Inside Facebook

Toyota is once again trying to make the world a slightly better place via the electric-car Prius (and make itself a profit). The car manufacturer is now using a Facebook page to inspire fans of the Hybrid to share the positive things they’re doing on a day-to-day basis. The app, called Random Acts of Prius, asks users to earn points for completing activities, then share those activities on the page and with friends.

A new random act is added daily for fans to complete, with a colorful bar graph tracking how many people have done each task. Acts are grouped into six categories, with color-coded bars representing health, creativity, happiness, environment, knowledge and community. So far, 275 acts have been completed since the application’s inception a little more than a week ago.

Each act is assigned a point value, and users can climb up through the ranks from Eco Connoisseur to Fuel Economist, Carbon Conservationist, Energy Efficianado and Hyper Miler. There is also the built-in ability to share your progress and acts with friends and in your news feeds, and stir up a little friendly competition in the race to Hyper Miler status. A leaderboard displays those with the most points, so those adding their own acts can track their progress against other users.

The Random Acts campaign should appeal to users on a number of different levels. The acts are simple and light-hearted, from hand-writing a letter to throwing a dinner party where everyone must wear a hat. My act only required a couple of lemons and a dirty kitchen.

Most of the acts have an environmentally-friendly theme, which caters to Prius owners and fans. The added element of a points system gives participants goals that they can share, and the campaign is something that users can feel good about sharing.

In terms of overall effect, the official page has a little more than 42,000 fans, and it’s steadily gaining a few dozen new people per day, according to PageData. On it, fans can add their own photos and commentary to the page wall, and they seem to be actively doing so. The app itself has 1,200 monthly active users to date.