From inter­ac­tive Face­book apps to coupons done right, brands test­ing the ROI of Face­book mar­ket­ing cam­paigns had some­thing to post about in 2014.

Face­book mar­ket­ing can take the shape of coupons, apps, and even live-stream­ing video events. In 2014, the NBA, Lis­ter­ine, MTV and one small sport­ing goods busi­ness ven­tured into new ter­ri­to­ry with unique Face­book mar­ket­ing cam­paigns.

1. Hesselson’s Tests The Facebook Waters And Makes a Splash

A fam­i­ly-owned sport­ing goods and swim­ming pool store decid­ed that for its 60th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion this year, it would try some­thing new with its mar­ket­ing efforts: a spe­cial offer on social media. With no pre­vi­ous ecom­merce efforts, but a recog­ni­tion that con­sumers were fre­quent­ly con­nect­ed to com­put­ers, tablets, and mobile devices, Hes­sel­son’s decid­ed to test new online waters.

“When peo­ple ask me why a small store like our­selves is still around after 60 years with all the big box com­pe­ti­tion, the answer is that we con­tin­ue to look for change — things that will make us bet­ter,” Hes­sel­son’s pres­i­dent Tom Hes­sel­son told Mar­ket­ing­Sh­er­pa.

Through its pre­vi­ous­ly exist­ing Face­book page, Hes­sel­son’s first post­ed a coupon for $50 off a pur­chase of boots at $200 of more. This was a big­ger dis­count than they usu­al­ly offered (between $20 and $30). Hes­sel­son want­ed the offer to be sig­nif­i­cant so that if the cam­paign turned out to be a dud, he would­n’t have to ques­tion if it was the strength of the offer or the social media vehi­cle that was to blame.

The suc­cess of that first offer led to the launch of a week­ly Face­book coupon cam­paign. These week­ly offers, along with the brand’s oth­er Face­book activ­i­ty, focused on edu­cat­ing con­sumers about their prod­ucts and how to use them. And it drove a new set of cus­tomers to the brick-and-mor­tar.

“We def­i­nite­ly hit a dif­fer­ent group of peo­ple than we hit with TV, radio and news­pa­per,” Hes­sel­son told Mar­ket­ing­Sh­er­pa, adding, “I look at Face­book as the new word of mouth.”

The results: In 2014, Hes­sel­son’s attrib­uted $5,500 in net store sales to the Face­book cam­paign. Hes­sel­son’s also so a 23 per­cent increase in online-to-offline con­ver­sion, and a 1,100 per­cent boost in mar­ket­ing ROI.

2. MTV’s Facebook App Match Machine

In a time where TV view­er­ship is declin­ing while social media use is ris­ing, MTV designed a Face­book app to bring atten­tion to its new real­i­ty dat­ing series “Are You The One?” With agency Wen­der­flack, MTV launched a Face­book app called “Match Machine” last Feb­ru­ary.

With a push of a but­ton, the app tells users which of their Face­book friends was their best roman­tic match. Huff­in­g­ton Post cov­er­age of the app her­ald­ed its match­mak­ing abil­i­ties as spot on.

The app was used 84 mil­lion times, and shared 7 mil­lion times. As a result, “Are You The One?” received 840 mil­lion impres­sions from this cam­paign world­wide, and audi­ence num­bers that land­ed the show a sec­ond sea­son.

3. Listerine Pairs Its World Cup Sponsorship with Social Campaign

In spon­sor­ing the FIFA World Cup this year, Lis­ter­ine com­bined ele­ments of tra­di­tion­al and new media, con­tests, hash­tags and real-time con­tent. A promi­nent online social ele­ment of the coor­di­nat­ed cam­paign was the glob­al con­test, “Pow­er To Your Mouth” – a cam­paign that gained the mouth­wash brand and its agency MRY a nom­i­na­tion for the 2014 Mashies award for Best Face­book Cam­paign.

Dur­ing the tour­na­ment and in the build up to it, Lis­ter­ine com­ment­ed on news and events around the World Cup on Face­book and Twit­ter. React­ing in real-time, con­tent receiv­ing the most inter­ac­tions were turned into adver­tis­ing and “pro­mot­ed con­tent” with­in the Twit­ter and Face­book mar­ket­ing cam­paigns. Spe­cial care was made to deliv­er­ing con­tent in best form by device, and in mul­ti­ple lan­guages, as the cam­paign spread across 40 coun­tries.

“This cam­paign rep­re­sents the first time one of our con­sumer brands has lever­aged real-time social mar­ket­ing on a glob­al scale,” Gail Hor­wood, vice pres­i­dent, world­wide dig­i­tal strat­e­gy for John­son & John­son Con­sumer Com­pa­nies, said in the com­pa­ny’s press release. “We are har­ness­ing the pow­er of a major glob­al event to con­nect with foot­ball fans by help­ing them fuel con­ver­sa­tions about match­es in a high­ly rel­e­vant way.”

For instance, moments after an inci­dent dur­ing the tour­na­ment where one play­er bit anoth­er, Lis­ter­ine found a humor­ous way into the con­ver­sa­tion:

We rec­om­mend a good swish after grab­bing a bite of Ital­ian. #World­Cup #Pow­er­ToY­our­Mouth — Lis­ter­ine Glob­al (@ListerineGlobal) June 24, 2014

4. NBA Hosts Live Q&As Between Players, Fans On Facebook

When your major asset is your peo­ple, you bring these peo­ple to the fans. That’s what the NBA did using Face­book Live streams in league-host­ed Q&As dur­ing the 2014 NBA Finals in June. Some of the league’s biggest stars, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Tony Park­er, answered fan ques­tions posed across social media chan­nels on an inter­ac­tive live video stream native to Face­book.

The Face­book Live Q&As marked the NBA’s first time open­ing tal­ent up to fan ques­tions and engage­ment on social media. As a result, dur­ing the NBA Finals peri­od, the NBA saw a record amount of inter­ac­tions and impres­sions on Face­book, reach­ing 70 mil­lion fans on the Face­book Live posts alone. The league saw 130 per­cent year-over-year increase in fan inter­ac­tion on Face­book dur­ing the final cham­pi­onship round.

What are some oth­er out­stand­ing Face­book mar­ket­ing cam­paigns you saw in 2014?