Want to know who has produced the best Facebook advertising campaigns over the past month? Yesterday Facebook announced the launch of the first Facebook Blue Ribbon Awards. According to the announcement, “The Blue Ribbon Award honors the top most creative and innovative campaigns and most engaging Pages each month. The clients and agencies will be recognized for their demonstrated abilities to engage with users in an authentic way.”

Every day there are new advertising campaigns on Facebook but these companies and agencies will be awarded for their ability to engage. While speaking on a panel at the OMMA Metrics conference in New York City earlier this week, I discussed the importance of shifting the allocation of budgets from one off campaigns to ongoing community building activities within large corporations. By and large the shift has not been made yet but it’s clearly a trend which we’re beginning to see and Facebook is smart to launch a service that rewards those companies that make the shift.

This month Facebook awarded H&M, Starbucks, and Vitamin Water for their Facebook campaigns. Vitamin Water has also been running television advertisements that promote their Facebook Page. Facebook is basing their awards on the level of interaction with fans and the total number of fans that have been attracted to any given page. This makes a ton of sense for Facebook who is looking to increase the level of brand engagement on their site.

Vitamin Water is one brand that has clearly invested heavily in building up the engagement level on their Facebook page through the use of custom video campaigns. Many of the large corporate pages tend to use custom videos and free downloadable wallpapers as a way to engage the fans. Ultimately any form of engagement is good engagement on these pages. While it’s much more difficult to measure the impact, having over a million fans is obviously a positive accomplishment for any large brand.

Are there any interesting campaigns that you’ve seen on Facebook that you think deserve recognition?