With the rapid advancement of technology in the 21st century, the online world and social media have created a contemporary environment and enriching channels and platforms for which human connection, communication, and marketing can all take place. Recently, the concept of social impact campaign marketing (SICM) has resurfaced to capture the macro-level impact social media has on SICM as a phenomenon. Existent research on social impact campaign marketing lies within the realm of traditional marketing, and centres on the antiquated concept of SICM being a strategy, primarily adopted by for-profit businesses. Thus, this research paper is devoted to acknowledging this gap in literature through exploring the contemporary marketing environment, with specific examination of social media's role and impact on SICM, exceeding the scope of traditional SICM approaches and adopting a broadened perspective to appease non-for-profit (NFP) organisations and activist campaigners through our research also. Specifically, this dissertation seeks to determine the variety of ways in which social media acts as a platform to efficiently facilitate contemporary SICM.

A brief literature review and in-depth thematic case analysis has been adopted to critically address, scrutinise, review, and contrast research on traditional SICM, social media as the most prominent contemporary marketing channel, and four case studies that this research defines as ‘widely-known’ SICM. Sequentially, thematic analysis was carried out to analyse key themes and commonalities among these four marketing campaigns. Key findings from this study provide enriching detail and explore the current stream of literature that exists for SICM, and identify common themes found across widely-known social movement’s on social media. The three key themes that will be explored at length are; The fundamental basis of storytelling, The contemporary environment and social media in the 21st century, and Call-to-action (CTA).

The findings presented in this research contribute to the field of contemporary SICM in the realm of social media and address SICM from the perspective of NFP campaign activists and organisations, an area which has been prone to neglect in previous literature. Findings extend the traditional marketing concept that SICM is purely a form of business strategy. Additionally, findings unify literature on the four widely-known SICM case studies which are customarily studied independently.

With regard to practical implications, SICM organisations, activists and NFP’s can benefit from this study’s identification of common themes in widely-known social impact campaigns and movements, to evolve their current practices and strategies when constructing their SICM.