Most brands haven’t embraced Vine yet or have only dipped their toes with silly experimental videos. But a few brands have begun using the new platform, which launched in January 2013, creatively and effectively. Lowe’s and its agency partner BBDO realized Vine was a good way to extend its “Sharable Solutions” Facebook campaign, which provided consumers with household tips.

Lowe’s and BBDO examined which tips could translate best into six second Vine videos and named the video series campaign #fixinsix. They started with 12 videos. One of the Vine videos (pictured above) teaches consumers how to remove a stripped screw. Another showed how to easily remove a product sales tag sticker from a coffee cup. 

To see the coffee cup sticker removal video and learn more about Lowe’s #fixinsix campaign, read Ragan’s “Lowe’s delivers household tips in Vine videos.” 

Who says B2C brands have all the fun?! We are constantly seeing creative and fun social media campaigns and promotions from consumer brands, but it’s not everyday that you see it from a B2B company. Webtrends, a digital marketing and intelligence company, knocked it out of the ballpark with its #didyouseethat Hashtag & Shiny Shoes Campaign during SES New York (SESNY).

The campaign was attention-grabbing, creative and fun. It entailed four colorful and shiny sneakers and the hashtag #didyouseethat. SESNY attendees had to find the shoes, tweet a picture of the shoes with the #didyouseethat hashtag and they were entered into a sweepstakes to win a grand prize, which was “a chance to design your own sneakers; a $500 airline gift card; and a free Platinum Pass to an upcoming SES show.” 

The beauty of the campaign is that Webtrends did not push any marketing messages or corporate pitches and instead focused on the user’s experience. The campaign was wildly successful.

To read more about it and a case study with ROI results, read ClickZ: How a Hashtag and Shiny Shoes Brought B2B Social to Life at #SESNY 

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), home of the Indy 500, is getting ready to roll out its new promotion #Indy500orBust campaign, which will be hosted on Instagram and a microsite. It will also be used and promoted across Indy 500’s other social channels. The campaign includes a sweepstakes component for those who post photos to Instagram using the #Indy500orBust hashtag. The winner will receive a VIP Experience to the 2014 Indianapolis 500.

This campaign is more than just another sweepstakes, it’s designed to provide a platform for the Indy 500 community of fans, drivers, teams and IMS to come together and share in the experience. The microsite will also house an interactive map that will display “photos from INDYCAR drivers, teams, the IZOD IndyCar Series, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and other fans from around the world,” according to the #Indy500orBust microsite. 

The promo is a good way to build excitement prior to the race, increase ticket sales, and provide a place for the community to connect and share with each other. It’s also a great avenue for IMS to interact with its fans and develop stronger relationships with top fans and race attendees.

An exact launch date has not been set, but it’s expected to be live by the second week of March when IMS begins its big promotional push for the Indy 500. The race festivities start on May 11 and run through race day on May 26, 2013.

IMS partnered with Venueseen and is using Venueseen’s API for the #Indy500orBust Instagram promo. Venueseen helps brands utilize visual marketing to build relationships with their customers.

To learn more about this campaign, read ClickZ’s “Indy 500 Revs Up for Instagram Promo.”

Auto insurance company Esurance launches the “SXSW Dream Gig” contest. Its looking for a socially savvy storyteller who is “inspired by technology, tapped into music and moved by film,” and who wants to be the Esurance correspondent at this year’s South by Southwest Conference and Festivals (SXSW), March 8-17, 2013.

Esurance is hosting the contest on Facebook where entrants have to “like” the Esurance Facebook page and then enter via the SXSW Dream Gig Facebook contest page. The first phase of the contest runs through January 25, 2013, at which point the judges will then select three finalists by February 1st. The finalists will each have to create a video demonstrating why they’re “the perfect SXSW correspondent,” according to the contest overview and official rules. The next phase of the contest is the public voting phase where Facebook users will vote for their favorite finalist. The public voting phase runs from February 15th through the 22nd.

The winner will receive a Platinum badge to SXSW; roundtrip air travel to Austin, TX; a 10-night hotel stay at the Hilton Austin; an iPad; a $2,000 stipend and will be the official SXSW correspondent for Esurance.

SXSW is a fun-filled conference with non-stop action. It really is a tech, music and film lover’s dream to have an opportunity to see the latest indie films, bands and social apps; and interview the hottest actors, up and coming indie bands and singer-songwriters, and social media entrepreneurs and celebs. If you’re socially savvy and good on camera and love tech, music and film, then this is truly your “Dream Gig.” 

It’ll be interesting to see the results from this campaign from how many entrants and votes the contest gets to how many video views and social media buzz and mentions Esurance gets during this year’s SXSW.

We-Care.com, a cause marketing platform, launched it’s #MillionDimes Charity Challenge  this week. It’s a fun and simple campaign hosted on Twitter. Twitter users simply have to follow @WeCare and send a tweet that includes the twitter handle of their non-profit of choice, @WeCare and the #MillionDimes hashtag. That’s it! Every tweet is a vote toward your favorite charity. However, the charity must first register at http://www.We-Care.com/MillionDimes. As of this writing, there were 635 non-profits registered.

For each qualifying #MillionDimes tweet, We-Care.com will donate ten cents, up to $1,000 per charity. You can tweet up to five times a day. The campaign runs until next Monday, January 14 at 12:00 PM PST. 

Non-profits are funded through donations so in these economic times, every dime counts. So start tweeting to help your favorite charity!

It’s the season of giving and spirit brand Grand Marnier is sharing in the joy with its second annual Grand Giving Tree campaign hosted on Facebook (via a Facebook app). How it works is fans can select from one of three holiday ornaments and place them on the virtual Giving Tree. Each ornament represents a charitable organizations: Best Friends Animal Society, Earth Day Network, Surfrider Foundation.

The charity with the most ornaments on December 31, 2012 will receive $20,000, while the remaining two organizations will receive $5,000 each. As if helping out your favorite charity wasn’t enough, Grand Marnier is also giving participants of the Grand Giving Tree a chance to win $1,000. There’s one hiccup, fans who are California residents are not eligible for the contest portion due to the State of California laws. However, California fans can still participate in voting for their favorite charity in the Grand Giving Tree.

After you vote and hang your ornament on the Grand Giving Tree for your selected charity, you can also view the ornament count to see which charity currently has the most votes. I won’t spoil it for you by telling you who is in the lead, but I will tell you who I voted for.

As an animal lover, I voted for Best Friends Animal Society. Who will you be voting for?

Oreo is a brand that knows how to keep their fans happy. The Oreo cookie is a product that just about everyone loves and they’re always keeping things fresh on their social channels. I headed over to Oreo’s Facebook page tonight to see what they did this year to celebrate Halloween.

Of course they had their classic oreo cookie photo with a witch on her broom (love it). But they also had a lot of other fun posts leading up to Halloween. They shared fun photos of “spooky treats” to help give fans some yummy ideas to make for their own Halloween celebrations. 

And who doesn’t love a good corn field maze at Halloween?! Oreo and Regal Farm teamed up to create quite the corn maze — Regal Corn Maze. One could certainly get lost in it.

On its Facebook page, Oreo shared an aerial shot of the corn maze that reads “Oreo 100th Birthday” on the left side of the maze, and “Celebrate the Kid Inside” on the right side, and below at what looks like the corn maze’s entrance reads “Regal Farm.” I’m sure it was a lot of fun for the people who were able to get lost in it; and for those of us who couldn’t, seeing the aerial shot of it was pretty cool, too. 

Oreo’s 100th birthday celebration year has been filled with lots of creative fun. I look forward to seeing what they do next!

Reaching Facebook milestones are always fun and what better way to celebrate it than with a giveaway that says “Thank You” to the fans that helped you reach the milestone. Today, Pacific Natural Foods is doing just that with a product giveaway. 

In celebration of reaching 100,000 Facebook fans, Pacific Natural Foods is saying “thank you” to its fans with a giveaway where 10 lucky fans will be selected and will have their pantries stocked with $200 worth of their favorite Pacific Natural Foods products.

If you’re anything like me and care about what you put into your body, then you may want to venture over to Pacific Natural Foods’ Facebook page and enter for a chance to win some deliciously healthy foods. Of course if you’re not a fan already, then be sure to like their Facebook Page. You’ll be glad you did because they share lots of yummy foods and are great with engaging with fans.

For example, they recently shared a photo of tomatoes with a status update of “I’d say I had a successful tomato harvest this weekend! What are your favorite ways to use tomatoes?” and that prompted one of their fans to share a photo of her tomato harvest. In which, Pacific Natural Foods then shared the fan’s photo with other fans on its Facebook Timeline. It’s not only a great example of fan engagement, but a great example of a brand that appreciates its fans and customers. 

Congratulations to Pacific Natural Foods for reaching 100,000 fans! 

Brands continue to leverage mommy bloggers and social media influencers to spread the word about products, services and events. The latest example was last Friday when Hasbro’s My Little Pony, the beloved 1980s cartoon, sponsored a Twitter party hosted by lead blogger at Mom Spark, Amy Bellgardt, who is @MomSpark on Twitter. The above image is a sampling of a few tweets during yesterday’s My Little Pony (MLP) Twitter party, which used the hashtag #MLPWedding.

Twitter parties are very popular among moms, and given that moms are the main shoppers in many households, one can see how this is a desirable consumer group for brands to court. For sponsored Twitter parties, most have some sort of giveaway tied to them as an incentive to participate. In the case of last Friday’s My Little Pony Twitter Party, Hasbro gave away, via its host @MomSpark, MLP toys.

The purpose behind it was to not only promote and discuss MLP, but also to promote an encore presentation of the special two-part royal wedding episode of “My Little Pony Friendship is Magic,” which was shown today, Saturday, September 8 at 10:00 AM EDT on the Hub TV network.

Twitter parties are effective in that they bring together a group of consumers who are already passionate about a particular product or topic, provide an opportunity for brands to share product information and features in an authentic manner through the hosts, brand ambassadors and fans, and they offer brands an opportunity to reach new consumers. 

Since Twitter parties are held at a specific date and time that’s pre-publicized and usually last for an hour or two, it lends itself to the opportunity to have the Twitter parties’ hashtags trend locally, nationally or worldwide. In the case of Friday’s MLP Twitter party, the #MLPWedding hashtag successfully trended nationally, according to Bellgardt’s tweet, “Thank you for attending our My Little Pony Twitter party today - we trended in the USA! #MLPWedding http://fb.me/27CNdOzIF.”

Before Twitter parties hit the Twittersphere, there were Twitter chats aka “Tweetchats” or “Twitchats,” which still exist today and there are many weekly Tweet chats for all kinds of topics and interests. Twitter parties are an extension of Tweet chats, which are similar in format, but usually Tweet chats are topic based and not brand/product focused and they usually don’t do product giveaways like Twitter parties do.

One doesn’t have to look far to see that Twitter parties are quite successful. In a post by Clickz, it states that “MomSpark has hosted around 100 Twitter Parties over a little more than two years.” Now that’s a lot of Twitter parties!

To promote its Greek Frozen Yogurt, Ben & Jerry’s has introduced a new Facebook app, Wanna Spoon?. It invites you to ‘spoon’ with your Facebook friends. The app’s algorithm finds things you have in common with your Facebook friends, from favorite TV shows and bands to foods and family members. It then finds your perfect spooning partner and let’s you download a coupon and share it with your spooning partner by posting a link on their Facebook Timeline along with a provided message, “Using a fancy algorithm, Ben & Jerry’s decided we’d make great spooning partners.” 

Ben & Jerry’s tapped ad agency Amalgamated and production partner Tool of North America to create the app, according to Mashable. 

Who doesn’t love ‘spooning’? Reconnect with old friends and spoon together with some Ben & Jerry’s Greek Frozen Yogurt. Now that’s an app that’s deliciously fun!