The New Facebook Rules
There’s a lot of confusion about the new rules governing how brands can run contests and sweepstakes on Facebook.  We dug into the rules with help from  360PR friend Susan Getgood, and we’re happy to share our learnings in this post.
Get Your Contest Approved.
The most important thing to know is that all promotions administered on Facebook must be approved in writing by Facebook at least seven days before the start of the contest (advice: try to give two weeks notice to Facebook.)
If you are just promoting your contest, and all the action (entries) take place elswhere, you do NOT need approval from Facebook, but you should also not mention Facebook at all. Our advice is to put a notice on the Tab page announcing the contest that says “this promotion is solely sponsored by (insert your brand or company name here).”
If you are administering the contest on Facebook there are very specific rules and prohibitions including specific language that you must include on the entry form and in the rules. The entry form and official rules must include acknowledgement that Facebook is not involved, a signed release from each entrant, and a company contact for questions from contestants (so Facebook will not be contacted.) Â Here are the other important Do’s and Dont’s.
What you CAN’T do
- Run a promo that targets individuals under the age of 18
- Promote gambling, tobacco, firearms, prescription drugs and gasoline
- Offer any of the above as prizes
- Offer dairy as a prize
- Run a sweepstakes that conditions the entry upon purchase or completion of a lengthy task
- You cannot condition entry to the promotion upon taking any action on Facebook, such as updating a status, posting on a profile or page, or uploading a photo (on standard FB areas). Rather, contests must send users to a custom app box in a tab or pop-up window to enter the contest
- Finally, no promotion can use any Facebook messaging mechanism (wall post, chat, message, poke, etc.) to administer the contest or alert winners. Winners must be alerted by email. You can promote the winners on the Facebook wall.
What you CAN do
- Post an announcement about a contests/sweeps on the wall; you just can’t administer it through the wall.
- Administer the contest on your website or on a Facebook tab.
- Run a photo contest in which a user uploads a photo or video through a third-party app to enter the contest.
- You can make being a fan a condition of entering a contest - by not displaying the tab to non-fans, or providing notice that you must be a fan to enter. BUT, becoming a fan cannot be an automatic mode of entry. That is explicitly prohibited.
- You can instruct visitors to your page to visit the tab/third-party app to enter the promo and they will be prompted for their Facebook account to access the contest. If they don’t have one, they will be prompted to sign up.
Even with the new rules, we’re seeing many fun and engaging brand contests and sweepstakes on Facebook. Here are two examples of brands with great viral mojo doing contests on Facebook (and following the new rules.)
Subway is running a Facebook promo to give away ten $50 gift certificates every week between December 29th and January 24th. Their promo is built on an app on a Sweepstakes Tab.
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When you click ‘Enter Sweepstakes,’ you are taken to a new screen to enter basic information about yourself.
After clicking ’submit’ you are prompted to login to their Facebook page. You are also prompted to become a fan of Subway before being allowed to enter the contest. They include specific language stating that their contest is in no way associated with Facebook.
When the Sprinkles Facebook page reaches 100,000 fans, they will randomly choose one of their friends to receive an all-expense paid trip to Beverly Hills to visit the original Sprinkles bakery. The contest is run on a Facebook Tab. To enter the contest you have to be a fan, but you also have to fill-out the required entry form so you cannot be automatically entered just by becoming a fan.
What is your take on the new rules? What innovative contests and promotions are you seeing on Facebook since the new rules have taken effect?
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Thanks for another great post. While not directly related, I can share our experience running a video contest on YouTube. We invited parents to video their children doing an act of kindness for a chance to win a gift certificate at our client’s restaurants, and the opportunity for the child to throw out a first pitch at Fenway before a game. While awareness was high and customer feedback was that it was cool, our challenge was actually getting people to enter. The contest remInded me that the key to getting people to participate is to keep it simple. The video contests that I have seen with any level of marginal success have been ones run nationally (ours was limited to eastern New England.) also, even in this era of “David goes to the Dentist” popularity, I think most parents are still wary of putting their children on the Internet (with good reason) which maybe I was naive to not recognize, thinking that the long popularity of America’s Funniest Home Videos and mega Internet hits like “Charlie bit my finger” demonstrated the public’s willingness to share themselves. Live and learn. Thanks again for an insightful post!
When I first was made aware of the new rules on FB, I was taken aback. Isn’t the idea to social network and may the most industrious idea win (so to speak)? But then I remembered such sites as Craigslist, MySpace, etc…, which have been the medium for really, really bad tragedies, all the result of social networking. I’m all for setting a bar that people have to adhere to in order to avoid total chaos.
Glen, thanks for comments. I absolutely adore your concept of catching kids in acts of kindness for video. That said, in full agreement that the key to success with social media contests is keeping barriers to entry low. You Tube is a great channel for big consumer reach. Have you seen HP’s contest on You Tube ? It apparently received thousands of entries. Key to success seems to be that they offered different and easy forms of entering, doesn’t hurt that the HP audience is already slightly more savvy in video creation than rest of the population, and the prizes were big slash expensive.! Here’s the link. http://www.youtube.com/hp Cindy
Well said Jill. When do you think Twitter will jump on the “rules” bandwagon?
Thanks for sharing the link Cindy. I hadn’t seen the HP campaign, I’ll go check it out. By the way, I saw you speak at a conference a year ago? at Gillette when you talked about the Harry Potter launch at Universal Orlando. FANTASTIC campaign. Welcome (back?) to New England, and the winters! (You used to be at Dunkin, right?)
Why can’t we give away dairy? Are they afraid it will spoil? Random!
[...] their platform to promote contests and giveaways. Here are the rules straight from Facebook and here is a good on translating the rules into plain English from 360 PR [...]
Glen, thanks for the shout out. I enjoyed speaking at Chris Brogan’s conference at Gillette. It’s good to be back in Boston, but brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. By the way, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter will be opening this April! Cindy
Hi Koodot. It does seem odd to lump in dairy with firearms and gasoline, but the reason, as I understand it, has more to do with concerns over price fixing and monopolization between dairy processors and dairy farmers. Milk money, if you will. That’s why you can give away dairy to “everyone” but not give it to a select few as a prize! Cindy
Peter, thanks for the pingback. Love your blog focus: social media, communications, direct marketing, communities and BBQ! Cindy