Running a contest on Facebook is a great way to create engagement, gain new followers and ultimately, help stimulate sales. If you do not follow Facebook’s terms though, it could result in your Facebook business page getting shut down and that could be a catastrophe. If you are careful to abide by the guidelines Facebook has created for running contests though, it should be no problem and many businesses are finding this is an excellent social media marketing campaign to employ.
The first thing you must do is find a third party application to use to administer all contests, promotions and sweepstakes that you would like to run on Facebook. It is not permitted to use the Facebook platform itself for these tasks and that includes your own Facebook profile, business Facebook page, wall or even the events app. This also includes any other Facebook functionality and Facebook is a stickler about this rule. A third party application is just fine though and that includes one that you develop yourself or through the use of a contractor.
Including a complete Facebook release to go along with your contest, promotion or sweepstake is required along with acknowledgment that the event you are hosting is not sponsored, endorsed, administered by or associated with Facebook in any way. Along with the Facebook release, you must also present clear contest rules that show up on the application page. You can have users Like your page, check into a Place, or connect to your app through Facebook when they join your event, as long as it is administered through a third party application. It cannot be used as a voting mechanism or as the registration for your campaign.
It is permissible to collect names and emails from those that register for the sweepstakes, promotion or contest you are holding, but you can’t contact the winners through Facebook messaging, chat, or posting the winner on your wall or theirs. You also can’t use Facebook to choose for a random draw, unless it is done through the third party application.
When you make sure that your contest, promotion or sweepstakes follows Facebook rules for these events, you will be amazed at how you can leverage the use of Facebook for marketing purposes. When you keep these events targeted to the market that is most likely to purchase your products, your bottom line can increase in impressive ways.
