I am always on the lookout for interesting social media campaigns and initiatives.  I do this for two reasons: To fuel ideas for my work and motivate my team of social media practitioners, and to stay on top of how companies are integrating social media into their overall marketing and PR efforts to meet company goals.  Instead of keeping them all to myself, I am going to start sharing some of them here on my blog. Hopefully you will find some inspiration or at least gain fodder for new ideas.

So without further adieu, here is a list of three cool social media campaigns poised to generate buzz and a lot of attention (if they haven’t already.)

1. Bounce Energy just launched a Facebook contest where one customer and a friend could win free electricity for a year! Now there’s an incentive to get involved. The contest launched yesterday and goes through April 30. To enter, Facebook users must “like” the page and fill out the entry form. Those who already “like” the page, are prompted to complete the form.You can see it for yourself, here.
2. Urgent Animals at Fort Worth Animal Care and Control is a Facebook page that focuses on animals on the “E” list. The “E’ stands for euthanasia and through this Facebook page many of them have been  saved and found happy, loving homes. The mission of the page is to “give shelter animals extra exposure in hopes of getting them rescued or adopted.” According to a story in the Star-Telegram, about 1,000 dogs and cats have been saved through this Facebook page in the last year.
3. The Toronto Street Food Project is a campaign with one mission: Bring better street food to Toronto! It’s mission is further clarified in a post on Torontoist.com as this: “to try to ease the by-laws that are suffocating the Toronto street food scene.” The campaign makes it easy for Toronto residents to put pressure on their “councillors” by selecting their names from a drop down menu and submitting a pre-written from letter.  The Twitter hashtag #streetfoodto is another  major component of the campaign, with more than 1,000 tweets last week alone.

Those are three campaigns I found interesting over the last week or so. If you’ve seen any others, do share them in the comments. If this idea takes off I may consider a bi-weekly or monthly series of noteworthy social media campaigns.

[Cross-posted at Online Community Strategist]