Social Media

Facebook Promotions No Longer Need Third-Party Apps

Have you heard about the new contest rules on Facebook? We’ve been waiting on this for a long time and Facebook has finally delivered!

Gone are the old, annoying rules that basically meant you had to have a third party app to host a legal contest. Now Facebook has loosened up on the rules in order to make it easier for fanpage owners to host contests.

Running promotions and conducting contests are great ways for businesses to encourage activity on networking sites and now Facebook has made changes to make it a little easier for users. You no longer need third-party apps to administer promotions. Apps still play a major role in using Facebook as a marketing tool but this change makes it easier for small businesses to host promotions to encourage followers to like your page or just to have some fun and increase engagement.

With this change, you can now administer promotions on page Timelines and using Facebook apps. This allows small businesses to collect entries in three different ways. You can have the users message the page, ask them to post a comment or ask users to like a page. The one thing that hasn’t changed is that you still cannot use personal Timelines to administer promotions.

Now that the rules are changed, I cannot wait to host my first Caption This Photo contest!

Rules and Regulations
The changes were detailed in a blog post on the Facebook for Business page:

We’ve removed the requirement that promotions on Facebook only be administered through apps. Now, promotions may be administered on page Timelines and in apps on Facebook. For example, businesses can now:

1.Collect entries by having users post on the page or comment/like a page post.
2.Collect entries by having users message the page.
3.Utilize likes as a voting mechanism.
As before, however, businesses cannot administer promotions on personal Timelines.

Accurate tagging is required in promotions.

In order to maintain the accuracy of page content, our pages terms now prohibit pages from tagging or encouraging people to tag themselves in content that they are not actually depicted in. So, for instance:

It’s OK to ask people to submit names of a new product in exchange for a chance to win a prize.
It’s not OK to ask people tag themselves in pictures of a new product in exchange for a chance to win a prize.
How these Changes Affect Small Business
These changes should make it easier for small businesses to conduct promotions that will increase brand awareness and encourage new followers without having to use a third-party app. You can conduct promotions right from your page without the need for a third party app, so it’s more convenient and easier to do. It will also be simpler and less confusing for your participants, increasing the chance of participation.

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