Ahh summer. Beach days, barbecues, beers, and, of course, branded social media campaigns.

There’s always a level of excitement and giddiness in the air during summertime, making it the perfect time for businesses to release new and creative seasonal campaigns. And you know we’re big fans of seasonal content around here.

Timely content allows brands to connect and relate with audiences on a more personal level. Here’s a look at 5 of the brightest and hottest summer social media campaigns that we’ve seen and love in recent history.

Social Campaigns to Soak Up This Summer

1. Pacifico Beer – “Adventures on Tap”

During the summer of 2011, Pacifico launched their “Adventures on Tap” campaign on Facebook. The beer brand traveled to 5 cities on the West Coast to introduce Pacifico on tap. In each city, they hosted a huge party, with event directions and details only available to fans via Facebook app. For the duration of the campaign, Pacifico updated their statuses on local events or attractions when they got to each new city, building rapport with local audiences.

Their campaign embodied the essence of summer by tapping into travelers and living life to the fullest. It got fans eager and excited for a taste of their favorite beer, fresh from the tap, and helped spread brand awareness through hoppy deliciousness. We know, we wish we got to participate in it too.

2. Coach – #CoachFromAbove

Sun’s out, sandal’s out! Summertime is for the sandals, and Coach cashed in. The brand asked customers to capture a view of their strapped-shoes from above and share it on Instagram or Twitter. If they tagged the photos with #CoachFromAbove, users were then featured on the Coach website for ultimate bragging rights. To this day, people are still using the hashtag, which has collected 4,732 posts on Instagram alone.

UGC, or, user-generated content, is vital in this day and age, for brands. Coach did a stellar job of it gathering it with this campaign. Coach knows that women love to show off their shoes which is what made this campaign such a success. Their fans got to share their style, and Coach got all the content they wanted to repost across all channels, while spreading brand awareness and increasing brand loyalty.

3. Target – Summer Product Tweets

Summer is the perfect time to connect with your fans and followers. Target did this by promoting summer products via a fun-in-the-sun summer product-focused UGC campaign. Take a look at this tweet:

When brands recognize fans, engagement levels spike.

Target did this perfectly with a properly-themed summer content series featuring their loyal fans and Target’s products. They saying goes, “You never leave Target with the only thing you meant to buy,” and with strong social media campaigns like these, they’ll continue to attract fans to their locations.

[bctt tweet=”Remember, tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than those without.” username=”meetsoci”]

Remember, tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than those without. So work on creating branded, eye-catching pictures that will make anyone and everyone stop scrolling.

4. Good Humor – #JoyhoodNYC

I scream, you scream, we all…. tweet for ice-cream? During the summer of 2015, Good Humor launched their #JoyhoodNYC campaign inviting New Yorkers to tweet for free ice cream using their the hashtag.

That’s right, FREE ice cream. There’s no better way to gain the attention of New Yorkers in the middle of a hot, humid, and sticky summer than by teasing them with the chance to cool off via childhood treats.

We’re in love with the imagery and branding that Good Humor put together for this campaign. But more than that, how they took their content to a local level was just amazing. While seasonal content appeals and speaks to customers, nothing entices them more than posts that they identify with on a personal level.

[bctt tweet=”While seasonal content appeals and speaks to customers, nothing entices them more than posts that they identify with on a personal level.” username=”meetsoci”]

Take the example above: Good Humor did an awesome job incorporating a vanilla cone with the Statue of Liberty. It’s simple. It’s relatable. And it encourages fans to get creative and submit their own.

5. MTV – #VMATotalEclipse

MTV partnered with engagement pros, fooji, during the 2017 solar eclipse to offer social media users in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, and Charleston a once-in-a-lifetime gift: a custom eclipse kit to view the biggest celestial event of our lifetime The kit included limited edition (and hard-to-find) eclipse glasses, as well as a bag of delicious astronaut ice cream [Pro tip: Using ice cream for your summer promotions will probably increase engagement. Just saying.] Fans would get these items, the awesome bragging rights, and an unbelievable eclipse viewing experience—all for just a simple tweet.

As a result of this campaign, followers tweeted their kits and selfies with the glasses on. fooji retweeted these and, for over 24 hours, their followers were flooded with MTV branding all over their timelines.

Summer is without a doubt our favorite season. From SOCi’s birthday (aka: SOCiversary) to our annual summer picnic, beautiful summer days and those fairytale summer nights means more time to browse social media for the best content as well as more time to develop your social strategy…

…and if we’re being honest, not too many things beat that.