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Social Media Touchdown: How 20 Smart Brands Won the Biggest Content Game of the Year

Yesterday was a huge day for sports fans and brands across the nation. Diehard football fans wait all year for this special game and hope that their team (or at least a team they support) hits the turf for the big game.

Let me preface my next statement by saying I mean absolutely no offense to the amazing athletes that played their hearts out yesterday. But if you’re like me, the day is really about the cheesy/gooey/delicious food, the Puppy Bowl and of course, the ads.

On this day, brands hope that their creative and entertaining ads will reach an engaged and attentive audience as they’re glued to the television. In fact, the average commercial costs approximately $5 Million for a mere 30 seconds of airtime during the Super Bowl. That is some serious cheddar!

While some companies choose to invest in airtime, others choose to spend efforts on another channel with an engaged audience, social media. Some great brand creative, an attentive community manager and some budget to boost posts is a great way to catch the attention of consumers glued to a 2nd and 3rd screen.

Below are examples of brands that capitalized on a great opportunity to be social and share some great content during the 2017 Super Bowl.

Heartwarming & Inspired

Each year during the Super Bowl there are a handful of brands whose message gives you all the feels and this year was no exception.

Coca-Cola

Honda

Budweiser

This is the story of our founder, and his pursuit of the American Dream. #ThisBudsForYou

A video posted by Budweiser (@budweiser) on

Clever & Creative

On a day where an enormous amount of social content is being created by brands and consumers alike, these companies stood out by taking a clever and creative approach to their message.

NASA & NFL

Snapchat

PetSmart

Bite Squad

General Mills

Food is the most important part of today. Don’t fumble. Get the recipe, on our blog (link in bio). #biggame #food

A photo posted by General Mills (@generalmills) on

Quick to Respond

Kudos to the content teams, social teams and community managers for the following brands. Events like the Super Bowl create the perfect opportunity to respond quickly.

Buffalo Wild Wings

Grumpy Cat

Febreeze

GNC

Social Contests

Although I didn’t see as many social contests today as I had expected, these two brands garnered a lot of engagement from their various posts promoting live social contests during the Super Bowl.

T-Mobile

Pepsi

Just Plain Entertaining

The brands in this category had some of the most entertaining and funny content during Super Bowl Sunday.

Skittles

Bai

Doritos

Buick

Frozen

turbotax

BONUS: Teams with Low Rankings

The opening video featuring Rob Riggle and other celebrity guests was probably one of the funniest moments of the Super Bowl. If you didn’t get a chance to see it live, I’ve included the video below.

Create Your Game Winning Social Content

While it’s clear that some of these brands invested big bucks in content for Super Bowl 51, others simply jumped on the opportunity to showcase some clever content. A special thank you to members of the Social Media Masterminds group on Facebook for helping me uncover some great Super Bowl content!

These 20 examples showcase only a fraction of the brands that created and promoted great content during Sunday’s game. Please share your favorites below!

About Ashley Zeckman