‘Wired Magazine’ is genius and deserves every social media marketing award ever given. And here’s the best part: they barely did anything and have impressed me more than any other online campaign ever has.

In August 2009, they started the ‘Vanish’ contest in their magazine and on their Web site. The idea was pretty simple: One ‘Wired’ writer would try to vanish from humanity and anyone who found him would be rewarded $5,000.

Vanishing in a digital world is nearly impossible (except for Osama bin Laden), but ‘Wired’ wanted to prove otherwise. And while I’m sure they initially expected to get a good response with people doing some research to try and find him, they never imagined the response that followed over the following few weeks.

Now I could get into the details, but it took ‘Wired’ eight pages to do that, so in summary, a community was born all throughout the social Web and the hunt was on. People wrote blogs, managed social profiles/groups, hosted daily chats, etc.

But they did to the point of obsession — to the point of making it a full-time job.

At one point, Evan Ratliff (the vanishing writer) was on a beach running from a helicopter that was hunting him down. Readers knew everything about him (literally everything) except his current location, and people dedicated weeks of time to find him.

In the end, he was found by two readers on a street in New Orleans. Best part of all: the readers gave the $5,000 to a charity benefiting the city for post-Katrina repair.

I obviously only skimmed the surface of what was one of the most intense, engaging and most of all, fun, social campaigns ever conducted on the Web. Even more amazing is that the involvement from ‘Wired’ was minimal in comparison to the community’s involvement that sprung from nowhere.

If there’s anything to be inspired by from all of this it’s that using the social Web for any form of campaign, whether it be marketing or perhaps political, requires a certain level of fun, engagement and interest to truly spring into being a social experience that is successful.

The dedication that people put into this contest went beyond brand loyalty or even the cash prize (which they gave away). This was about gaining respect and recognition in a challenging and intriguing contest that was centered around mystery and community, the two traits that every successful viral campaign possesses.

The focus was put on the contest itself and making it as fun, mysterious and intriguing as possible to be successful. From that came the goals of brand loyalty and exposure because the community was so satisfied from the experience.

You’ve heard it before, but it’s time for a reminder: in social media marketing, it’s not about you. It’s NOT about you. If you put the focus on you, the campaign will only go so far and it will only attract those looking to win some bucks.

If you put the focus on them, on recognition, on intrigue, mystery, challenge and fun, you will be blown away by the results.

Bravo, ‘Wired,’ bravo.

Read the full, extremely enjoyable ‘Wired’ article here.