Tim Burton’s 3D epic “Alice in Wonderland” doesn’t hit theaters until March 2010, but Walt Disney Pictures is already utilizing social media to spread the word about it. Disney started a Facebook () campaign for the film in July and this week has used the service to show off two new posters from the film (a third is on the way).

In July, Disney created fan pages for three of the characters in the film and offered fans of the most popular character early access to the film’s first teaser. If you’ll recall, that plan was somewhat thwarted when early copies made their way onto the web a day in advance.

The Mad Hatter (played by Johnny Depp in the film) was the most popular fan page, so it’s no surprise that his page has received the most updates. On Monday and Wednesday, Disney posted updates to the Mad Hatter’s page, showing off new poster designs and linking users to even higher quality images on Flickr (). You can see both posters here and here.

Studios usually offer up press materials to media publications and movie blogs, who then disseminate that information to the fans. Offering this sort of publicity info directly to the interested public — using social media channels — is a pretty new concept.

For Disney, it might be all about recognizing that the target audience for “Alice in Wonderland” is Internet savvy and connected with social media. Thus, it makes sense to make a direct connection for some of this material and in effect, brand more of the buzz.

What do you think about how movie studios use social media with publicity campaigns?

Love the marketing strategy. Love the imagery. Can’t WAIT for the movie!!!