a way that wouldn’t be possible through more traditional social content.

@passionstoprofits #taxseason #taxwriteoffs #taxwriteoff #taxes2021 #payyourtaxes #moneytok #smallbusinesscheck #smallbusinesstips_ #smallbusinessowner #cloudtaxpartner ♬ Runaway (U & I) – Galantis

4. Vanguard Group #GettingSocial

Investment company Vanguard Group uses a weekly series of social videos to share expertise on investing and other financial topics.

Releasing the videos on a consistent schedule trains followers to expect the content. This encourages viewers to check back weekly and become regular watchers over time. The videos offer short, snackable insights. They don’t require a large time commitment from busy followers.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcVYZ3oDDCp/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

They also run social ads that speak to similar topics. This exposes social users to educational and conversion-oriented content that work in concert.

5. Penn Mutual: Content library for advisors

Penn Mutual has a dedicated content studio within its marketing department. They produce, test, and refine social content that forms the backbone of a content library for advisors.

The social team adjusts content to make it appropriate for various audiences. Then they add it to the content library for financial advisors to customize and share. They use Hootsuite Amplify to make the process of sharing possible with just a few clicks or taps.

The company sends a list of new content every Friday, which advisors can then post or schedule.

https://www.facebook.com/justingmillerfinancialadvisor/posts/1005269093302126

Hootsuite makes social marketing easy for financial service professionals. From a single dashboard, you can manage all your networks, drive revenue, provide customer service, mitigate risk, and stay compliant. See how the tool can work for your business.

Watch a Demo

Get more leads, engage customers and stay compliant with Hootsuite, the #1 social media tool for financial services .

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Christina Newberry is an award-winning writer and editor whose greatest passions include food, travel, urban gardening, and the Oxford comma—not necessarily in that order.

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Using Social Media for Business Case Study

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Social media present a platform for potential business growth. People use them on an everyday basis. Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks have become the primary source of information for many people. The reason for this is that each of these sites uses a newsfeed. The posts of their friends are mixed with the posts of communities, channels, and public pages they have subscribed to. Using the newsfeed service, it is possible to capture users’ attention to any business entity, including Happy Valley Yogurt.

Facebook has a unique feature, which allows sharing fiscal cards between Facebook users. Once a user receives the card by e-mail, they can make purchases with the money stored on it. Happy Valley Yogurt can send out Facebook cards to its followers. They will receive cards with the balance that allows them to buy the company’s drink. Such an action would attract social attention, which will, in turn, bring about an increase in sales.

Customers are driven towards seemingly costless experiences. Social media can provide such experiences with minimum effort involved (Wilcox and Cameron 240). For instance, Happy Valley Yogurt may promise a free drink to any customer who posts an image of themselves with the company’s product on Instagram. Instagram is known for its stories, which have shoppable tags. These tags allow businesses to mark their products. Anytime a user posts a story with Happy Valley Yogurt’s product, their subscribers will see the company and its initiative and will be compelled to purchase products for themselves.

YouTube analyses the videos and sorts them according to their popularity. The more popular the video is, the more likely it is to appear in the recommended video feed. Happy Valley Yogurt can utilize this mechanic by posting a video about a new product and making it viral by inviting people to like it or making an advertisement based on it. Media interest generates consumer attention, which leads to more purchases of the promoted products.

Twitter has the function to create Twitter Moments. It allows authors to create continuous stories by linking various tweets into one narrative. It is a useful feature, which helps distinguish a certain event among the thousands of other tweets. Happy Valley Yogurt can create a Tweeter Moment, which will refer to a certain event, such as a free giveaway, a temporary discount, or the introduction of a new product. Users will instantly see the corresponding tweets and will be more aware of the Happy Valley Yogurt’s offers.

Finally, Pinterest allows advertisers to do targeted marketing. Each user has a pinboard, which comprises images and videos of interest to them. Considering that many people use Pinterest for shopping, advertisers can create content, which is similar to the one contained in personal pinboards. When a user sees an image or a video that coincide with those in their portfolio, they will take interest. Thus, Pinterest’s targeted marketing increases the chances of users getting acquainted with Happy Valley Yogurt and buying its produce.

In my opinion, the use of social media for business purposes is the direct continuation of the virtualization of communication. The more time people spend on the Web and social networks, the more accustomed to advertisements and promotions they become. What is more, everyone can regulate their newsfeed or install an extension, which blocks ads. Therefore, users who do not limit exposure to advertising and promotion are willing to accept it and expect the companies to remind of themselves on the media.

Wilcox, Dennis L., and Cameron, Glen T. Public Relations Strategies and Tactics . Pearson Education, 2013.

• Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt Company's Foreign Entry Mode
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Surgeon General Issues New Advisory About Effects Social Media Use Has on Youth Mental Health

Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy Urges Action to Ensure Social Media Environments are Healthy and Safe, as Previously-Advised National Youth Mental Health Crisis Continues

Today, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a new Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health . While social media may offer some benefits, there are ample indicators that social media can also pose a risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. Social media use by young people is nearly universal, with up to 95% of young people ages 13-17 reporting using a social media platform and more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly.”

With adolescence and childhood representing a critical stage in brain development that can make young people more vulnerable to harms from social media, the Surgeon General is issuing a call for urgent action by policymakers, technology companies, researchers, families, and young people alike to gain a better understanding of the full impact of social media use, maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of social media platforms, and create safer, healthier online environments to protect children. The Surgeon General’s Advisory is a part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) ongoing efforts to support President Joe Biden’s whole-of-government strategy to transform mental health care for all Americans.

“The most common question parents ask me is, ‘is social media safe for my kids’. The answer is that we don't have enough evidence to say it's safe, and in fact, there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people’s mental health,” said U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy . “Children are exposed to harmful content on social media, ranging from violent and sexual content, to bullying and harassment. And for too many children, social media use is compromising their sleep and valuable in-person time with family and friends. We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis – one that we must urgently address.”

Usage of social media can become harmful depending on the amount of time children spend on the platforms, the type of content they consume or are otherwise exposed to, and the degree to which it disrupts activities that are essential for health like sleep and physical activity. Importantly, different children are affected by social media in different ways, including based on cultural, historical, and socio-economic factors. Among the benefits, adolescents report that social media helps them feel more accepted (58%), like they have people who can support them through tough times (67%), like they have a place to show their creative side (71%), and more connected to what’s going on in their friends’ lives (80%).

However, social media use can be excessive and problematic for some children. Recent research shows that adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety; yet one 2021 survey of teenagers found that, on average, they spend 3.5 hours a day on social media. Social media may also perpetuate body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, social comparison, and low self-esteem, especially among adolescent girls. One-third or more of girls aged 11-15 say they feel “addicted” to certain social media platforms and over half of teenagers report that it would be hard to give up social media. When asked about the impact of social media on their body image, 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse, 40% said it makes them feel neither better nor worse, and only 14% said it makes them feel better. Additionally, 64% of adolescents are “often” or “sometimes” exposed to hate-based content through social media. Studies have also shown a relationship between social media use and poor sleep quality, reduced sleep duration, sleep difficulties, and depression among youth. 

While more research is needed to determine the full impact social media use has on nearly every teenager across the country, children and adolescents don’t have the luxury of waiting years until we know the full extent of social media’s effects. The Surgeon General’s Advisory offers recommendations stakeholders can take to help ensure children and their families have the information and tools necessary to make social media safer for children:

• Policymakers can take steps to strengthen safety standards and limit access in ways that make social media safer for children of all ages, better protect children’s privacy, support digital and media literacy, and fund additional research.
• Technology companies can better and more transparently assess the impact of their products on children, share data with independent researchers to increase our collective understanding of the impacts, make design and development decisions that prioritize safety and health – including protecting children’s privacy and better adhering to age minimums – and improve systems to provide effective and timely responses to complaints.
• Parents and caregivers can make plans in their households such as establishing tech-free zones that better foster in-person relationships, teach kids about responsible online behavior and model that behavior, and report problematic content and activity.
• Children and adolescents can adopt healthy practices like limiting time on platforms, blocking unwanted content, being careful about sharing personal information, and reaching out if they or a friend need help or see harassment or abuse on the platforms.
• Researchers can further prioritize social media and youth mental health research that can support the establishment of standards and evaluation of best practices to support children’s health.

In concert with the Surgeon General’s Advisory, leaders at six of the nation’s medical organizations have expressed their concern on social media’s effects on youth mental health:

“Social media can be a powerful tool for connection, but it can also lead to increased feelings of depression and anxiety – particularly among adolescents. Family physicians are often the first stop for parents and families concerned about the physical and emotional health of young people in their lives, and we confront the mental health crisis among youth every day. The American Academy of Family Physicians commends the Surgeon General for identifying this risk for America's youth and joins our colleagues across the health care community in equipping young people and their families with the resources necessary to live healthy, balanced lives.” – Tochi Iroku-Malize, M.D., MPH, MBA, FAAFP, President, American Academy of Family Physicians

“Today’s children and teens do not know a world without digital technology, but the digital world wasn’t built with children’s healthy mental development in mind. We need an approach to help children both on and offline that meets each child where they are while also working to make the digital spaces they inhabit safer and healthier. The Surgeon General’s Advisory calls for just that approach. The American Academy of Pediatrics looks forward to working with the Surgeon General and other federal leaders on Youth Mental Health and Social Media on this important work.” – Sandy Chung, M.D., FAAP, President, American Academy of Pediatrics

“With near universal social media use by America’s young people, these apps and sites introduce profound risk and mental health harms in ways we are only now beginning to fully understand. As physicians, we see firsthand the impact of social media, particularly during adolescence – a critical period of brain development. As we grapple with the growing, but still insufficient, research and evidence in this area, we applaud the Surgeon General for issuing this important Advisory to highlight this issue and enumerate concrete steps stakeholders can take to address concerns and protect the mental health and wellbeing of children and adolescents.We continue to believe in the positive benefits of social media, but we also urge safeguards and additional study of the positive and negative biological, psychological, and social effects of social media.”— Jack Resneck Jr., M.D., President, American Medical Association

“The first principle of health care is to do no harm – that’s the same standard we need to start holding social media platforms to. As the Surgeon General has pointed out throughout his tenure, we all have a role to play in addressing the youth mental health crisis that we now face as a nation. We have the responsibility to ensure social media keeps young people safe. And as this Surgeon General’s Advisory makes clear, we as physicians and healers have a responsibility to be part of the effort to do so.” – Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A., CEO and Medical Director, American Psychiatric Association

“The American Psychological Association applauds the Surgeon General's Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health, affirming the use of psychological science to reach clear-eyed recommendations that will help keep our youth safe online. Psychological research shows that young people mature at different rates, with some more vulnerable than others to the content and features on many social media platforms. We support the advisory's recommendations and pledge to work with the Surgeon General's Office to help build the healthy digital environment that our kids need and deserve.” – Arthur Evans, Jr., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President, American Psychological Association.

“Social media use by young people is pervasive. It can help them, and all of us, live more connected lives – if, and only if, the appropriate oversight, regulation and guardrails are applied. Now is the moment for policymakers, companies and experts to come together and ensure social media is set up safety-first, to help young users grow and thrive. The Surgeon General’s Advisory about the effects of social media on youth mental health issued today lays out a roadmap for us to do so, and it’s critical that we undertake this collective effort with care and urgency to help today’s youth.” – Susan L. Polan, Ph.D., Associate Executive Director, Public Affairs and Advocacy, American Public Health Association

The National Parent Teacher Association shared the following:

“Every parent’s top priority for their child is for them to be happy, healthy and safe. We have heard from families who say they need and want information about using social media and devices. This Advisory from the Surgeon General confirms that family engagement on this topic is vital and continues to be one of the core solutions to keeping children safe online and supporting their mental health and well-being.” – Anna King, President of the National Parent Teacher Association .

In December 2021, Dr. Murthy issued a Surgeon General’s Advisory on Protecting Youth Mental Health calling attention to our national crisis of youth mental health and well-being. Earlier this month, he released a Surgeon General’s Advisory on Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation , where he outlined the profound health consequences of social disconnection and laid out six pillars to increase connection across the country, one of which being the need to reform our digital environments. The new Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health is a continuation of his work to enhance the mental health and well-being of young people across the country.

The full Surgeon General’s Advisory can be read here . For more information about the Office of the Surgeon General, visit www.surgeongeneral.gov/priorities .

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Los Angeles school district bans use of cellphones, social media by students

Over 429,000 students in the nation’s second-largest school district will be prohibited from using cellphones and social media platforms during the school day after the Los Angeles Unified School District board passed the ban Tuesday.

The Los Angeles Unified School District's Board of Education voted 5-2 , approving a resolution to develop within 120 days a policy that bans student use of cellphones and social media platforms during the entire school day. The policy, which will be implemented districtwide, will go into effect by January, according to the board.

"I think we're going to be on the vanguard here, and students and this entire city and country are going to benefit as a result," said board member Nick Melvoin, who proposed the resolution.

The move is an attempt by educators to curb classroom distractions and protect students' mental health. K-12 teachers in the U.S. have increasingly faced challenges over students' cellphone use with one-third saying phone distraction is a "major problem in their classroom," according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in fall 2023.

On Tuesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed his support for efforts to restrict cellphone use in schools across the state. Newsom previously signed legislation in 2019 that allowed, but did not require, districts to limit or ban smartphone use at schools.

Going old school: Flip phone sales are surging as folks seek connection without distraction

The governor echoed U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's remarks published Monday in a  New York Times opinion essay . Murthy called for safety warning labels – similar to those on tobacco and alcohol products – on social media platforms, citing what he considers a mental health "emergency" among young people.

"As the Surgeon General affirmed, social media is harming the mental health of our youth," Newsom said in a statemen t Tuesday. "Building on legislation I signed in 2019, I look forward to working with the Legislature to restrict the use of smartphones during the school day. When children and teens are in school, they should be focused on their studies – not their screens."

Five reasons kids are missing school. Chronic absenteeism is schools' 'biggest problem.'

'Full-time job being the police of the phone'

The Los Angeles ban will expand on its existing policy that prohibits "the use of cellular phones, pagers, or any electronic signaling device by students on campus during normal school hours or school activities, excluding the students’ lunchtime or nutrition breaks." The current policy was adopted in 2011.

For the updated policy, the Los Angeles Unified School District board said school officials will have to consider options for cellphone storage, such as locked pouches or lockers during school hours. Officials will also need to consider age and grade-level appropriate guidelines, along with what exceptions should be made for students with learning or physical disabilities.

The ban has received mixed reactions from school administrators, parents, and students who have noted concerns over student ownership, safety, and communication, and enforcing the policy on a wide scale, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Board member George McKenna voted against the resolution and cited concerns that the policy would be too restrictive. Board member Scott Schmerelson also voted against the resolution saying it was unclear whether the ban would be implemented during noninstructional time and questioned who would enforce the policy.

"I think it's going to be a full-time job being the police of the phone," Schmerelson said.

Supporters of the ban said a similar policy at a district middle school has improved the campus' learning environment, according to The Times.

Board members supporting the ban wrote in their agenda that research "indicates that limiting cellphone usage and social media access during the school day increases academic performance and has positive effects on student mental health." They added that research has shown a correlation between cellphone addiction and increased rates of anxiety and cyberbullying.

School cellphone bans in other states, schools

Parents and educators across the country have expressed growing concern over the impact of cellphones on young people, including classroom distractions and potential mental health issues. As of the 2021-2022 school year, more than 76% of K-12 public schools prohibit cellphone use in non-academic settings, according to the National Center for Education Statistics .

But in recent years, lawmakers have considered legislation restricting smartphone use in schools. Last year, Florida became the first state to prohibit student phone use during class time and to block student access to social media on school Wi-Fi.

In March, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a bill prohibiting students from using phones and other wireless devices in classrooms.  Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed a similar bill  in May that requires school districts to establish a policy governing cellphone usage during school hours.

As of June, lawmakers in at least eight states have considered passing similar legislation, USA TODAY previously reported .

Contributing: Sara Chernikoff and Kinsey Crowley, USA TODAY; Reuters

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Surgeon general calls for social media warning labels amid teen mental health crisis

Amna Nawaz Amna Nawaz

Mike Fritz Mike Fritz

Alexa Gold Alexa Gold

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/surgeon-general-calls-for-social-media-warning-labels-amid-teen-mental-health-crisis

Surveys show the overwhelming majority of American teens use social media in some form. Some studies link more than three hours a day on social media to an increased risk of teen anxiety and depression. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is calling for a warning label on those media platforms. Murthy joined Amna Nawaz to discuss the teen mental health crisis in America.

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Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Amna Nawaz:

Surveys show the overwhelming majority of American teens use social media in some form, with roughly 90 percent on YouTube, over 60 percent on TikTok and Snapchat, and nearly 60 percent on Instagram.

Some studies now link more than three hours a day on social media to increased risk of teen anxiety and depression, leading the U.S. surgeon general in a new op-ed today to call for a warning label on social media platforms

And joining us now is the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy.

Dr. Murthy, welcome back to the "NewsHour." Thanks for joining us.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General:

Thanks so much, Amna, for having me.

So, I need to point out this would not happen without congressional action of some kind. But let's explore this idea that you have proposed here.

You're basically arguing that, like tobacco, that a warning label, coupled with research and also reporting on the harms that social media can cause, that it can make people make a different choice when it comes to social media.

So where have you seen that kind of self-policing work that leads you to believe a warning label would make a real difference for teens?

Dr. Vivek Murthy:

Well, thanks for asking, Amna.

And let me just step back and say that the reason I'm calling for this warning label is because I want kids and parents to know what we know in public health and science now, which is that social media use among adolescents is associated with mental health harms. Many people don't know that out there. And it's important that we share that.

In terms of why this could potentially be effective, the good news is, we have experience with warning labels from tobacco and alcohol. And in studying that experience, what we can see, particularly from tobacco labels, is that they are effective in increasing awareness and in changing behavior.

And so what we would do in the case of a label like this is, once Congress authorized such a label, that would then start off a phase, a scientific phase, of testing, different designs, different locations for the label, to ensure that it was maximally effective in increasing awareness.

And, to be clear, this is a digital warning that would appear when people use social media on a regular basis.

So there are some who say, look, saying that social media is the thing responsible for the teen mental health crisis that we know we're in is a lot like the folks used to say, well, rock music is responsible for bad teen behavior or video games are responsible for teen violence, the so-called moral panic argument.

What do you say to that?

Well, I can — again, I certainly understand that argument, but I think those are fundamentally different issues.

What we have not seen, whether it was in the case of rock music or television or radio or the telephone, was something that so wholly and completely pervaded the lives of our kids with an array of content that is just unparalleled. So many of our children are using social media nearly constantly.

And, in fact, if you look at the averages, Amna, you see that 4.8 hours per day is the average amount of social media use among adolescents. But we also see that what kids are being exposed to now is really quite disturbing, violent and sexual content. People are being harassed and bullied, often by strangers, online.

Six in 10 young girls are saying, young adolescent girls, are saying that they have been approached by strangers on social media in ways that made them feel uncomfortable. This is fundamentally different from the other factors that we have talked about.

And, most importantly, let's look at the data itself, which is telling us about this association between social media use and mental health harms. Nearly half of adolescents are saying themselves that using social media is making them feel worse about their body image.

So this is not an imagined problem. This is not a moral panic. This is a scientific concern that requires a public health solution. A warning label is part of that.

You also wrote about the benefits of social media a little bit last year. You talked about how LGBTQ youth, in particular, or other kids from marginalized communities can find community and connections and fight isolation online, that social media can do that. They can find mental health support in many ways too.

Are you now saying that the potential bad outweighs the potential good?

Well, in fact, what I was saying last year is that there is a mix of benefits and harms, but that, for many of our kids, the harms outweigh the benefits.

Just take LGBTQ youth, for example. While, yes, we have seen, thankfully, that many LGBTQ youth have been able to find a sense of community online in some cases that they may not have been able to find in person, we also know that they are much more likely to be harassed online on social media than straight kids.

And so we have got to take all of this into account. And, again, when you look at the population-wide data, you see that the harms are quite significant. When it comes to medications, for example, another example of a product where there's a mix of harms and benefits, we don't say that any benefit justifies extraordinary harms.

If there are — the harms outweigh the benefits, we pull the medicine from the market, we put restrictions on it in terms of who can use it, how it should be used.

You talk about this in your op-ed from the parents' perspective, in particular. You write — quote — "There's no seat belt for parents to click, no helmet to snap in place, no assurance that trusted experts have investigated and ensured that these are platforms safe for our kids."

You basically say, it's parents and kids against some of the best-equipped and best-resourced companies in the world. And I should point out, you are also a parent. Your children are on the younger end, but parents who are struggling with this will wonder, how are you handling this in your own home?

Look, this is a really hard time for parents across the country.

Many of us are trying to figure out how to manage these technologies that we didn't grow up with that are having profound impacts on the health and well-being of our kids. And right — until now, what really pains me is that the entire burden of managing this has been placed on the shoulders of parents and their kids. And that's simply not right.

What I'm planning to do with my children is to, number one, wait until at least after middle school to have them use social media. And then I will reevaluate when they're in high school, based on their maturity, the data about safety and whether or not there are safety standards in place.

For parents who are — whose kids are already on social media, what I recommend to them is to create tech-free zones in their children's life, to protect sleep, in-person interaction, and physical activity, which are vital for their development.

That could look like making sure that meal times, when you're all together, are tech-free experiences, or making sure that you take away devices an hour before bedtime, and then you give them back in the morning. So you protect the quality and quantity of sleep.

But regardless of all of these measures, Amna, what we have to do as parents is to have each other's back on this. We have got to work together, start talking more openly about this, so we don't feel the shame that so many parents feel at not being able to manage this on their own.

That's the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, joining us tonight.

Dr. Murthy, always great to see you. Thank you.

Thanks so much, Amna. Good to be with you too.

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Surgeon General Calls for Warning Labels on Social Media Platforms

Dr. Vivek Murthy said he would urge Congress to require a warning that social media use can harm teenagers’ mental health.

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By Ellen Barry and Cecilia Kang

The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, announced on Monday that he would push for a warning label on social media platforms advising parents that using the platforms might damage adolescents’ mental health.

Warning labels — like those that appear on tobacco and alcohol products — are one of the most powerful tools available to the nation’s top health official, but Dr. Murthy cannot unilaterally require them; the action requires approval by Congress.

The proposal builds on several years of escalating warnings from the surgeon general. In a May 2023 advisory, he recommended that parents immediately set limits on phone use, and urged Congress to swiftly develop health and safety standards for technology platforms.

He also called on tech companies to make changes: to share internal data on the health impact of their products; to allow independent safety audits; and restrict features like push notifications, autoplay and infinite scroll, which he says “prey on developing brains and contribute to excessive use.”

In an interview, Dr. Murthy said he had been deeply frustrated by the platforms’ reluctance to do so.

“I don’t think we can solely rely on the hope that the platforms can fix this problem on their own,” he said. “They’ve had 20 years.”

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