vitaminwater

iMedia has some great examples of highly experimental but extremely successful social media campaigns carried out by some big brand names. Although these are some grand-scale endeavors, any small business can adapt tactics as it fits their business objectives and personality. Check out the highlights:

vitaminwater – Flavor Creator Lab Facebook App

Displaying an intense devotion to Facebook, vitaminwater scrapped its website altogether and made Facebook its landing page. The objective being full interaction, visitors are now redirected to become fans and discuss the products. What does vitaminwater gain? Valuable, and instant, feedback for non-traditional market research and a much more personable way to respond to their consumers.

A contest determined the specs for a new drink named after social media, called Connect. Over the summer, fans could vote on flavor, ingredients, packaging, and naming for the new drink. The Facebook fan that won the name game also won $5,000.

vitaminwater

The contest started with the flavor creator lab, a Facebook app that crowd-sourced the flavor for the newest vitaminwater, black cherry-lime. Next up, participants completed a series of games and quizzes to determine which vitamins were needed most. After deciding upon caffeine and eight other nutrients, fans could submit their own packaging and naming ideas.

The flavor creator app grew the vitaminwater Facebook fan base from 400,000 to 981,000 in just one month — and now stands at more than 1.3 million fans. Participation was tremendous, with nearly 10 percent (116,000) fan participation rate. To cap off the flavor’s launch in March, vitaminwater gave away 100,000 free bottles of Connect to the first 100,000 fans who signed up for the coupon.

Target – Bullseye Gives Campaign on Facebook

For as long as it has been around, Target has donated 5 percent of its sales to charity. For two weeks last year, Target decided to let its fans determine how that 5 percent should be spent – a total of $3 million given away to grants, hospitals & educational programs.

Using Facebook as the platform, Target chose 10 charities and let fans vote once per day to decide how much money should go where. Participants shared their votes on news feeds and forwarded e-cards, encouraging friends to vote as well.

target

In all, 291,399 votes were tallied from 167,000 different Facebook fans. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital received the most votes and upwards of a million dollars.

Daily views on the Facebook page increased by 4,800 percent during the two-week period, with the wall gathering upwards of 3,000 personal stories shared by fans. The campaign gathered an additional 97,091 fans in just two weeks and generated great PR with an increased awareness of Target’s long-standing charitable endeavors.

Check out more great examples at iMedia.