The 10 Best Social Media Campaigns Of 2012

We'll look back at 2012 as the year when viral campaigns became - well, something of a pandemic, and stunts involving balloons were well and truly the order of the day. Here are some of our favourite social media campaigns of the year.

1. Balloon adventures, part 1

The scale of the stunt from Red Bull was extraordinary - float a man into space and have him freefall, all in the name of breaking records (and selling energy drinks). What made this truly extraordinary though was the fact that it all played out in realtime, with over a hundred million people watching live.

2. Balloon adventures, part 2

To launch a new venue, Strike Bowling literally took to the skies with the first human flight "powered by the speed of Likes". Every like, Tweet, status update and Instagram photo added a little squirt of helium to the giant balloons. Over 10,000 shares later, Strike's aeronaut was launched.

3. Balloon adventures, part 3

Heineken Brazil offered to blow up one balloon for every new Facebook like. Things escalated quickly.

4. Best social media response to a customer complaint in 2012

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When a tongue-in-cheek Facebook complaint from Richard Neill went viral, Bodyform seized the opportunity to respond with a faux-serious message from the (fictional) CEO. Here's another great example from an Aussie tram company.

5. Don't push the button...

My personal favorite from 2012. Belgian TV station TNT placed a giant red button in a town square and invited people to push it. Lots of drama ensued, along with millions of YouTube views.

6. Pretty smart campaign about pretty dumb things

This ad was made to warn the residents of Melbourne about the risk of train crossings, and after just three days on YouTube it had already racked up more views than there are people living there. The cross-over success of the campaign into the iTunes store sets a new benchmark for 2013.

7. Best ambush social campaign of 2012

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The Olympics saw lots of great social campaigns trying to ambush the major sponsors, but the highlight of the year came from golf's Ryder Cup. UK betting agency Paddy Power used stunt planes to write 200ft tweets supporting the European team in the sky above the course. We're waiting for Virgin to scrawl some tweets on the moon next.

8. Best cause campaign of 2012

DDB New York took a trending topic on Twitter, and created the most innovative charity campaign of 2012, raising awareness of the global crisis of unclean water.

9. Best use of Twitter in 2012

leadformix.com

To showcase the compact efficiency of their Smart Cars, Daimler created a cartoon out of compact, efficient social media - Twitter. Click here to see the Tweets, but be prepared for a lot of scrolling

10. Barack Obama's 2012 Election Campaign

This picture of Barack and Michelle Obama is the most shared image in the history of Facebook and Twitter. Elections (and campaign funding) will never be the same. Neither will email marketing.