Anheuser-Busch, to set itself apart from wine and hard liquor, which have been cutting into beer sales, has partnered with social network MingleNow in a photo-sharing push called "clink" as part of its 18-month-old "Here's to Beer" campaign, which aims to elevate the image of beer, writes AdWeek.

The promotion invites the site's 300,000 users to submit and share photos of themselves "clinking" beer when out and about. A-B snubbed MySpace, which has an enormous audience but a large under-21 segment, and opted for MingleNow, which aims to connect members based on the places they socialize.

The "clink" function will be woven into the site experience without overt Anheuser-Busch branding, so users can view it as a fun feature rather than a sales pitch; the effort will feature voting contests for points that can be exchanged for prizes, according to ClickZ.

In hot water with the attorneys general of 21 states over its age verification mechanism for Bud.TV, A-B hopes to stay clear of such controversy because of MingleNow's focus on the 21-35-year-old nightclub demographic.

MingleNow was created by ad network BlueLithium as a testing ground for developing anonymous demographic and user behavior data in order to improve its ad targeting on other sites.