Tag Archives: like and share competitions

Facebook relax competition rules

Facebook have decided to relax their competition (promotion) rules, allowing brands and businesses to setup and administer contests directly from their Page. The previous rules were regularly flouted by Pages of all sizes from small businesses to big brands, so the move is a logical one.

It’s a helpful change as competitions are a great way to create interaction and to attract potential new clients as well as engage existing ones. Facebook Page Admins can now run competitions promotions freely on their Timelines without the requirement of using a Facebook App (Tab). Fans of your Page and in fact, any Facebook users can now Like, Comment, or create posts as a mean of entering a competition or to vote in a poll. Creating a promotion with a Page is now faster and easier and plenty of Likes and Comments will ensure that it’s promoted to a wide audience via their News Feeds.

Announcing the change Facebook stated: “We want to make it easier for businesses of all sizes to create and administer promotions on Facebook, and to align our policies to better meet the needs of marketers.” 

This suggests the change is aimed at helping smaller businesses who may not have the resources to design and setup Facebook Apps. But there is no doubt that the rules were difficult to enforce with so many Pages Admins ignoring them.

The following is now permitted for competitions:

• Collect entries by having users post on the Page, Like or Comment on a Page post.
• Collect entries by having users message the Page (using the Message button on top right of a Page).
• Utilize Likes as a voting mechanism

It can be difficult to select a winner from Comments and Likes; especially if there are 100s of them. It’s also hard to notify winners without an email address. A solution to both of these problems is a Comment and Like Importer, eg this one from Shortstack. Contacting winners by email is more professional and easier than posting a public post asking winners to contact the Page plus email addresses can be used for marketing purposes such as an email newsletter.

It should be noted that ‘Like and Share’ competitions are still not permitted as Shares aren’t allowed as a means of competition entry.

The relaxation of the rules doesn’t mean Facebook Apps are dead as they give you the opportunity to enhance competitions with a dedicated space, branding and to capture contact details of entrants. Furthermore,  it’s not just competitions they can be used for - read 5 ways to use Facebook Apps. We can produce Facebook Apps to meet your requirements - find out more. If you need advice on which is the best option let us know. 

Facebook also stated its page terms have been updated to restrict Pages from tagging or encouraging Facebook users to tag themselves in content “that they are not actually depicted in.” For example, Pages cannot tag people on posters promoting events or ask people to tag themselves in photos of their products or offices for a chance to win a prize.

For more information regarding the changes, check out Facebook’s downloadable Promotion Guidelines.

Facebook competitions: There are rules

Update 27/8/2013: Facebook have dropped the requirement for competitions and promos to be run via an App. Liking and Commenting is now permitted as a means of competition entry although Sharing is not permitted. Read more from Facebook.

You’ve seen them in your News Feed and quite possibly today; the Like or Like and Share competitions from businesses and brands. They are widespread often generate lots of ‘entries’ but Facebook’s Page Terms clearly state that competitions such as the Hot Diamonds competition below from The Goldman in Gloucester are not permitted.

So let’s look at how this competition breaches the rules plus problems that could arise:

1) Facebook’s rules state that competitions must be run using a Facebook App. This competition is run on the Timeline and not using a dedicated app like this #SipToBelieve competition from Twinings Tea or this one from Sticher Radio that I blogged about earlier this year.

2) There is no acknowledgement that the “promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook”.

3) Entrance to competitions cannot be conditional on users liking a Page or a Wall post. Facebook states, “You must not use Facebook features or functionality as a promotion’s registration or entry mechanism”.

4) If a competition is run through a App you can collect the entrants names onto a spreadsheet or similar. It’s not so easy to obtain all entrants and pick a winner without this or similar functionality.

5) Without an entrant’s contact details the Page Admin has no way of contacting the winner directly, other than posting on their own Page, the winner’s Profile or by messaging them. Not very satisfactory and also a breach of Facebook rules. 

Most important of all though is that strictly speaking Facebook can turn your Page off without warning for breach of the rules. In practice, they’re likely to warn you first but given the difficulties highlighted above it’s not worth the risk.

If you need advice on setting up a Facebook promotion or competition please get in touch.