2015 has proven to be a great year for brands to use social media. Not only are businesses, both big and small, starting to understand how powerful social media can be, but they’re also beginning to use trends in the market to boost their brands.

With more and more social networks popping up, it’s been a great year to experiment and see what sticks. Here are some of our favourite campaigns in 2015 where brands used different social media platforms to communicate and engage with their audiences in unique, funny, or clever ways.

Snapchat and the #LastSelfie

Using the fact that photos disappear off Snapchat after 10 seconds, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) illustrated the disappearance of endangered species around the world in the striking #LastSelfie campaign.

This is one of the most creative and on-brand uses of Snapchat that we’ve seen, and was a very successful campaign, with donations increasing significantly.  What made it successful was its ability to create a buzz, relate to its audience, engage through the emotional punch, and use creativity to make a strong social statement people can get behind.

Vine and “Fix in Six”

Vine is a fantastic platform for DIY videos, if you’re clever enough to fit great content into just six seconds.  Lowe’s, an American home improvement and appliance retail chain, used Vine to share quick, useful, and fun videos that provided handy tips for solving everyday household problems.

Stuck in snow?  Put sand under car tyres for traction.

Twitter and emojis

A world without pizza is a terrible thing.  So when Domino’s combined pizza and emojis, it became a recipe for a truly successful campaign.  By repeatedly tweeting nothing but the pizza emoji, Domino’s launched an entirely new way to order pizza – just by sending a quick pizza emoji tweet to Domino’s Twitter account.

Taking what was already appealing about their brand and combining it with something that is fast becoming as iconic as pizza generated serious buzz and nearly a million followers. Read more about Domino’s emoji campaign.

Instagram and #foundthemfirst

Spotify launched a new tool that scanned users’ music histories and let them know if they were early listeners of artists who later became mainstream.

To promote the new tool, they took to Instagram using the hashtag #foundthemfirst.

By targeting the right audience, not overthinking, and putting their user data to good use, Spotify came up with a campaign that worked.

Periscope flight

With its real-time video capabilities, Periscope is the cool new kid on the block, and many brands are experimenting with the app to discover its best use for marketing.

Turkish Airlines has been upping its ante on the social media game, and decided to be the first to Periscope a flight. The broadcast took viewers from Istanbul to New York, showing not just flight preparations but also behind-the-scenes video with the airline crew. Turkish Airlines also synchronised promoted tweets to launch when the broadcast went live.

Check out our guide on how to use Periscope to market your small business to learn all you need to know about this new platform and how to leverage it to create more personal relationships with your customers.

Wrapping up

It’s great to see that brands are beginning to truly understand the opportunities they have to engage with their audience and spread their message in a fun and memorable way with social media.

How can you compete with campaigns like this? Get to know your customers. Know what they like, dislike, are interested in, have problems with, and how you can to help. By knowing what they want, you can create a social media campaign that’ll earn you their trust and appreciation.

What other social media campaigns you’ve liked so far in 2015, by any sized brand – big or small?