Fast food burger chain Smashburger is launching a social media contest to promote its limited extension of the Sin City Burger, raising the stakes by having users share their most attention-grabbing Las Vegas survival tips. 

Las Vegas fans are sharing their wildest tricks on navigating the Sin City lifestyle for a chance to win a trip for two to the party town. Smashburger is attempting to engage with fans to hype up awareness surrounding the limited-edition burger to ensure its success while available. 

"Social media is extremely important to this campaign, and is ultimately the crux to making it successful," said Christine Ferris, PR and marketing manager at Smashburger. "Social media has become an increasingly important vehicle for Smashburger when it comes to engaging with fans outside of our restaurants. 

"We are encouraging our guests to submit their most outrageous tips for surviving the Sin City on Instagram and Twitter using the campaign hashtag #SinCitySurvivalTips for a chance to ultimately put those tips to the test with a free trip to Las Vegas," she said. "It allows our fans to get creative and think out-of-the-box while utilizing their social media channels to partake in a fun campaign. 

"We can not wait to see the submissions."

For many consumers, Las Vegas, NV is known as an untamed town where fans go to let loose. Stories surrounding the city have been known to grab individuals? attention, and many depictions of the town in pop culture have been known to gain substantial followings. 

A variety of shocking and comedic posts area already gaining speed on Twitter such as ?if you get thrown out of a casino, do not go back, you will get caught, and it will not end well,? and ?trying to win it all back on '0' is bold, too bold.? Entries must include the hashtag #SinCitySurvivalTips to be considered to win the prize. 

The chain will also be congregating the best content from the campaign on a mobile-optimized aggregator Web site. Users can visit the site to browse the comical and outrageous posts. 

The Sin City Burger has originally only been available in Las Vegas and Smashburger is expanding it to all markets for until October 26. The chain is attempting to hype up the limited edition and leveraging user-generated content, giving it an edge as consumers enjoy becoming directly involved with a campaign and reading unsponsored posts. 

The Hershey Company's Reese's brand completed a similar campaign and appealed to college football fans this season by partnering with popular on-air ESPN personalities to get consumers in the game through social media contests, helping it stand out during the fall marketing frenzy (see more). 

Also, hair coloring products manufacturer Just for Men promoted its line for beards with a new contest in which users share pictures of their facial hair through social media, leveraging interest in playful content and the cult-like followings of sports announcers Keith Hernandez and Walt Frazier (see more). 

Social media campaigns on the rise, especially for the fall season and offer brands to directly interact with consumers.

"The goals of the campaign are two-fold," Ms. Ferris said. "The most important goals is to increase engagement with our fans on our social media channels. 

"We know that social media is becoming a preferred method for communicating with brands, and we want to encourage our fans to engage with us more," she said. "We feel that this campaign is a fun way to do so. 

"Secondly, we launched the campaign with a Las Vegas theme to gain awareness of our recent Limited Time Offering burger, The Sin City Burger. This has been our Las Vegas regional burger, previously only available in this market, and is now on menus nationwide for a limited time. We have heard great feedback from fans and hope this campaign will increase awareness and trial for the burger."

Final take
Brielle Jaekel is editorial assistant at Mobile Marketer