Challenge:

Sponsored by Best Friends Animal Society (@BFAS), the Invisible Dogs Campaign is all about shining a light on local shelters around the country and letting the public know that there are incredible animals waiting for a home. They just need to be seen.

Method:

Best Friends Animal Society is leveraged a bevy of social media tools to get exposure for the campaign, making it extremely viral.

Contests
The t-shirt contest was an excellent way to spread awareness. In fact, it is how I first heard about the program. My good friend and latent business partner, Amanda Webster, recently invited me via Facebook to vote on her t-shirt design for the "Invisible Dogs Campaign." My one complaint is that the app used for the voting process was unfriendly and required you to register in order to vote.

Twitter
@BFAS is employing a hashtag #invisibledogs to make the campaign easy to share and follow.

Foursquare
Best Friends Animal Society designated Nov. 12 National Animal Shelter Check-in Day. People are encouraged to stop by and check-in their local shelter to adopt, volunteer or just support by tweeting (with the hashtag #invisibledogs of course) photos of the animals available for adoption.

Meetup Everywhere
BFAS used Meetup Everywhere tool to get community organizers to create events in their local communities.

Impact:

I am really rooting for this one, so I am hoping the efforts pay off.

When I search #invisibledogs on Twitter, most posts are RTs of the Mashable article and not photos/tweets from animal shelter check-ins.

I did a quick check of the shelters listed for the Nov. 12 National Animal Shelter Check-in Day and found only a handful of check-ins.

Users seem most active on Facebook, and the BFAS page has received 1100+ new likes in the past 7 days (PageData). Users are engaged, sharing photos, stories and commenting on posts.

If Best Friends Animal Society were my client:

Overall, I am pleased with the different tools BFAS leveraged and think they were smart in their approach. It is a fun, hip campaign, and for those of us who grew up in the 70's and 80's, the invisible dog leash invokes some nostalgia and strikes an emotional cord.

1. Increase PR efforts. Observing the impact of the efforts, it looks like the program could have benefited from added exposure. The Mashable article accounts for most of the search and Twitter hits for the program. More high profile features in targeted publications could increase awareness and cooperation.

2. Go local by recruiting street teams. Give away branded invisible dog leashes and t-shirts. Encourage people to walk their invisible dogs in public places to raise awareness about the campaign and to spread the word. This could be especially effective in large numbers for fundraising walks. Can you imagine a walk in which 1000's of people walk "invisible dogs".

3. Meetup Everywhere. Teaming up with Meetup was a smart idea, but participation was low. BFAS should consider providing more support and exposure to the groups and the Meetup partnership. I would suggest creating a toolkit that people everywhere can use and adapt to organize their own events. This is an effort that could have lasting benefits and help bring local focus to the national campaign. BFAS could also sponsor existing Meetup groups focused on animal rescue and animal rights. These established groups are already active with passionate animal advocates and could be powerful community leaders for the organization.

4. Direct mail/email. A year ago, I participated in a fundraiser walk for BFAS. I occasionally get emails and letters from the organization, but don't recall receiving anything about this campaign in particular. Amplifying the email and direct mail efforts could help activate an already loyal and passionate following.

5. Blog. BFAS does have a blog, but it is not frequently updated. I visited it hoping to find more information about the t-shirt contest and to see if there were any results from the Nov. 12 check in and found nothing. The blog could be a great way to share stories and involve the community. Frequent updates will also create interesting crawlable content, which in turn should help increase organic search rankings. BFAS could consider recruiting especially active community leaders, Meetup organizers and BFAS Facebook fans across the country to become regular contributors to the blog.