LEGO announced the arrival of Mindstorm’s EV3. If you grew up in the 90s, you know where this article is going and you’re probably already as excited as we are. It’s a great day for children, social media, and the world.

Mindstorm is a robot you can build out of lego bricks. You can customize the robot any way you like and program its computer any way you like (the “brain” brick is Linux-based and totally hackable). The new version is smarter, comes with a better kit, an SD card slot, and features a bigger, more precise LED screen that makes programming the bot easier.

The robot is currently just a toy. While it’s also used in schools to teach robotics, it’s primarily a child’s plaything. But we predict that this generation of the product will explode in popularity across all demographics, because LEGO is a social marketing genius.

Don’t believe us? Here’s a list of all the things they do that we’ve been advocating for years:

1. LEGO’s Facebook page builds community. Lego just doesn’t sell products through their page. They post photos of fan projects, six year olds building their first sets, letters from long-time customers, and a whole host of other types of content.

2. LEGO has apps. Rebrick.com is another example of social media strategy done right. You can use it to browse through your friends’ designs, upload your own designs, and share designs through other social media sights like Flickr. Though the site might not have been created by Lego per se, it was definitely assisted by partnering with Lego (otherwise it would have been some sort of copyright violation).

3. LEGO’s social properties are integrated. You don’t need to be a social marketing expert to know what Lego is doing here. They’re attempting to show you, the potential customer, that Legos aren’t just for fun, not just creative, but that there is a Lego communityyou can join whenever you’d like to put down $30 on an introductory set. And note the complexity of the designs demonstrated. This is not an attempt to build a community for children. They are targeting you.

Finally, you need to remember something else about Mindstorm — the whole concept was basically made for awesome YouTube videos (again, very sharable medium). Projects range from this Giant 8-legged Monstrosity:

…to this Sudoku-solving robot:

…to a genuine 3-D printer:

Because these videos are so unique, and so inspiring, this new Mindstorm set could convert people who see these videos to buyers, just as videos of Minecraft projects helped the sandbox game sell 17.5 million copies. With more research coming out about how video games actually can have surprising health benefits, it looks like video games will continue to garner a positive rep and solid sales.

What’s your take? Do you think social media will actually make a difference in how many units are sold? Did you kind of want a set after watching some of those videos?

Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to see if we can make a working Lego R2-D2.