This year, it seems like retailers and e-tailers have pulled out the big guns in terms of attracting, engaging and converting their social audiences to sales. From Twitter to Facebook, Pinterest to social games, retailers are offering creative social incentives.

Bonobos, Brett Falghren and secret codes on Twitter

Starting Monday and going through Friday, December 16th, Bonobos is tweeting out clues to secret promo codes for followers to get up to 60% off purchases on their website. Does your boyfriend or male office buddy need some stylish help? Well, here’s a way to do it frugally! Follow Bonobos on Twitter to discover a #secretcode so you can get your best male friend something fantastic from their gift guide, complete with style tips from Brett Falghren (insert heart skipping a beat here) no less!

In an interview on the menswear retailer’s overall view of the importance of social media to building its brand, David Fudge, head of social media for Bonobos, said this:

“Social Media is not only a part of our marketing strategy, but it’s a fundamental element to our business. Bonobos’ mission is to provide great product and excellent customer experience.

Overall, our goal is to provide points of engagement wherever and however our customers prefer. As a brand developed and distributed only online, we recognize the importance of providing context around our products and access to our team. Social media affords great opportunities to do this. Our customers are amazingly engaged with us through our social platforms, and this engagement continues to increase.

The interactions with our customers over social vary widely–from product inquiries to customer service requests, gamified contests and promotions to new product launches. We are able to solicit input on our products to ensure we continue to develop the best products for our customers. As a company born in the social media era, we believe that Twitter andFacebook shouldn’t solely be used to talk at a customer, but rather, to engage with them.

The demand for Bonobos denim was voiced through social channels and last month, we launched our first denim line. We recently started letting our Facebook fans have an even bigger voice in determining some of our products. Many fans and followers were asking when and if Bonobos would ever produce t-shirts which sparked us to ask our customers through Facebook to vote on what t-shirt we should produce and sell. Coming next year, we will be giving them a bigger voice in product development such as having them help design a pair of pants.”

When asked how the company values their social audience and plans to utilize social media as a customer relations tool in its long term social media strategy, Richard Murray, vice president of marketing, shared the following insights:

“We have spent the past year developing more robust communities on some primary social media platforms. Over the next year and beyond, we will be looking to innovate in a few areas.

1. First, we want to be a key partner for emerging social platforms and technologies. Social media is remarkably fluid, so staying current with our customer base is critical.
2. Second, we want to bring the social experience onto our site in a more integrated fashion. We want shopping on Bonobos to be an increasingly vibrant experience–with interactivity, fun content and connectivity.
3. Third, we want to make Bonobos more relevant for each customer. There have been some advancements in personalization for e-commerce, but there is so much more to be done to create compelling shopping experiences. There is an entirely new chapter in e-commerce yet to be written, and we hope to play a large role in this.

As one of our first steps, we are excited provide a fun point of engagement via Twitter to activate our followers. Customers are being hit over the head with promotions during the holiday season. We want to provide great deals, but to maintain our brand integrity. Social platforms have unique attributes to contextualize promotions and provide the seeds of virality that make marketing campaigns successful. While we’ve done highly successful exclusive twitter sales in the past, Bonobos has never done something like this twitter promotion before. We are very excited to launch a campaign that hasn’t been done in the market before but remains on brand with Bonobos by giving playful clues.”

ALDO taps Barnaby Roper for video; Leverages Instagram for Facebook game

ALDO’s newest fragrance, A is for ALDO, has just launched in time for the holiday season. It is the brand’s first foray into beauty and grooming products, which ALDO hopes to expand in the years to come. ALDO tapped famed photographer and director Barnaby Roper, who has previous worked for clients like Chanel, Burberry and Nike. He made the video ad for ALDO using a combination of re-animated stills and CGI to create a graphic, rhythmical beat driven fast cut ad-–a signature style of Roper. The result: an ad that depicts the uniquely stackable bottles in an spectacular way. But that’s not what we love most…

…What we love most is the creative Facebook game that uses random Instragram photos to find out what color best represents the player based on the photos they select. The photos are collected into a moodboard (which you can post to your Facebook timeline) and the game then recommends the scent that is right for you based on that color (Yellow, Blue or Red). The app and game were created with ALDO’s in house social media and developed by creative teams at Dynamo and ALLDAYEVERYDAY. They deserve extra kudos for including the Holstee Manifesto and also creating a way for players to find new people to follow on Instagram. SERIOUSLY, this falls in the “genius” category.

Land’s End appeals to vintage loving hipsters with Pinterest

With both Google+ and Twitter embracing brand pages in recent weeks, what’s next on the radar for brands? Pinterest. This week, Lands’ End Canvas is tapping the visual, style-conscious Pinterest audience to launch an engagement promotion. The campaign, called “Lands’ End Canvas Pin It to Win It,” encourages users to browse landsendcanvas.com and create virtual Lands’ End Canvas pinboards for a chance to win apparel from the modern, vintage-inspired clothing line from Lands’ End. If you want to swipe one of ten $250 gift cards to the website, the Land’s End team is hosting a holiday procrastination twitter event this Friday with Mom Sark Media in conjunction with the Pinterest promotion. The Pinterest campaign itself runs through December 21st and you can follow the rules to enter.

“Lands’ End Canvas is continuously looking for new communication channels and opportunities to foster to introduce new customers to the brand,” said Michele Casper of Land’s End. “Pinterest is the intersection of style and social, and is a natural visual platform to showcase the brands’ image and product.”

While it’s a year-round feature, we’d like to draw your attention to the Boat House. We’re smitten the way Land’s End conveys its brand story. We’re also giving them Kudos for their Backstage partnership with LiveNation, which features concerts in Boston, Atlanta and Chicago. If you’ve been looking for a stellar example of telling the story of American heritage and how a brand can maintain its relevance in its customers’ lives, you’ve found it, even luxury heritage brands could pull a tactic or two from this.

These are a just a few of our favorites, what are some holiday campaigns you love? Whether their holiday related or not…