Running a Competition on Facebook - 10 things you really need to know

Have been struggling this week to get to terms with Facebook!

A client of mine wants to use Facebook as a competition mechanic to drive more Fans to their Facebook pages. Sounds simple. It isn't.

There are many ins and outs to running a Facebook competition and a number rules and regulations that need to be observed with the possible penalty of having your site closed down if you don't follow them!

So after spending a day looking into this - here is my breakdown of what’s required in order to run a legitimate Facebook competition…

You can read the full guidelines here but below is summary of the most important points.

• You CANNOT run a competition that allows people to enter JUST by ‘liking’ the page. Or by ‘liking’ a post, status message, link, picture or video.
• However, you CAN ask them to ‘like’ your page BEFORE they enter the competition via a third party application or another website.
• You CANNOT run a competition that allows people to enter JUST by ‘checking in’ to a place.
• You CANNOT run the competition directly on your Facebook page. It has to be via a third party application or another website. You can promote it via your Facebook page wall but the actual competition has to be via an application or another website (the obvious place is your website or blog).
• You CANNOT notify your winners via Facebook at all. They must be emailed with their notification of winning or told via your website for example.
• You MUST add a Facebook disclaimer on your competition application or wherever you are hosting your competition, if the competition is to be promoted on Facebook. The disclaimer is: “This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You are providing your information to [disclose 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 MUST ensure that all entrants to your competition are NOT staff, sponsors or associated with in any way to Facebook.
• You CANNOT ask people to create an account with Facebook itself in order to enter your competition.
• You CAN collect information about your entrants (such as email address, name, location etc) if you are using an application or web form for your competition.
• You CANNOT ask people to upload something for the competition to your Facebook page wall. This HAS to be done via a third party application or your website/blog.

There are other conditions as will see from their official terms, however if you stick to the above rules, you won’t be going too far wrong....

By the way, two of the most popular apps on Facebook for promotions and competitions are Wildfire and EasyPromos.

We hope this brief guide helps you to run your next competition on Facebook! Don’t forget to ‘like’ our new Facebook page while you're there!