Blogger beware! Facebook's new guidelines for running promotions on your fan page and blog

I was reading the latest enewsletter from Jennifer James at Mom Bloggers Club and saw this: Do you know about Facebook's new guidelines for running promotions?

Huh? There are new guidelines? I had no idea since Facebook didn’t send out a communication to notify me.

Luckily, Ghada Vanderpool at Real Social Girl posted about it on Mom Bloggers Club and went more in depth on her blog at How the new Facebook Promotion Guidelines affect you.

Please read Ghada’s analysis of Official Facebook Guidelines on how administrators of groups and fan pages are allowed to do competitions, sweepstakes and giveaways. Some important things she pointed out were:

• Don’t make joining your fan page or having someone post a video, picture or comment on your wall as a way to enter your giveaway or contest.
• Don’t use Facebook’s name, trademarks, trade names, copyrights, or any other of their intellectual property in the rules or any other materials relating to the promotion, without express written consent.
• You may not administer any promotion through Facebook, except that you may administer a promotion through the Facebook Platform with our prior written approval. Such written approval may be obtained only through an account representative at Facebook.

What are you allowed to do on Facebook?

Here’s what you can do as stated in Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines:

Section 4. Publicizing a Promotion on Facebook

You do not need our prior written approval if you are publicizing a promotion that is administered completely off of Facebook. However, we may remove any materials relating to the promotion or disable your Page or account if we determine that you violate these Promotions Guidelines, the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities or any other of our policies. If you publicize a promotion in any way on Facebook, in addition to the other terms and conditions contained in these Promotion Guidelines, without limiting your other obligations you agree to the following:

4.1 You will not directly or indirectly indicate that Facebook is a sponsor or administrator of the promotion or mention Facebook in any way in the rules or materials relating to the promotion.

4.2 In the rules of the promotion, or otherwise, you will not condition entry to the promotion upon taking any action on Facebook, for example, updating a status, posting on a profile or Page, or uploading a photo.

Does this seem sort of vague to you? It appears that Facebook is telling us that we may post about a promotion on our fan pages. But if they don’t like it, they’ll remove it or disable your page. Not a risk I want to take. Social media guru, Mari Smith concurs in her post, Thinking Of Running A Contest on Facebook? Think Again! She says to use Twitter instead! So what’s Facebook’s loss is Twitter’s gain, I guess, until they decide to ban promotions, too. Sigh.

Clean up your act!

• If you are currently running any kind of giveaway on your blog that mentions Facebook, remove all mentions of Facebook immediately.
• If you’ve posted about a giveaway contest on your Facebook fan page, remove it immediately.

(Update 1/28/10: Per Susan Getgood in her post Facebook’s new contest rules and FTC guidelines – has social media marketing adapted? it is OK to publicize a giveaway on your blog or website on Facebook. See her clarification in the post's comment section.)

Other posts to check out:

• 3 Important Facebook Page Policy and Product Changes You May Have Missed

• Facebook Updates Promo/Sweepstakes Guidelines – What It Means for Marketers

• 5 Things Brands and Agencies Should Know About Facebook’s New Promotion Guidelines

• Facebook Marketers Beware - New Promotion Guidelines Released

Thanking my community

Thanks goes out to Jennifer James at Mom Bloggers Club, Ghada Vanderpool at Real Social Girl, and Mari Smith at Why Facebook? (and belatedly Susan GetGood at Marketing Roadmaps) for spreading the word and helping many of us avoid problems with Facebook.

Comments

[shannon]

Thanks for the update. Very important info. This is going to hurt all the brands out there that do facebook giveaways!

[Angie]

I posted about this on my blog yesterday and it's confusing a lot of people, but I understand what the wording says. So I will refrain from using Facebook at all for any giveaway.

[Qtpies7]

I think people are misreading the rules.
You CAN allow entries on your blog for being your fan on facebook, as long as the condition to winning is not becoming a fan. You can't allow the becoming a fan be the entry itself. They need to tell you on your blog that they became a fan. And they have to be able to win the contest without becoming a fan.
In other word, it can't be the only way to win, but it can be an extra entry.

You cannot have the contest run on the facebook page, but you can mention you are running one and they they can go to enter it.

You also cannot mention it if it it can be entered by countries that it forbids, for whatever reason those countries don't allow sweepstakes, etc.

[Amnichols]

QTpies7:

Again, as stated in Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines (my points are in ALL CAPS)

4.1 You will not directly or indirectly indicate that Facebook is a sponsor or administrator of the promotion or mention Facebook in any way in the rules or materials relating to the promotion.

YOU CANNOT MENTION FACEBOOK IN ANY WAY IN THE RULES OR MATERIALS RELATING TO THE PROMOTION. I DON'T KNOW HOW THEY CAN BE MORE CLEAR THAN THAT.

4.2 In the rules of the promotion, or otherwise, you will not condition entry to the promotion upon taking any action on Facebook, for example, updating a status, posting on a profile or Page, or uploading a photo.

ANY ENTRY CANNOT DEPEND ON TAKING ANY ACTION IN FACEBOOK. AGAIN, PRETTY DARN CLEAR.
-----------------
I'm sorry, but you are totally wrong. You cannot mention Facebook as a way to enter a contest or giveway. Period.

[Lauralee Hensley]

I think it's funny how you can't use facebook for contests that are dairy based. I mean I understand alcohol, but dairy. To me, that's just plain crazy. Sure if someone shipped dairy as a prize there might be a chance it would spoil if it wasn't a processed cheese product, but they could send you free product coupons. I mean the rules, and yes I read them, could be interpreted a little differently by people and I don't think it would be safe if you didn't get preapproval from them for everything. Who's to say they won't add more to these rules too, making it even more difficult.
Just feels like the FTC stuck it's nose in facebook's rules and policies and facebook did what it had to do to get the FTC off it's back. FTC has to show the public it's doing something and the people who work there are coming up with ridiculous things to be able to show they are valuable so they can keep their big jobs. It's stupid in my opinion. Granted Facebook doesn't want to get sued over contests, sweepstakes, giveaways that are promoted through facebook, but couldn't they just put it under terms of joining that they aren't liable for such things and that you understand this information before joining facebook?

[sweetytots the mommy blogger]

This post is very informative, I didn't know that there are such guidelines. Well to be honest I did not even bother check Facebook or other social networking site regarding their guidelines. You are doing very well in informing bloggers such as myself. If you may allow, can I post this too on my blog http://www.sweetytots.com I am sure that most mommy bloggers will find this topic interesting. I'll link you back for the credits. Thanks!