• by Karlene Lukovitz , December 18, 2015

Showing off DIY crafts of all kinds on social media has become an obsession for many.

One craze is candy crafting — and that's a sweet opportunity for a colorful brand like Perfetti Van Melle USA's Airheads.

Airheads has been encouraging fans to craft with its candies for some time, as the 11 seasonally themed boards on its Pinterest page illustrate.

This fall and holiday season, the brand ramped up its efforts with a Twitter-based social campaign.

Carat and digital agency Huge partnered with Social Media Link, sending Airheads Craft Kits to 8,000 social influencers (including mommy and crafting bloggers) selected from the 700,000 in SML's Smiley360 influencers community/platform.

The bloggers were encouraged to share their creations on their social media channels, using the Smiley360 dashboard and the hashtag #AirheadsCrafts.

The kits included various flavors of Airheads and its Bites and Xtremes lines, crafting tools, lollipop sticks and a brochure with ideas and tips. Many of the bloggers chose to make fun crafts with their kids (one example: RondaWrites). Creations have ranged from festive cupcakes and cakes to tree ornaments and candy houses and less seasonal items like an alligator and a basketball hoop. 

So far, in the two months since the campaign launch (October 13 through December 15), the brand has seen a total of 14,330 Twitter mentions, reports SML. Baseline Twitter mentions for the month prior to the campaign totaled 1,775.

Total impressions are close to 3 million, and the brand's share of voice across social media has grown threefold, per Radian6 data cited by SML.

Starting November 1 and running through January 1, 2016, Airheads is also running a Facebook-based sweepstakes in which fans can earn entries to win Airheads Craft Kits by posting on specific dates about what they would create with one of the kits.