Back in the days when MySpace was all the rage and sites like Twitter and Facebook were just beginning, everyone thought that social networks were just a passing fad — another Internet trend that would eventually fade away. Now, Facebook is worth $500 billion and has over 600 million active users, while Twitter’s some 200 million active users generate 65 million tweets every day.

Once it became apparent that these social networks were here to stay, any and every creative advertising agency worth their weight realized that these platforms presented perfect opportunities to launch brand development strategies.

And that is how social media marketing was born. Now, companies that hire a creative agency to handle their brand development strategy can expect to see higher sales and more brand exposure.

However, the art of social media marketing is still a mystery to some businesses. If you yourself are wondering just what exactly a good social media marketing strategy looks like, take a gander at some of the most successful social media marketing campaigns of all time.

Old Spice.

In 2010, Old Spice had a hugely successful super bowl ad that featured the deep voiced Isaiah Mustapha going on a lunatic rant about how amazing Old Spice products were. The commercial’s success led to a social media marketing campaign for Twitter and YouTube in which Mustapha addressed specific celebrities. The 187 social media marketing videos that were made generated a whopping 11 million views, and over 22,000 comments in just three days.

Dove.

Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” social media marketing campaign was a simple video that showed women describing themselves to a sketch artist that could not see them. Next, people who’d met the women described them in their own words to the sketch artists. The two drawings were then lined up next to each other and shown to the women. The sketches based on the strangers’ descriptions were all uniformly more attractive, leading to a powerful statement on women’s self-images. Due to the high emotional impact of the social media marketing video, it went viral and earned well over 114 million views.

Oreo.

Oreo’s Twitter account is one of the best business Twitter accounts out there. The sheer speed with which they can get in on trending topics is simply amazing. During 2013’s super bowl blackout, they tweeted a simple picture of an Oreo in a vignette captioned “you can still dunk in the dark.” Due to its humor and relevancy, the social media marketing tactic blew up. More on this topic.