Since this post was written, Facebook updated their promotion guidelines:
1. Facebook no longer requires their prior written approval to administer a promotion on Facebook.
2. Facebook no longer requires a minimum media spend to support the promotion.
This means that you are not required to have a media campaign on Facebook to run a promotion, nor do you need to ask for approval on the contest Terms and Conditions from the Facebook team.
With over 400 500 million active users who spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook, coupled with the ability to create branded Pages and leverage an advertising platform that provides marketers with some of the most granular targeting capabilities available, it is understandable why Facebook has become an invaluable marketing medium. What is more difficult to understand, however, is what exactly you are and are not permitted to do on your Facebook Page to encourage Fan engagement, accumulation of Fans, signups, or otherwise. Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines have been published for some time, but even after reading them (if you even read them before launching a promotional campaign), you’ll still lack answers about specific dos and don’ts. What about giving away a free dinner for two to the first person who comments on your Page status? (Nope.) What about choosing your Page’s profile picture from a photo contest of Fan images posted to your page? (Nope.)
We’ve worked with Facebook to elucidate ambiguities inherent in their Guidelines. This post intends to clarify what the Facebook Promotion Guidelines mean and provide illustrative examples to help you understand what promotional methods you can get away with on behalf of your clients or company. However you choose to execute your Facebook promotions is up to you, but this should serve as a guide to minimize the likelihood that Big Bad Bigfoot Facebook comes back and bites ya in the bum.
So let’s get started.
How Facebook Likes to Play
- Facebook requires you to have a Representative who can approve your promotion plans.
- Facebook requires you to run your promotion via a third party application, usually on a Page tab. This, along with clear verbiage about Facebook’s non-involvement in the promotion, allows Facebook to avoid any liabilities associated with an unhappy Fan who never got their free BananaHandle (for example).
- Facebook likes money. All promotions that run on Facebook require a $10K budget for Facebook ads to get approval to run on the site. True story.
- Linking off-site to a promotion on your company website or third party site does not require Facebook approval.
- Facebook requires you to complete the checklist tasks below, prior to promotion launch:
Have a Promo in Mind? Check out this Facebook Promotion Checklist
- Designate an individual to act as a primary contact to address any communications from Facebook with respect to the promotion.
- Include the following provisions within your official promotion rules:
- Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.
- Complete release for Facebook from each entrant or participant.
- Any questions, comments or complaints regarding the promotion will be directed to you, not Facebook.
- Submit materials for any promotion you plan on administering through the Facebook Platform to your account representative for review and approval at least 7 days prior to the start date of the promotion.
Nope. Sorry. You May NOT:
via Dagring (Flickr)
- Condition entry in the promotion upon a user providing content on Facebook, such as making a post on a profile or Page, status comment, like, or photo/video upload.
- This means all contests similar to “First 50 people to comment on our status will be entered to win a free pickle” are a no-go.
- Administer a promotion that users automatically enter by becoming a Fan of your Page.
- A solution to this is “Like-gating,” explained later.
- Notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.
- This means you need to use email or SMS to communicate with a promotion winner. Notifying the winner via Facebook comments, messages, updates, or wall posts is prohibited.
- Instruct people (in the rules or elsewhere) to sign up for a Facebook account before they enter the promotion.
- A solution to this is “Like-gating,” explained later.
- Market to individuals who are under the age of 18.
- Market to individuals who reside in a country embargoed by the United States.
- If a sweepstakes, cannot be open to individuals residing in Belgium, Norway, Sweden, or India.
- Cannot promote any of the following product categories: gambling, tobacco, firearms, prescription drugs, or gasoline.
- Prize or any part of the prize cannot include alcohol, tobacco, dairy, firearms, or prescription drugs.
- Dairy? Yes, dairy.
- You can still promote alcohol or dairy products; you just can’t give them away.
- If a sweepstakes, you cannot condition entry upon the purchase of a product, completion of a lengthy task, or other form of consideration.
- Mention “Facebook” in the promotion’s materials or rules except in the following ways:
- “You can enter the Promotion through the [application name] application on the Facebook Platform. You can also find the application on the [tab name] tab on the [Page name] Page on Facebook.”
- As a provision within your official rules for the promotion.
Go for it. You MAY:
via Dagring (Flickr)
- Use a third party application to condition entry to the promotion upon a user providing content. For example, you may administer a photo contest whereby a user uploads a photo through a third-party application to enter the contest.
- Users can enter the promotion in the following locations on Facebook:
- On the canvas Page of an application on the Facebook Platform.
- On an application box in a tab on a Facebook Page.
- Users can enter the promotion in the following locations on Facebook:
- Like-gating: Only allow Fans of your Page to access the tab that contains the third-party application for the promotion.
- Set the Facebook landing Page to the promotion tab. Users must Like the page before they see the content.
- Collect an address or email through the third-party application for the promotion in order to contact the winner by email or standard mail.
- Publicize a promotion that is administered completely off of Facebook.
- Use email as the primary communication channel between an advertiser and promotion entries.
- Provide Facebook-exclusive offers and giveaways to Fans.
Examples of Brands Doing it Correctly
Sweepstakes
User-Generated Content Contests
You’re Now Approaching the End of this Really Long Blog Post
So. Can you get away with bending the rules a wee bit? Probably. And it’s even more likely if Facebook’s making a lot of money from your ad spend. Although we have not yet heard of anyone getting “shut down,” we’d prefer not to risk it with our clients.
Anyway, was this helpful? Do you still have questions? Do you need us to build a custom tab or promotion application for you? How about integration of your Yelp reviews into your Facebook Page? Do you like double scoop ice cream sundaes? Let us know at least something in the comments below!
This article is from Shannon Johnson
Shannon is a social media specialist at Sitewire and an ASU Honors Marketing and Spanish graduate who has a background in pay-per-click management and search engine optimization but now primarily collaborates with Sitewire’s social media team to help clients achieve breakthroughs in user engagement, enhanced sentiment, and increased brand awareness in the online social space. Shannon is both diligent and ambitious, yet still enjoys making light of things and cracking jokes that only kindergartners tend to like. Find her on Twitter: @shannopop
Shannon has written 10 posts.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I like it!
Thanks, Phil! How are Perry Design Facebook efforts going? Hope all is well!
Great article, really highlights how ambiguous the current guidelines are, more examples really help put context to it.
Noted they updated the promotions guidelines yesterday, you now don’t require written approval upfront. Time saved.
Glenn
Thanks, Glenn. I’ve been meaning to update this post to reflect the new changes.
Glad you found the information useful and thanks for the comment!
Very informative article…thank you. We are considering running a promotion and using facebook…I found your examples to be very useful.
Thanks, Michael! So glad you did.
I had a question that perhaps someone could answer..
Say I own a bread company, and I write a post on my Facebook page saying, “Visit my bakery from this date – that date and all visitors get a loaf for $20. Let us know where you heard about this deal!”
Then when they come in and mention they heard about it on Facebook, I ask “are you a fan”, and they say yes, I look it up on my facebook page and confirm. I then give them the loaf for $15.
Am I able to do this while staying within the guidelines? I am not communicating the promotion on Facebook nor am I administering it on Facebook either. What happens when some of the fans start posting about the discounted price for being a member on my page wall?
Thanks for the help! Great article!
Hi Carlos,
This is a tricky one and here’s why. On one hand, you are abiding by the guidelines by not requiring your Facebook fans to use Facebook communication (likes, comments, wall posts, etc.) to enter the contest/deal. You are simply rewarding your existing fans by publishing a deal to your page. On the other hand, you’re conditioning the reward on liking the page, which is prohibited.
One thing to keep in mind is that manually checking whether someone is a fan of your page during the check-out process can increase wait time and elongate the check-out process.
What you could do is send out an update to existing fans regarding the deal, and publish a wall post to remind fans to check their updates. Once in the store, they have to pull the message up on their phone at checkout to claim the discounted loaf. Or, you could explore Facebook Deals, an approach that would do a better job at increasing awareness, in-store foot traffic, and loyalty. Check out this post to learn more: http://www.sitewire.com/blog/2010/11/05/welcome-to-facebook-deals-your-next-generation-loyalty-card/
Let me know how it goes!
Hi Shannon,
Great post. Thanks also for updating it with the latest info. Facebook has been excellent at opening up the promotional opportunities for Brands while maintaining “safety” controls.
Peter
Thanks, Peter!
In your post you indicate:
“Prize or any part of the prize cannot include alcohol, tobacco, dairy, firearms, or prescription drugs”
Yet in your example above, Hornitos was giving away a pair of bottles of tequila. Last time I checked, Tequila fell in the “Alcohol” category.
So can you or can you not give away, say tickets for free wine tasting in a promotion?
Hi Liz,
Hornitos is not actually giving away alcohol. They’re giving away tequila. They are giving away different “pairs” of prizes every month. This month they’re giving away night vision goggles I suppose: http://www.facebook.com/HornitosTequila?ref=ts.
As far as your question goes, the answer would be no if you take “Prize or any part of the prize cannot include alcohol, tobacco, dairy, firearms, or prescription drugs” literally. At the end of the day it really comes down to whether you or your business are willing to bend the rules. Good luck!
What if we want to give away a prize to the 2,000 ‘like’? We’re giving away a $100 gift card to Buffalo Wild Wings (no alcohol allowed on the tab) to the winner & 10 of his friends. How can we go about to do that? We figured we’ll mention the 10 friends to encourage people to get t heir friends to ‘like’ us as well.
Hi,
I had a question about one of the cannots. I understand you can’t notify the winner by announcing their name on the newsfeed or wall, but can you even say “Congrats John Smith” (for example) on the Wall or News Feed if you’ve already notified them via email?
Time to update article (again)?
http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php
Does this one break the rules?
http://www.webrecruit.co.uk/blog/general/chance-win-ipad-2/
Seems like it does break the rules since #3 states that “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.”