Most Impactful Social Media Campaigns of 2022

In the age of digital communication, social media campaigns are over-saturated with ads and repetitive always-on marketing campaigns. Though advertisers often come up with genius campaigns, we wanted to highlight those making a difference; from climate change to corporate accountability, the following campaigns stand as leading examples of communication for social change both within smaller communities and worldwide.

Below is our list of the most successful social media campaigns of 2022, the strategies they used and the impact they've made.

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1 - #ShowUsYourLeave by theSkimm

After the elimination of paid family leave in the US, many new parents were forced to go back to work prematurely. TheSkimm founders Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin started the #ShowUsYourLeave movement to encourage parents to share their stories online. Within a few weeks, there was a flood of social media posts echoing an issue in need of national action.

TheSkimm began encouraging companies to share their parental leave policies online and by mid-February, more than 300 companies had shared their policies as the #ShowUsYourLeave movement was taking over Instagram and Linkedin. The number later almost doubled, with conglomerates such as Pinterest, Pfizer, Zoom, Etsy and General Motors participating in the campaign.

Following the ongoing surge in corporate transparency that prompted multiple companies to change and expand their parental leave options, theSkimm also started an online petition and launched a free public database featuring all of the participating companies' policies.

LEADING BY EXAMPLE

TheSkimm are a stellar example of 'practice what you preach' - their own policy offers 18 weeks of paid leave for surrogacy, adoption or fostering, bereavement leave for pregnancy loss, unlimited PTO, backup childcare and the option of phased return to work.

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2 - #PassTheCrown for The CROWN Act by Dove

In 2019, Dove co-founded the CROWN Coalition in an aim to fight hair-based discrimination and support The CROWN Act, which would make such discrimination illegal.

The 2021 Dove CROWN Research Study for Girls found that most black girls face hair-based racial discrimination extremely young, prompting Dove to launch the #PassTheCrown campaign. The aim of the campaign was to educate on hair-based racial bias and to collect signatures for The CROWN Act petition. Dove did this by producing a short film depicting a young black girl facing hair-based discrimination all through her childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The film and educational posts were shared on Dove's social media channels with the hashtags #AsEarlyAsFive and #PassTheCrown, a call to participate in the fight against racial discrimination and a link to The CROWN Act petition.

CAMPAIGNING FOR NEW LAWS

The short film gained a significant amount of traction and drastically increased traffic to The CROWN Act petition. On March 17th, less than two months after the start of Dove’s campaign, The CROWN Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives, followed by five more states passing either the act itself or laws inspired by the act. As of today, 19 states have passed The CROWN Act which currently sits with the U.S. Senate.

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3 - #VioletMonth by Avon

Pink October raises awareness for breast cancer prevention and Blue November does so for prostate cancer. But those two months speak exclusively to cis women and cis men, with no awareness going towards prostate cancer in trans women.

In an effort to advocate for trans health, Avon decided to create the #VioletMonth. This corporate social responsibility campaign (CSR) was launched in Brazil, where healthcare is often inaccessible to the LGBTQIA+ community. The campaign took over Avon's social media for 30 days with posts educating on trans health issues, Instagram stories and lives featuring conversations with doctors, and trans community representatives sharing their struggles.

COMMUNITY IMPACT

Avon Brazil managed to reach the right audience by partnering with Brazilian influencers from the LGBTQIA+ community. The influencers were featured in videos where they shared their own experiences in navigating the healthcare system.

The campaign went beyond raising awareness and giving a voice to members of the trans community, as Avon partnered with AVUS to create a giant telemedicine platform and provide free consultations in various medical fields to 2000 trans people. They expanded this with discounts on medication and 24hr on-call support from general practitioners, making significant steps towards the democratisation and wider accessibility of healthcare for LGBTQIA+ individuals.

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4 - Grants for Growth by Uber Eats

Grants for Growth was launched in January as a collaboration between Uber and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. The grant divided $1 million between 100 small businesses, most of which are women- and minority-owned or operating in low-income areas.

In this CSR campaign, Uber gave a voice to small business owners by allowing them to share the challenges they've faced in building their businesses and how the grant has helped them overcome those. Videos of their experiences were shared across Uber's social media channels and undoubtedly struck a chord with the viewers, as even the 15-second YouTube clips garnered millions of views.

SOCIAL CHANGE THAT LASTS

The response to these first-hand stories drove significant traffic to the featured businesses and the acquisition of new customers made sure that Uber's help made long-lasting impact beyond the $10,000 grants.

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5 - People's Plan for Nature« by WWF

In an aim to contribute to the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) eforts to protect and restore nature, WWF UK started one of the biggest conversations on climate activism. #PeoplesPlanForNature included a multitude of posts on various social media channels, asking people what they love about nature, what they would miss about it if it had disappeared and their ideas on avoiding that.

USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO RALLY FOR A CAUSE

By directly asking people for ideas on shaping the #PeoplesPlanForNature, WWF managed to involve thousands in the process. By engaging with the responses, they not only made their audience feel heard, but also built a community which they can now leverage to rally behind a meaningful cause. The posts garnered up to 450k impressions each and as of this date, WWF'S number of collected responses and ideas is over 30,000.

Article by our Content Specialist Marina Vitkovic