There were a lot of good social media marketing campaigns in 2009. There were a lot of bad ones, too. We will skip the bad ones – here are the four that we like the most. They are original, creative and they cut-through-the clutter with minimum expense and maximum ROI. You may disagree, you may like others and we probably missed a few. Please feel free to comment on these or any other social media campaigns you like.

Whopper Sacrifice

The idea behind “Whopper Sacrifice” was simple enough – delete ten of your Facebook friends and get a free Whopper. It caught on like wildfire because by the end of the campaign over 50,000 friends had been deleted.

It was brilliant in its timeliness. Networks on social media sites are growing by leaps and bounds and more people keeping adding friends they don’t even know. The thinking was that the value of these friends deteriorates – and removing ten of them for a free Whopper seemed like a good idea.

But deleting friends is not what Facebook stands for. Facebook is about making connections, not canceling them, and Burger King was eliminating more friendships than the giant social media site was comfortable with. All good things must come to an end – and ultimately the Whopper Sacrifice was sacrificed. It was a good campaign while it lasted – although some people are now wondering if it was worth losing a friend over a
hamburger.

Seaworld’s Gallery Photos Challenge Contest

This was a novel idea Buddy Media hatched up that lets users interact around a brand. The premise is a Gallery Photos challenge game where users are shown two pictures and they have to identify what is different between them. One example – a picture had a dolphin with a fin and the other had a dolphin without a fin. When the user finished the score was sent back to the social network and shared with friends. You could also invite friends to play against you and the winner was broadcast online.

Buddy Media created something for Seaworld that was different, viral and it integrated the brand into an experience. It seems like this is the direction where social media campaigns are headed – doing something creative that engages customers with your product. And with this campaign they put social back into social media.

Zappos @ Twitter

Of all the ways Zappos – the online shoe retailer – uses social media marketing, none is more engaging than the way it uses Twitter. Zappos came up an interesting strategy – get all the their staff to communicate with their customers via Twitter. @ Zappos features its CEO, Tony Hsieh and all Zappos’ employees have their own Twitter accounts, too. They have a leader board that ranks the employees according to the number of followers they have and the staff is encouraged to use the leader board and promote Zappos at the same time.

Unlike other retailers, Zappos has successfully put a personality to its Twitter profile. What are Zappos’ employees doing right now? What are they thinking? What are they having for dinner? You will find it on the employees’ tweets. Zappos messages are personal and not necessarily work related. This made it easier for Zappos to connect with their customers, keep the company’s high profile and personalize the online store.

Tony Hsieh now has 1.6 million followers on Twitter – more than either CBS News or the NFL – and he inspires his followers with quotes, observations and whatever is on his mind. Zappos knows how to sell shoes. Now it is hoping to profit from people’s interest in the friendly and playful way it conducts business.

The Best Job in The World

How do you promote an exotic but remote tourist destination that very few people know about? The Australian Government did it with an internet contest earlier this year called “The Best Job in the World.” The job paid $100,000 for the winner to be the caretaker of some islands in the Great Barrier Reef off the Australian coast. The person selected for the job would broadcast weekly blogs promoting the area. It was a big success.

OK – the campaign began with traditional media but it was sustained over online sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. The webs

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