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Facebook Contests Get a Makeover in the New Year

January 5, 2018 | Techno Goober | ,

In the past, your business or Facebook group may have run contests to gain popularity and have a little fun. Those contests may be a thing of the past with new Facebook Contest Guidelines.

Facebook’s guidelines now prohibit a number of actions by pages including:

  • “Share this page/post to enter”
  • “Like this page to enter”
  • “Tag a friend to enter”
  • Or using the reactions in an illogical way.

[bctt tweet=”New Facebook Contest Guidelines prohibit the illogical use of reactions. FINALLY! #goobertips” username=”Techno_Goober”]

Facebook Contest Rules

Share/Like/Tag to Enter

Despite being the most popular way to enter a contest on Facebook, requiring a user to share, like, tag, or comment a specific thing in order to enter sweepstakes or contests is against Facebook’s guidelines.

The exception to the rule is pages are allowed to require users to like a specific POST in order to enter a contest. Pages cannot require that users like the PAGE. They can require users to comment on a specific post, send a message, or like other comments.

Also, pages CANNOT require users to set their profile photo or cover photo to a specific image to enter a contest. This includes using Facebook Frames, Overlays or a custom Twibbon to alter their existing profile photo.

Using the Facebook Like Reactions

Probably the most difficult rule to understand is the new rules regarding the recently released Facebook Reactions as a tool for entering or voting on a contest.

Reactions are the options for liking a post using an emoji. To access the reactions, the user presses (or hovers their mouse) over the like button. Then the user selects either a “love,” “laugh,” “angry,” or “sad” emoji rather than simply liking the post.

A variety of contests might request that users react to a post with a specific emoji in order to enter a contest or vote. Variations of this request are against the new contest guidelines while others are not against the rules. What’s the difference?

As mentioned earlier, asking a user to like a post in order to enter a contest is not against the rules. Since reactions are largely considered to be variations of a “like,” requiring a user to react to a post in order to enter a contest is not against the rules. The nuance is how your page utilizes the reaction for voting.

Voting with the Reaction

Reactions are convenient when allowing users to vote on a post. For example, users might vote for their favorite flavor of by reacting with the heart emoji for vanilla because they love vanilla, which is logical. This type of voting is allowed.

However, asking users to vote with the sad emoji for chocolate because they love chocolate does not make sense. Thus, this type of voting is considered illogical and against the rules.

Any type of voting on a post using the reaction feature that is considered illogical is against Facebook’s guidelines. Voting with logical reactions are NOT against the rules though. So, next time your page is considering requiring users to vote for the cutest dog, reconsider how users will enter. Ensure that they are voting with logical reactions. Otherwise, consider using comment votes instead.

Get Social Media Marketing Help

Can’t remember all these rules? Need help getting your Facebook page up and running? Work with Techno Goober to up your social media marketing game. We are experienced with Facebook, running Facebook contests, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and many more.

Connect with more users and grow your brand with expert social media marketing from Techno Goober. Call 302-645-7177 today to set up your free consultation.

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