Many businesses, both small and large, run competitions on Facebook. Many are in breach of Facebook rules and you don’t want to risk Facebook removing your business page.
Competitions are a great way to increase your page’s likes and engagement (as well as potentially collecting email addresses). So make sure you do it right!
Do you know the rules for competition entry?
Here’s what you’re allowed to ask people to do as a way of entering:
- To like or comment on a post on your page using phrases such as ‘Like our page and comment on this post to enter’
- Send your page a message
- Or publish to your page (basically post on your page’s wall)
And here’s a list of things you can’t ask people to do as a way of entering:
- To use their personal profiles as a way of collecting entries – for example, asking people to share a post on their profiles using words such as ‘Please share to enter’
- To ask people to comment with a friend’s name as a way of entering – such as ‘To enter, tag a friend who you would share this spa break with’. This is also known as engagement bait, see our blog to find out more.
- To ask people to share the post on their friend’s timeline as a way of entering using words such as ‘Share on your friend’s profile to get more entries’
However, at the end of the wording for your competition post you could always add ‘Feel free to share’ or ‘Please share’ as you’re not explicitly saying you must do this to enter. It always helps!
Remember your T’s & C’s…
You should have specific terms and conditions for the competition.
- The T’s & C’s can be added to your website and you can just mention ‘Please see terms and conditions on our website’ in the post with a link to them – perhaps within a blog detailing the competition.
- Alternatively, if the text or image for the post includes the terms and conditions this is fine too – see the third example below which demonstrates this.
Correct examples
Here are some examples of competition posts with a range of approaches including liking a page, a post and signing up to a newsletter as means of entry.
Note: It is permissible under GDPR to incentivise people to sign up to your newsletter with a competition (or discount voucher etc).
Top Tips
- Remember to add ‘Please share’ at the end of the competition post to encourage people to share
- Don’t forget to mention your T’s & C’s
- Pin the competition post so it appears at the top of your Facebook page
- Use emojis and think about text layout in your post ????
Good luck with your competitions, if you have any questions please get in touch.
More free marketing advice:
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