Roll back in time with us and revisit the best social media posts of 2021. And what a year it's been?! As the uncertainty and impact of the pandemic has continued to challenge us all, we've really focused on helping you get better results from social media so you can stay connected and keep selling to customers. By showcasing what's working for other businesses you can learn what works and replicate the techniques for yourselves. We've rounded up the best social media posts of 2021 so you can take those lessons into 2022 and hit the ground running!
What were the best social media posts of 2021?
by Amy RountreeDecember 2021
Fast fashion brands lead the way for social media engagement throughout December, the likes of ASOS, Missguided, Primark and H&M drove the most engagement but it was Boohoo who came out top.
Announcing the business had hit 10 million followers, Boohoo offered up £1000 in cashback every hour for ten hours.
All followers had to do was like, comment and share the post and on the hour every hour, a winner was tagged and announced on the post.
It was a generous mechanic that kept customers coming back to the social media post, and kept people engaging with the business all day.
It also provided a reason for customers to celebrate a milestone with Boohoo.
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As December started, so did the annual rush of brands launching social media advent calendar reveals and contests. Fatface, Boots and Holland and Barrett are all offering customers the chance to win prizes on a daily basis. But Joules are leading in the engagement stakes.
With daily content that offers customers a chance to win festive favourites and therefore racking up engagement, it will be difficult for businesses to cut through in the #christmas conversation online organically so you must offer something regular and compelling.
Joules post a video to Instagram each day announcing the day’s prize supported by clear and concise entry requirements. It’s a simple and replicable approach that offers customers many chances to win, while the daily mechanic means customers will come back for more.
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Aldi’s caterpillar character, Cuthbert, has had a busy year. After being put on trial by M&S in his cake incarnation earlier this year, he narrowly escaped jail time and is back in time for Christmas. This time Cuthbert’s come over all cuddly and has a starring role in Aldi’s Christmas TV campaign.
Aldi’s campaign has got people talking in a similar way to John Lewis. But it’s playful and accessible edge which does not take itself too seriously has landed social media humour at its best, and captured people’s imaginations.
John Lewis may be seen as the Christmas campaign frontrunners, but Aldi and indeed Cuthbert put the supermarket as a contender to watch this year and beyond.
November 2021
Charlotte Tilbury got in a week early on the Black Friday action announcing the inclusion of its products in a limited sale.
Luxury beauty brands are foregoing aggressive discounting messages and marketing creative. Instead they are using makeup tutorials to engage shoppers and followers at the same time as announcing sales. Followers are invited to comment on their favourite product. The approach drives engagement from loyal fans as well as creates urgency for them to get their must-have items and beauty staples at a discounted price. Meanwhile festive party looks provide inspiration for shoppers to pick up extra items than they might purchase usually.
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The theatre production of Disney’s Frozen has opened on Drury Lane. Covent Garden has taken the theme and turned the West End shopping destination into a Frozen themed experience.
Hourly snowfall accompanied by an instrumental version of ‘Let it Go’, in a frozen forest setting provides a way for all shoppers to enjoy the magic. Meanwhile theatre goers will get an extension of their theatre experience pre and post show.
Covent Garden have maximised the opportunity to use the draw of a new theatre show to own a slice of the conversation. They are also providing a reason to visit for those who don’t have theatre tickets. Covent Garden will benefit from the footfall and positive word of mouth, the restaurants and shops from extra business, and the increased awareness of the show is likely to sell more tickets for the theatre. Everyone’s a winner!
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Waterstones' stores are empowered to operate their own social media accounts. The largest is Waterstones Piccadilly which boasts over 26,000 book loving followers but the tactic is replicated by other local Waterstones branches.
Waterstones regularly host book signings with authors, and the larger stores may also play host to art installations or open mic nights. Using the space in a creative way gives people a reason to visit other than just to pick up a book, it's a place you want to hang out, relax and discover in. Championing this on social, drives footfall.
Just a couple of days left to view Ai Weiwei's beatiful 'Taifeng' in our shop. This original artwork will be on display until 9pm on Monday 8th Nov. to celebrate publication of 1,000 Years of Joys and Sorrows. pic.twitter.com/3QVxOb7FQD
— WaterstHoHoHones Piccadilly, London ? (@WaterstonesPicc) November 6, 2021
It’s November and just like that Halloween is over. But social media is still awash with the best in costumes, tricks, treats and seasonal do-overs. Dunelm let its customers and influencers do the talking for them over Halloween, sharing interior designers' take on a Halloween home makeover.
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October 2021
Marks and Spencer are getting ahead of the Christmas rush by reminding customers they need to book their click and collect slots now to avoid disappointment. Gorgeous foodie imagery stops people in their Instagram scroll tracks, ensuring they’ll pay attention to the image and heed the warning in the post.
However the service is not available in Northern Ireland, and customers from the region are already disappointed they can’t use it. M&S are yet to respond on the post comments to acknowledge the feedback or give customers alternative solutions to ensure they retain their business over Christmas. The engagement on the post is high, but some of the engagement needs re-engaging with to take its performance to the next level.
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Carnaby Street opens its Kaleidoscope installation on November 4th. The charity partnership with ‘Choose Love’ offers an alternative to the usual Christmas light display as 600 butterflies get set to flutter down the famous shopping street.
Opening night tickets are free and can be claimed online. Visitors can expect shopping and dining offers as well as live music and entertainment. The post drums up excitement and intrigue, raises awareness for a charity and is supported by the use of lots of the #visitlondon and #londonisopen hashtags. They also invite visitors to tag themselves on Instagram as soon as the installation and displays are open.
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After the Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp outage last week, Aldi took to Facebook to have a bit of fun. Aldi knows that its checkout staff are famed for their speed and efficiency. With a little self deprecating humour thrown into the mix, the supermarket not only used a global talking point to increase engagement, but made it relevant to themselves as well. The comments and reactions on the post played well and only served to increase engagement further.
JD Sports announced its new flagship in Stratford with a throwback photograph on Instagram to where things all started.
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September 2021
It’s fright night at Fortnum and Mason. Tis the season to be spooky and the long time luxury favourite is delighting its social media audience with a glimpse at what it can expect in its terrifyingly decorated tea room.
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Whisper it, don’t shout it but Christmas is coming. And after last year it seems that Marks and Spencer's customers are well in the mood to start the seasonal countdown. With the kids back at school and Autumn on its way, the retailer has hit social media with three Christmas posts over the last week covering everything from advent calendars to these snowglobe flavoured gin liqueurs which earned over 30,000 engagements.
While historically some consumers may bemoan the retail assault on Christmas a wee bit earlier than they like, this year it seems that consumers just want to look forwards. So help them do that. Help them get excited about the prospect of celebrating early.
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This week’s best social media post comes from ADIDAS who went all Mancunian on us to celebrate the homecoming of Cristiano Ronaldo to Manchester United.
One of the biggest talking points of the week was maximised by ADIDAS with a sketch of the squad welcoming back the Portuguese favourite.
Take me home, United Road.
A welcome home, the Mancunian way.@ManUtd pic.twitter.com/fEimq2yMrk— adidas UK (@adidasUK) August 31, 2021
August 2021
This week’s best social media post comes from Missguided who announced they will now stock in ASDA stores and on george.com
The post invites followers to tag in friends who need to know that they can now get their hands on Missguided fashion lines in ASDA supermarkets.
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Nike continue to spotlight both professional and grassroots community sports clubs and athletes from across the globe. The featured team in this post hail from West London and provide a sporting and community support hub for London’s Asian community, and has done for over century.
With these posts, Nike continues to feature real people who share the brand’s passion for sport and wellness. At the same time they champion global sporting communities in an inclusive way, rather than just focusing on elite performance athletes.
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Zara put a digital art installation into the shop window of a New York Store that has caught attention on all social media sites. Yet check Zara’s social media pages and there’s no mention of it. Zara keeps its social media branded, fashion forward and editorially led. It has not disrupted its usual social media approach to draw attention to its shop window. Instead it has let passers by capture and share the window, making it a social moment, that now more people will want to see for themselves, capture and share.
The art installation itself captures attention on its own. As a design led brand it feels authentic for Zara to be using their spaces to showcase art or culture, crucially it provides a reason to visit a store that is experience rather than purchase driven.
When designing campaigns you want customers to share or talk about it must have a cool factor, or a FOMO factor. It has to be something customers will want occupying space on their own social feeds. There doesn’t seem to be a request or call to action for anyone to take a photo or share the window, it is shareable and interesting without further intervention from the brand.
Fifteen months is a long time to not see or collaborate with your colleagues. For the cast of The Lion King at London’s Lyceum theatre, getting everyone together for a rehearsal and table read for the first time since March 2020 was an incredibly emotional experience.
It is impossible to watch this rendition without an emotional response. Whether you smile, laugh, choke up or cry, it is impossible to deny the spirit of this moment. The cast captured the moment and shared it across their social media channels and over a million people have since watched the clip.
This behind-the-scenes post perfectly captures the relief and the joy of the team getting back to work together and getting ready to welcome back theatre goers. It also hits on the mood of everyone who sees it.
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July 2021
As temperatures soar, The Range knows its customers are looking for a way to cool down. With swimming pools and Lido’s requiring people to book slots for a splash about, more and more people are looking to add a little something extra to complete their lockdown garden projects to escape the rising mercury. Enter The Range with its 8ft home splash pool.
It’s a topical and timely giveaway on Instagram that is super simple to enter. With over 13,000 engagements the cool comp is definitely doing its job!
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‘Freedom Day’ arrived in England on July 19th. The nickname divides opinion as many businesses and members of the public feel that the mass easing and total removal of restrictions in some instances is foolish.
#Freedomday and #freedumbday both enjoyed their moment on Twitter with many businesses choosing to continue with some sort of health and safety protocol. Sadiq Khan has declared TfL passengers will still be required to wear masks and indie businesses across England are continuing to post their health and safety protocols to ease worried customers’ minds.
Daisy Park is an indie gift shop in South Molton who have nailed their Instagram update to customers. Th9ugh staff are fully vaccinated, they will continue to wear masks and provide hand sanitizer, and they politely request customers also continue to cover up.
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Along with the likes of ASOS and Boohoo, Missguided is no stranger to running competitions on an almost weekly basis to increase engagement. But Missguided’s approach demonstrates just how well the brand understands its customer base. As well as being a fast fashion, freebie-loving group, Misguided’s customers are also reaching important milestones - like buying their first home - and so are under pressure to save. So instead of offering a generic “win your wardrobe” or “win a shopping spree” message, the brand runs a comp enabling them to win £1,000 towards savings as well as the entire Missguided Homeware collection. Misguided knows its audience has other things on their mind than just what to wear on Saturday night and so has adapted its proposition to suit the evolving needs of its customer base. Plus, the new homeware collection is in the spotlight.
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Despite every effort, England did not bring it home on Sunday night at the Euro 2020 final. Over the past few weeks we’ve seen some brilliant performances on the pitch, and social media has been awash with hope and support for the England team including funny memes, Instagram Reels and TikToks. But as the reality of a gut-wrenching penalty shootout hit home, social media became a place of commiseration and consolation.
While ITV Football’s best post was video footage of Gareth Southgate being interviewed earning just over 10,000 engagements in just nine hours, BBC Sport’s repost of Manchester United’s message to Marcus Rashford earned 13,000 engagements in just one hour.
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June 2021
Like Lush, Joules is another brand that is localising its approach to social media. Though it has centrally managed accounts, Joules also knows the importance of creating local identities for each of its stores.
Just in time for half term as the sunshine came out, Joules jumped on families escaping their homes for a well earned and much needed staycation.
With a number of its stores located in coastal towns across the UK, Joules used content from its Wellsbeach store to engage its audience. As well as using a local photograph, the brand went one step further and used place hashtags in its posts. This is a great example of a business recognising the role it plays in helping a location grow.
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Innocent always gets its positioning right. Never lecturing but always humorous and playful, the drinks brand announced their kids smoothies’ packaging was gearing up for an eco-friendly reset which turned out to be the essential ingredient for its juiciest social media post.
Like supporting local businesses, the sustainability agenda is at the forefront of the public’s mind. COVID-19’s travel restrictions, while frustrating, have helped clean up the air and after a year of takeaways, disposable masks and time spent in front of Netflix watching documentaries, people are thinking harder about their impact on the planet.
Innocent is well aware of the shifting focus and sentiment toward eco-friendly brands and communicates that in a way that is inclusive, reassuring and fun.
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Nike knows the value of inspiring change through its athletes who are having an impact, not just in sport, but on the world around them.
Rather than focus on the performance elements of their product or simply celebrating the wins and growing trophy cabinets of sportspeople, Nike inspires its community with the likes of Marcus Rashford’s social initiatives.
After a year of international upheaval and social unrest as well as a global health pandemic, consumers are increasingly looking to the brands which are putting social purpose at the heart of their operations and brand positioning, and walking their talk.
Businesses must support their communities whether local or global. Not just with words but with actions that genuinely contribute to the people's well being and not just their own PR agenda.
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Thinking of jumping on the Euros bandwagon? You might want to think again!
Take some inspiration from JD Sports. Though creating content about football might be an easy score, they dipped their toe in the Euros water and saw less engagement than usual. So they stepped off the pitch and into the ring with content that resonates.
The sports brand is clocking up its engagement through its Boxing Hall of Fame campaign, inviting customers to vote for their favourite boxer, using iconic matches from history.
The campaign has longevity as a different ‘match’ can be shared each week. It creates engagement and discussion, plus it shows that JD understands its customers are far more engaged in boxing than they are football.
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May 2021
Cinemas re-opened on May 17th. In the run up Cineworld drummed up excitement and engagement by asking their followers to let them know what they’d missed the most about Cineworld and the big screen experience. The result was an Instagram feed totally covered in customer content rather than content the business had created itself.
Film lovers are a community and by handing over the content creation keys to its audience, Cineworld’s social media feeds put the customer and their passions at the heart of everything. This approach not only generates thousands of engagements for Cineworld on each post, but also increased the volume of conversation about the brand online.
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Lush recently re-opened their flagship Oxford Street store . The store has been beautifully refitted, and is as tactile and sensory experience as you would expect from the handmade cosmetics chain. But the store has also had an eco-friendly fit out which is being championed through its social content.
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One of the best social media posts from ASDA shows how a security guard took it upon himself to help a young customer in distress. ASDA found out about it on social media, and since posted the story themselves which has earned over 50,000 engagements.
Throughout lockdowns Supermarkets regularly took to social media to keep shoppers in the loop with the latest opening times and panic buying measures. But it was the front line staff that captured the public's’ attention. Supermarkets were receiving hundreds of social media thank yous for front line staff that went the extra mile. And we’ve seen plenty of those stories be reshared by the chains themselves.
April 2021
Primark has been social media champions throughout 2020 and into 2021. With no e-commerce presence and only a physical store footprint, the chain has continued to engage customers through multiple lockdowns and were poised as UK High Streets began to re-open.
Primark teased and excited customers with new product, as well as its re-opening plans. Customers couldn't wait to get back in store, bag a bargain and stock up on everything from socks to sundresses, with the unified goal of refreshing their wardrobes as they came out of hibernation. Queues were reported up and down the country with some shopping centres opening car parks as early as 6am.
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Fast fashion giant Missguided took to social media to encourage their followers to support small businesses. By shining a light on the indie brands they stock, Missguided use their platform to increase awareness for others.
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After a year of hard work of essential retail, supermarkets were the early heroes of the pandemic offering reserved and prioritized shopping and delivery services, collaborating with each other to share delivery drivers and facilities, putting a stop to panic buying, and adjusting opening times for front line workers and the vulnerable. Tesco chooses to adopt a slightly more collaborative approach which recognises the importance of supporting local pubs and eateries Every Little Helps!
Pubs have had it tough this year. So, as good as our deals are, this week we’d rather you support your local pub (as long as you feel safe to do so). Because right now, #EveryLittleHelps.
Excludes Scotland, NI and Wales.https://t.co/qfn6UJcsvP for the facts 18+ pic.twitter.com/VdMUBDXn9a— Tesco (@Tesco) April 12, 2021
March 2021
Gymshark are keeping everyone moving through lockdown with their fitness influencer content. The business uses the fitness fanatics that wear their product and showcases their workout content. The approach inspires all of us to keep the lockdown pounds off and our energy high.
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Nike marked Mothers Day with a sporting twist on the celebration. The approach was a creative deviation from the usual flowers and chocolates, gave a real sense of endurance and toughness, and was relevant to the sporting nature of the brand.
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February 2021
The Monarchy and Buckingham Palace have been polishing up their social media for a number of years now. And the announcement of the arrival of yet more royal footsteps was one of the best social media posts. The Royal Family use Instagram to great effect to share the work, patronages, and of course family announcements. The arrival of Princess Eugenie’s son earned almost a million engagements.
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Who said romance is dead? There’s no harm in using seasonal events like Valentines Day to offer competitions around. And who doesn’t love flowers. By providing customers with the option of flowers - roses or tulips - B&M Bargains are able to increase the engagement on their post.
January 2021
The best performing post accolade in terms of engagement on January 5th came from the Co-Op.
We love this post as it pays no attention to what we *should* be opting to eat, and instead focuses on pleasure. And with lockdown taking enough from everyone as it is, Maybe* is definitely on board with a chocolatey treat or ten.
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The Hot Blend loves a tutorial, an Instagram story, and a well manicured close up on its grid. The colours used on hands are always detailed for its fanatical following. But the real winning finish here is the tagging of not only nail related hashtags, but also the tagging of all the brands and suppliers featured in the content. What a way to lend a hand!
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Over the last year, the best social media posts have shown us the power of competitions, community mindedness, culture and physical location to drive engagement. Get a headstart on your planning for 2022 and think about how you can replicate some of these approaches to create your own best social media posts.
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