It’s been a little while since they changed the rules but a recent comment in a Facebook Group got me to thinking I should update the old post “How to hold a contest on Facebook” that was written over a year ago.
A lot has changed since then. Facebook has radically changed the guidelines for holding a contest on your Page. You can read about them at http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php
The basic points to know are these:
- Only a Page can run a contest. Not your Profile, Not your Group, Not your Event.
- The Contest must be administered by use of an App. That means you can’t simply announce a contest on your wall. Apps on Facebook can create Tabs. That Tab can collect your contest entries and describe what it that they will win.
- Although you can require people to LIKE your Page, you can’t ask people to vote or enter by LIKEs, Comments, or Shares.
There’s some additional legal gobledeegook but that part is easy.
Simple, right? The good news is that it really is much simpler than it used to be. Back in the early days you needed to get prior permission from Facebook which meant having an Account Manager at Facebook. To get one of those you needed to spend over $10,000 on advertising. (really!)
Want a custom App for your Facebook Contest? That’s what I do. https://areweconnected.com/facebook/
The penalty for running a contest outside of their guidelines? You can lose your page. All your fans, all your contacts, everything. Gone! Sound like fun?
How would they find out? Have any competitors? All they have to do is report it.
But I see contests all the time, those Pages haven’t been deleted. True, maybe they were never reported because their competitors never knew they were doing anything wrong (until now, they probably just read the same post you did). Sorry about that. 😉
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, bought a cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and now,a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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