So if you’re like us and many other businesses you want to get more social media traffic right?
You get a great idea, I’m going to run a contest!
You whip up a Fan page, and start telling your friends to “like” your page to be entered to win a Free iPad.
Soon you’re fan page explodes with Likes and your fans grow from 0 to 5,000 over night.
But when you wake up in the morning, your fan page has been deleted.
This of course is not a true story, but it could very well happen.
Here’s why:
1. Contest Must Be Inside of Facebook
Facebook requires that you create an app to run a contest. This could easily get costly for you to build yourself and if you used one of the Facebook contest apps they either charge monthly fees or just plain suck.
Facebook Rule
2. You have to “Release” Facebook from your contests
Alright, so you have to also make sure you mention just about everywhere that Facebook is not involved whatsoever.
Facebook Rule
ii. Promotions on Facebook must include the following:
3. No “Like” My Fanpage to Win Allowed
In a nutshell don’t ask people to like your wall or basically interact with your page to win. Bummer.
Facebook Rule
iii. You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app. For example, you must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.
4. Seriously, We Mean No “Liking” a Page to Win
If you think they might let it slide, they repeat it 2 more times.
Facebook Rule
iv. You must not use Facebook features or functionality as a promotion’s registration or entry mechanism. For example, the act of liking a Page or checking in to a Place cannot automatically register or enter a promotion participant.
5. Can’t Notify Winners Through Facebook
So you want to notify your winner that he won with a simple Facebook message? Nope, can’t do that either.
Facebook Rule
vi. You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles (timelines) or Pages.
After going through the rules what’s the point of trying to run a contest inside of Facebook anyways? Why risk getting your Fanpage deleted?
We’ll there is a way around it.
Send Fans to your own site to enter.
Check out our plugin which runs these contests for you.
If you want to see the latest Facebook rules yourself check them out here:
Facebook Guidelines
Comment below on what you think about these rules!
