Running a competition on a Facebook business page can be a great way to raise brand awareness, boost followers of your page and grab attention. But there are many rules which govern the type of promotions you can run and you must ensure that you adhere to the Facebook competition rules in 2020.
 

What are the key Facebook competition policies?

Facebook set out their policies for promotions on Pages, groups and events on their website.

These include: 
Your competition or promotion must be run lawfully
And this is your responsibility. You must set the rules for entry, have a set of terms and conditions and ensure that your competition complies with any relevant regulations which may govern your promotion or prize. 

You must make it clear that your competition is in no way linked to Facebook
Make it clear that Facebook do not sponsor, administer or endorse your competition. And that Facebook are in no way associated with the competition

You must administer your competition in an approved way
Promotions can be run on groups, pages, events or via apps but personal timelines mustn’t be used. You can’t use friend connections as a way to run competitions – e.g. encouraging people to tag a friend to enter. There is more on this below.

You are responsible for administering your competition
As a brand you are responsible for the running of your competition. Facebook make it very clear that you run a promotion at your own risk and they will not assist you if anything goes wrong. 

Make sure you collect data in line with regulations
If your competition involves the collection of user’s personal data (name, age etc) then you must be clear that it is you that is collecting the data, not Facebook. You must ensure that you comply with all relevant data collection regulations and specifically that you comply with GDPR.
 

Are ‘like and share’ competitions allowed?

Facebooks competition rules state that ‘personal timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions.’ 

They specifically mention that the following are not permitted:

1. Share on your timeline to enter
2. Share on your friend’s timeline to get additional entries

Facebook also state that you must not ‘incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page’. So, running a competition asking people to like your page to enter is also against Facebook rules in 2020.
 

Are ‘tag a friend’ competitions allowed?

The Facebook competition rules also state that you cannot run a promotion on the basis of tagging a friend in a post to enter, for example using a ‘like and share’ or ‘tag a friend’ mechanism for entry.

In terms of getting people to share your competition, it is better to work on your  competition offer, creative and content to make it interesting and enticing so that people naturally want to share it. 
 

What are the dos and don’ts for Facebook competitions?

We look at a few top tips to keep in mind when planning a Facebook competition:

Do understand your goal of running a Facebook competition. This will enable you to measure whether you’ve been successful

Do create an engaging competition with great content that people will want to naturally share

Do provide clear terms and conditions of entry that must be agreed to by the entrant. You may want a separate landing page to do this

Do create a marketing opt in tick box so that you can start to collect and build your own GDPR compliant prospect database

Do make sure you get permission to use any content generated through your competition – if you are asking users to generate content as part of your competition, then you will need to ensure you have permission to use it once your competition has closed. This could be users’ comments, videos or photos for example.

Don’t make your competition too complicated – simplicity is key. People are less likely to  enter if you ask too much of them.

Don’t promote your competition only on Facebook – You can cross promote your Facebook competition using other social channels or other forms of digital marketing to generate more interest

Don’t forget to follow up after your competition has closed – not only with the winner. If you generate leads from your competition make sure to make use of these to achieve your business objectives

Don’t ignore Facebook competition rules – as soon as you start to design your Facebook competition, check the most recent Facebook competition rules as these are updated regularly

At ACES marketing we can provide social media management services to your business. And our depth of knowledge of compliance and regulation means we can help you deliver best practice campaigns whatever your objectives. Get in touch with us for more information today.