Mass beauty brands grew exponentially in the social arena in 2011, showing they can play as hard as their prestige counterparts, said Maureen Mullen, Director of Research and Advisory Services at L2 Think Tank, a leading digital consultancy for prestige brands. Here are the campaigns the top three growing brands said worked for them—and they may just work for you, too.

• To promote its Nourishing Oil Care Collection in 2011, Dove launched its first-ever teaser campaign by announcing a new spokesperson on Facebook—exclusively. On Twitter, the #DearHair hashtag debuted as a “Promoted Trend” and was one of most successful CPG brand campaigns by Twitter at the time. And, fans shared their hair issues for a chance to star in their own Dove hair advertisement.

Nivea ran a “Skin to Skin” photo event during the summer, which asked fans to post photos of themselves “with” Rihanna via a special effects green screen implemented at events on Facebook. The brand also ran two Facebook sweepstakes that gave consumers the chance to win either Rihanna tickets in 10 U.S. cities or 2 tickets with backstage access to meet and greet the artist.

• To support the 40th anniversary of Great Lash Mascara in 2011, Maybelline New York launched a Facebook campaign that allowed fans to win limited-edition designs of Great Lash 40th Birthday items before they hit stores. Designer accessories, shopping sprees and iPads were given away every 40 hours. And, in September 2011, Maybelline became the first beauty brand to embrace Tumblr as a platform.

To view L2’s comprehensive study on how all beauty brands grew in 2011, please visit http://www.l2thinktank.com/which-beauty-brands-grew-the-most-in-social-in-2011/2012/