Brands, from fast food chains to lux­u­ry fash­ion lines, pushed the bound­aries of social media to score the year’s biggest wins in cre­at­ing aware­ness and build­ing a loy­al com­mu­ni­ty.

With big bud­gets and top cre­ative tal­ent, big brands’ exper­i­ments in social media broke new ground and reaped major rewards. Take a page from the social media play­books of Sub­way, Net­flix, Adi­das and the City of Detroit as they grew their fan­base and daz­zled their way onto the media main stage in 2014.

Subway Animated GIFs Keep Subs Fresh On Social

Sand­wich shop Sub­way built an inter­ac­tive, visu­al social media com­po­nent on top of its catchy month­ly sub pro­mo­tion. Every month, Sub­way fea­tures one 6‑inch long sand­wich on its menu that cus­tomers can buy for $5. But Jan­u­ary is spe­cial because cus­tomer can get any sand­wich for five bucks, lead­ing to the com­pa­ny dub­bing the month “Jan­u­any.”

Sub­way part­nered with GIF search engine Giphy and cre­ative dig­i­tal shop 360i to serve up ani­mat­ed GIFs as a tasty social side to sand­wich-lov­ing cus­tomers look­ing for lunch ideas through­out Jan­u­ary.

On Twit­ter, @Subway, armed with a col­lec­tion of trip­py ani­mat­ed GIFs, replied to requests for lunch rec­om­men­da­tions hash­tagged #jan­u­ANY. About 100 viral-wor­thy visu­als were pushed by Sub­way for a jazzy spread on social media. Offi­cial­Sub­way on Tum­blr has kept the ani­mat­ed GIFs and kitschy visu­als fresh since the #jan­u­ANY kick­off, prov­ing its deserv­ing place among the year’s most suc­cess­ful social media cam­paigns.

‘Orange Is The New Black’ Social Keeps Fans Captive

In con­cert with its high­ly antic­i­pat­ed sec­ond sea­son launch in June, Net­flix orig­i­nal series “Orange Is The New Black” (OITNB) dom­i­nat­ed the social con­ver­sa­tion by pro­vid­ing visu­al fod­der and par­tic­i­pa­tion frame­work.

OINTB focused on com­mu­ni­ty build­ing and brand aware­ness through a deep col­lec­tion of graph­ics. The show’s social media team encour­aged fans to take part in a team pride day by wear­ing orange and post­ing pic­tures on Wednes­days, hash­tag­ging posts #OnWednes­daysWeWearO­r­ange.

There was no social chan­nel left out, as fans and the show post­ed to Insta­gram, Tum­blr, Face­book and Twit­ter, all tied togeth­er with the hash­tag #OITNB. The show’s cast did live Q&As with fans on Twit­ter and with Google+ Hang­outs. And along with its own graph­ics and visu­als, OINT­B’s social media cam­paign fea­tured fan art, encour­ag­ing fan loy­al­ty, and par­tic­i­pa­tion.

The size of the OITNB com­mu­ni­ties attest to the social media team’s suc­cess:

• More than 3 mil­lion fans on Face­book.
• More than 1 mil­lion fol­low­ers on Insta­gram.
• More than 645,000 fol­low­ers on Twit­ter.

The OITNB cast answered fans’ ques­tions in live Q&As on social media.

OINTB post­ed orig­i­nal art­work, like ani­mat­ed GIFs to illus­tra­tions of mem­o­rable show moments and favorite char­ac­ters.

Fans were encour­aged to wear orange on Wednes­days, and post their pics to social media with the hash­tag #OnWednes­daysWeWearO­r­ange.

The cast of the show would post behind-scenes-pho­tos to Insta­gram.

Fan art was post­ed on the show’s offi­cial social media chan­nels.

Coffee-Mate Courts Couples on Valentine’s Day

Riff­ing off its slo­gan “Cof­fee’s Per­fect Mate,” Nes­tle Cof­fee-Mate deliv­ered a sweet Valen­tine’s Day treat. Users sub­mit­ted love notes on Twit­ter and Face­book, hash­tagged #CMValen­tine, and a team of artists at Zoca­lo Group turned select­ed love notes into hand­craft­ed Valen­tines in an artis­tic and user inspired social media cam­paign.

Nes­tle cre­at­ed 100 Valen­tine’s Day cards inspired by every­day expres­sions of love, increas­ing their chan­nel engage­ment and adding new con­sumers to its social media com­mu­ni­ties. The cam­paign was named among the top five social media cam­paigns of the year by the Mashies awards.

#Valen­ti­nes­Day is final­ly here & our artists are ready 2 bring ur love notes 2 life! Tweet urs NOW w/ #CMValen­tine! pic.twitter.com/gCBfCYHiYY

— Cof­fee-mate (@Coffee_mate) Feb­ru­ary 14, 2014

Sam­ple of hand let­tered valen­tines I cre­at­ed for Cof­fee-mate. 7 artists cre­at­ed 100 cards over 2 days. #cmvalen­tine pic.twitter.com/UJoPUk6DYj

— Nan­cy Pochis Bank (@PochisBank) Feb­ru­ary 16, 2014

@ReedLauraC MT @Coffee_mate Lau­ra and Stephanie, hope this spe­cial Valen­tine makes you hap­py as can be! #CMValen­tine pic.twitter.com/R9gU6smGUC

— Stephanie Reed (@StefReedBooks) Feb­ru­ary 14, 2014

Look bb, our quotes made into art! @martinspikachu Hap­py Valen­tines Day! & thank you @Coffee_mate #CMValen­tine pic.twitter.com/2chhSCIa9z

— Kar­la Gar­cia (@Karlitapplebum) Feb­ru­ary 14, 2014

City of Detroit Earns Title Of ‘Best Sports City’ Thanks to Social Support

In Sep­tem­ber, USA Today held a 10Best Read­ers Choice Awards con­test for Best Sports City.

Detroit took the title due to the vis­i­tor bureau’s suc­cess­ful social media cam­paigns. Detroit Metro Con­ven­tion and Vis­i­tors Bureau, which goes by “Vis­it Detroit” online, focused on Face­book and Twit­ter but also pulled on Pin­ter­est, Insta­gram and Google+. It reached out to oth­er influ­en­tial com­mu­ni­ties with a vest­ed inter­est, and the city’s four major sports teams.

Dan Fuo­co, inter­ac­tive mar­ket­ing man­ag­er in charge of social media, told Mar­ket­ing­Sh­er­pa:

“Every­one here knows that we have a strong loy­al­ty to sports and we have a strong fan base, so we said, let’s put it on social media and have them help vote … I fig­ured we had a good fan base and we should put it to the test.”

Detroit was named Best Sports City by the USA Today 10Best poll, and the cam­paign saw more than 4 mil­lion Twit­ter impres­sions and more than 6,000 click-throughs on Twit­ter.

If you’re a @DetroitRedWings @Lions @Tigers or @DetroitPistons fan, then vote now: http://t.co/QTIe07D3Ql @Detsports pic.twitter.com/GWMUzqd3ah

— Vis­it Detroit (@VisitDetroit) Sep­tem­ber 18, 2014

Adidas Is World Cup’s Most Talked About Brand Through Real-Time Tweets

Brazil host­ed the 2014 World Cup in Brazil in June and July. The month-long soc­cer spec­ta­cle was a year in the mak­ing for Adi­das. Dur­ing the com­pe­ti­tion, a team of some 40-odd mar­keters filled a “war room” for the sports gear brand, enabling the com­pa­ny to take real-time tweet­ing to a glob­al scale.

“We want to be the most talked-about brand at World Cup,” Adi­das Foot­ball glob­al brand mar­ket­ing direc­tor Tom Rams­den told Adver­tis­ing Age. “The spin-off would be to be the most talked about in terms of how much traf­fic you can dri­ve to retail, use of things like the hash­tag and every­thing else.”

Adi­das teamed with We Are Social to come up with a “Con­tent Bible” of 1,000 images and 160 videos primed for use in reac­tion to game play. Six months before the tour­na­ment, Adi­das and We Are Social had an hour-by-hour cal­en­dar of the entire 32-day con­test, plan­ning con­tent in antic­i­pa­tion of every result.

The result of this social media cam­paign: 1.6 mil­lion tweets, retweets and replies men­tion­ing Adi­das with 570,000 men­tions of the brand’s most pop­u­lar tour­na­ment-relat­ed hash­tag #allin; 200,000 new YouTube sub­scribers; and more than 1 mil­lion new Face­book fans.

The prepa­ra­tion is over. Now it‘s time to deliv­er. @jamesdrodriguez: #allin or noth­ing. #World­Cup pic.twitter.com/GJvaZTzs8u — adi­das­foot­ball (@adidasfootball) July 4, 2014

Burger King Motel Stokes An Affair To Remember As Diners Cheat On Beef

In New Zealand, Burg­er King took major mea­sures to get din­ers try a new item on its menu. The fast food chain’s most pop­u­lar burg­er is the Whop­per, so in March, Burg­er King took to social media to invite cus­tomers to cheat on beef with three new chick­en sand­wich­es in a real-world motel in Auck­land.

Rooms could be booked by inter­act­ing with BK on Face­book, and then when con­firmed, guests could show up to the motel with three friends to enjoy the Burg­er King brand­ed room and food. Guests shared their pho­tos of the stay online with the hash­tag #motel­BK.

The cam­paign, devised by Colen­so BBDO, got the Mashies top hon­ors as Best Social Media Cam­paign of the Year.

Appar­ent­ly I’m about to cheat on beef..#motel­bk pic.twitter.com/EHVIYLxMNx

— Hay­ley Holt (@theHoltBolt) March 19, 2014

I’m cheat­ing on beef with chick­en #motel­bk A pho­to post­ed by Chang Hung (@changtiki) on Mar 3, 2014 at 3:19pm PDT

Marc Jacobs Tweet Shop Lets Daisy Girls Shop With Social Currency

Dur­ing New York Fash­ion Week in Feb­ru­ary, lux­u­ry brand Marc Jacobs became the first busi­ness to let shop­pers use “social cur­ren­cy” in exchange for goods. A pop-up shop went up in SoHo, and vis­i­tors could post to Twit­ter, Insta­gram and Face­book with the hash­tag #MJDasiy­Chain to get sun­glass­es, purs­es, and fra­grances.

“What we’ve seen over the past few years is that the com­mu­ni­ty of girls, our Daisy girls, engage with the brand con­sis­tent­ly over social with a ter­rif­ic engage­ment rate,” Lori Singer, a VP of glob­al mar­ket­ing for the brand, told ClickZ. She explained that part of the pur­pose of the pop-up shop was “a way to say thanks to them and con­tin­ue to inspire and engage them.”

The brand says the social media cam­paign gen­er­at­ed 4,300 men­tions on Insta­gram, more than 770,000 likes on Face­book, and more than 13,500 men­tions on Twit­ter.

At the @MarcJacobsFragrances #Tweet­Shop in NYC #MJDaisy­Chain

What oth­er suc­cess­ful social media cam­paigns did you take note of in 2014?