The do’s and don’ts of running competitions on Facebook

When it comes to running a competition on your Facebook page there are pages “breaking the rules” left right and centre. What this means is that you are violating Facebook’s rules and they can shut your page down (usually without telling you!)

You can’t:

• Market your promotion to under 18s.
• Run a promotion that promotes gambling, tobacco, firearms, prescription drugs or petrol (or give these away as prizes).
• Ask people to purchase a product to enter or complete a lengthy task.
• Promote a sweepstake to individuals residing in Belgium, Norway, Sweden or India.
• Make the condition of entry that they have to post something (content, photo, video) on your Facebook page.
• Run a promotion whereby they automatically enter just by being a fan of your page.

If you aren’t breaking those Facebook rules and still want to run a competition, you are supposed to get written approval from your Facebook account rep – however to have an account rep you need to spend over $10,000 per month on Facebook advertising. To get approval from a rep without spending $10,000 a month is near on impossible. Hence I am going to assume that readers you are not spending $10k a month.

The rules you need to follow to run a promotion are:

• Fans can only enter the competition on an application tab on your page, eg. the FMBL or one of the WiIdlfire applications – this means you cannot run a competition on the wall of your page.
• You need to include the following in a clear and conspicuous manner adjacent to any promotion entry field: “This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to [recipient(s) of information] and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for [disclose any way that you plan to use the user’s information].”
• You can’t mention “Facebook” in the promotion’s rules except when explaining how to enter, eg. “You can enter the Promotion through the [tab name] tab on the [Page name] Page on Facebook.”

The full guidelines explain this in more detail. The easiest way to get around these is to run the competition on your website then you can mention it on your page wall and drive people to your website – which is always a good thing. If you do decide to run it on your Facebook page then use an application such as the Wildfire applications which will mean you avoid “breaking the rules”… good luck!

Lara Solomon is the founder of Mocks, mobile phone socks www.MyMocks.com, founder of Social Rabbit – your guide in the world of social media www.Facebook.com/SocialRabbit and author of ‘Brand New Day – the Highs & Lows of Starting a Small Business’. Lara’s business LaRoo was the winner of the NSW Telstra Micro-Business Award in 2008.