Pistol Annies may make country music, a genre steeped in the heritage of America itself, but they’ve been promoting their new album in a very 21st century way, with the group revealing to Mashable the extent of a special four-week marketing campaign that saw them tackle various social networks and other platforms.

The group set up their album – out this week – by pushing The Great Annies Adventure, which saw fans try and solve puzzles both online and offline in a trail that ultimately led to prizes and tickets for a secret show. Clues were left all over the internet, including on Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram, Path, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter and Vine while the narrative for them was based around a comic book designed by the group. "I don't think any of us have ever had this much fun promoting an album," group member Miranda Lambert told Mashable. "Watching them dissect clues, chat online about where we're taking them next, and race to each location is beyond cool."

"The adventure quest we've been on with the fans has been incredible," Lambert said. "Even if no one was following along I think we'd still have a great time doing it, so to see how huge the response has been is amazing." It’ll be interested to see if the campaign has the desired effect on Annie Up in the forthcoming Billboard chart.

Miranda Lambert
Miranda Lambert's Pistol Annies have been playing the social networking game to great effect