Running competitions on Facebook and Instagram remains a popular tactic that many businesses (big and small) roll-out to try and grow their follower numbers.
Whilst they do attract a swarm of attention from freebie-loving scrollers (who doesn’t love the chance of a freebie?), I don’t recommend them all the time.
The most valuable group of online followers are those who are actually interested in what you offer (competition or no competition). It’s rare to get many meaningful new followers from a competition – i.e. those that are likely to buy from you in the future. Filling the follower pot with hopeful competition entrants can just weaken the audience (and effectiveness) of your future posts.
There is a time and a place for competitions though - if you get your audience, prize, and frequency right, they’re a great way to engage and reward your existing followers.
Anyway, I have digressed from the topic (but it was an important digression!).
If you ARE going to be running competitions, you really need to make sure you’re up to speed with each platform’s rules.
I see SO many competitions that break the rules (really, there are loads), which sets others up for a fall when they see how many people are tagging others and adding comments and then think ‘Ooh, I want some of that – I’ll do a competition like theirs!’
STOP.
Getting into hot water with Meta can have serious consequences like page suspensions, page admin restrictions, and the loss of your page and followers FOREVER (*shudders*)!
So, here are the rules you should know before breaking into competition territory on Facebook and Instagram…
1. Read the platform’s guidelines
Instagram and Facebook may both be owned by Meta, but they each have their own sets of rules – and there are differences.
Read through the rules in this blog, but please also check out Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines and Instagram’s Promotion Guidelines directly, because they do like to update them with no warning!
2. Don’t use Like / Share / Tag rules
How many competitions have you seen that ask you to like and share the post to enter? Or ‘tag a friend’ to be entered into the prize draw?
It’s actually a big no-no on Facebook! Instead, you can ask them to comment on the post or like your page.
On Instagram, you CAN ask people to share, but you might not want to (see the next point…)
3. Make sure you include every entry
On Instagram, it’s not a good idea to ask people to share to stories as an entry requirement.
If they have a private profile, you won’t be able to see their story (or, if you don't check and record entries daily, the story may expire) and, to be legally compliant, you have to be able to include every entry.
4. Give clear details of the rules and eligibility
When there are prizes on the line, no-one likes to have the wool pulled over their eyes!
Make sure your competition rules are within the post (or not more than one click away – eg ‘visit our website for full Ts & Cs here: [insert website page with full details]’.
Be upfront about how people can enter, the eligibility criteria, the prize details, how the winner will be chosen and contacted, and when.
5. No product give-aways on Facebook
Yep, you read that right… According to Facebook’s guidelines, “You are not permitted to give away physical goods in connection with any promotion”.
You can offer virtual gifts though, such as free or discounted services, gift vouchers, and tickets.
6. Include a disclaimer
The boring (but essential) part of your competition copy: you should include a disclaimer that your competition isn’t affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Facebook or Instagram.
There’s no room for negotiation or interpretation on this one – it’s a biggie.
7. Select winners fairly
No matter how many entries you get, you need to include them ALL in the prize draw.
If you’re picking a winner at random, use a random generator tool like Wheel of Names (even better, share a video of you using this tool to pick the winner, for complete transparency.
If it’s a judged contest, give clear reasons as to why the winner was selected, based on the criteria you specified when you promoted the contest.
8. No raffles or sweepstakes!
It’s illegal to monetise entries.
If you’ve ever seen raffle posts saying things like ‘pick a number between 1 and 50 and transfer/pay £2 for each number’ and then they update the list with which numbers are still available to buy, they’re making a BIG boo-boo.
You can’t run a raffle without a gambling license – and, even if you did have one, it’s still against Facebook’s terms.
So, those are the biggies – how many competitions have YOU seen on your timeline that are breaking the rules?! Maybe they flew under Meta’s radar, or maybe they’re not around on Facebook and Instagram anymore…
Simply put, breaking the rules is not worth the risk – to your credibility or to your page’s life!
Competitions should be fun, but fair. Follow the rules and everyone’s a winner!
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