What do the new Facebook Promotions Guidelines mean for brands?

Facebook has announced a major shift in the way competitions and promotions can be administered by Page owners. For many years now it was against the Facebook Promotions Guidelines to run competitions using any of a Page’s native features. This meant that brands were unable to incentivise people to ‘Like’ or ‘Comment’, and forced them to create costly applications or use third-party providers.

Those guidelines are now a thing of the past, and the new ones mean that Page owners can do the following:

• Collect entries by having users post on the Page or Comment/Like a Page post
• Collect entries by having users message the Page
• Utilise Likes as a voting mechanism

So, what does this change mean for brands?

• More freedom: brands can now run competitions and giveaways without having to worry about creating a costly app.
• Potential increased engagement: brands can now use competitions or giveaways to drive engagement via Comments & Likes.

The remaining restrictions are that brands can’t incentivise people to tag themselves in a photo or Share a post to their personal Timeline. Facebook has kept these guidelines in place in order to maintain accuracy of Page content.

Does this change mean the end of applications?
Absolutely not. Apps are a great way of creating a customised experience, and whilst this change will make it easier for smaller brands to run competitions, savvy marketers know that apps are needed to collect consumer data. Also, it simply won’t be possible to run some promotions without applications. For example, users are able to interact with a Page without having to Like it first, so Like-gated apps will still be effective when it comes to recruiting new fans.

Whilst this announcement is great news for many brands, they still need to ensure that all competitions and giveaways are properly planned and T&Cs are created to ensure they’re protected from a legal standpoint. It’s also important to consider the practicalities of running a competition using the Facebook Timeline.

For example, how will entries be collected? How will the winners be contacted? Is it necessary to collect a user’s email address or personal data? If so, is an application the best solution or can the competition be administered via the Facebook Timeline?

What do you think of these changes? Will the updated guidelines mean you’ll run more competitions on Facebook?

By DMA guest blogger Sam Beament, Social Media Specialist, The Real Adventure

This blog first appeared on The Real Adventure