One of the best ways to gain followers for your Facebook page, as well as lots of engagement and reach, is to host a competition or giveaway of products or services. They are pretty easy to set up, but many business owners are unaware of the guidelines and rules that Facebook has regarding these.
It seems that Facebook is quite relaxed on these at the moment BUT I have known of some instances where Facebook has decided to suspend or shut down pages which have breached promo guidelines. You certainly don’t want to be caught out!
So, in a nutshell, here’s some rules you need to follow when hosting your competition or giveaway on Facebook:
➡️ You CANNOT ask people to share your contest on their *personal* Timeline (personal profile), or a friend’s Timeline.
Facebook states, “…this is because people can choose to limit the visibility of the content they put on Facebook to only themselves, friends, or to a custom group of people, Pages won’t have the ability to access all of the entries that people post on their own Timelines unless these entries are public.”
➡️ You CANNOT ask entrants to tag a friend to enter your contest (same reasoning as above).
➡️ You CAN ask entrants to comment, like the page or like the post as method of entry.
➡️ You MUST ALWAYS acknowledge that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook on your competition post.
I know lots of pages do ask people to share and tag as entry but when you think about it, it is unfair and excludes a lot of people. And just because lots of pages do it, that doesn’t make it right!
It’s also a good idea to be aware of Aussie competition laws in each state as they’re all different. Generally speaking you won’t need a permit if your competition is a game of skill (eg asking people to answer a question in 25 words or less), but if it’s a game of chance (eg people like the post and you choose a random winner) then you may require permits, which are pretty pricey.
If you’d like to read up on the laws on competitions and giveaways, there’s a great article on the ADMA website that covers it in more detail.
For more information on the guidelines on Facebook you can have a read of the information via these links.
https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php
https://www.facebook.com/business/news/page-promotions-terms