Seaport Village’s Ben & Jerry’s locations are giving away free ice cream cones on election day from 5-9 p.m. as an “Election Confection” celebration.

In-the-know coworker, Callan let me know that Baskin Robbins was also doing some great work with the elections, so I checked it out. Not only are they doing great work with the elections, but with social media and branding overall. It’s a natural fit; people like to talk about stuff they love, and who doesn’t love ice cream!?

Check out The National Flavor Election Flavor Debate ’08. The Republican “Straight Talk Crunch” flavor vs. the Democratic “Whirl of Change” flavor. If you look to the cold and creamy to make your election decision, it looks like Obama will be running the country thanks to peanut-nougats, chocolate-covered peanut brittle and a caramel ribbon.

More importantly, Baskin Robbins and their Flavor Debate made all the right moves.

• Their Facebook page has 54,996 fans and they’re interacting with the brand through hundreds of wall posts and pictures.
• I took 2 minutes to type “Baskin Robbins” into monitter and people are talking! They weren’t talking casual mentions of BR either. They were talking about the Flavor Debate ’08 – exactly what BR’s smart PR folks wanted them to talk about!
• They’re represented on Flickr
• They’re talked about on Youtube
• They run a twitter account
• They’re saved on delicious
• And – they have a strong Wikipedia page

Ben & Jerry’s isn’t doing so bad themselves. With similar social interaction as Baskin Robbin’s and a heated debate on ice cream’s involvement in politics (2 subjects I never thought I’d combine in one sentence) their Facebook page has 287,819 fans!

So what are you doing to become one of these fine examples of successful social media campaigns?