What separates successful social media campaigns from total flops?  Why do some campaigns go viral, reaching millions, while others only manage to engage those already loyal to the brand?

There’s one defining tactic that unites all of the best social media campaigns; there needs to be something in it for your target audience.

Some brands have exploited this idea shamelessly and got great results. Clairol grew their Facebook following by 944% in 24 hours when they offered a free product to the first 100,000 people who liked their page.

Getting people actively involved in a campaign can be a great way to engage your customers and build brand loyalty. In their most recent Facebook campaign Skittles pitted a man named David Phoenix against the Skittles page fans. The more clicks the page received, the deeper David got buried in Skittles. For a younger audience I can’t imagine anything more rewarding than contributing to burying a man alive in millions of sweets.

That’s not to say that all successful social media campaigns offer an explicit reward to members of the public. A recent study explains another motive for getting involved.

Researchers at Harvard have found that when we share thoughts, feelings and information about ourselves with others, our reward system is stimulated in the same way as when we eat food, receive money and have sex.

Breast Cancer Awareness appealed to this area of our brains by rallying women to update their statuses to ‘I like it on…’ followed by where they keep their handbag.  The campaign caught the imagination of thousands of women around the world, raising awareness amongst those who were involved and eyebrows of those oblivious to the campaign. The sudden influx of suggestive updates on Facebook gathered widespread interest and incredible amounts of media coverage.

Occasionally, companies really hit the big time and find themselves going from obscure to internationally recognised within days. One of the best examples of this was Batelco Infinity, a campaign released by a telecommunications company based in Bahrain.

The astonishing video that they released online was not just rewarding in itself, it also had a secret weapon. People’s reactions to the video were recorded by their laptop or smart phone’s camera (with their permission of course). At the end of the video, they were shown the photos and prompted to share them with their friends. Thousands of people indulged in sharing their response and unsurprisingly their friends couldn’t resist finding out what it was that had made the watcher’s jaws drop!

Whatever your budget or social network of choice, if you ask yourself whether each post, photo or status update is either inherently rewarding, likely to be shared or, ideally, both, you can create a successful social media campaign that rewards you and your customers.