Facebook is a nice place for running a contest because it easily reaches your audience, raises their awareness about new product or service, boosts their engagement and increases the number of your fans. However, Facebook states that if you are running a competition of any sort, then you have to follow their rules or you will have the risk of getting your Facebook Page removed.
One of the Facebook’s rules states that “We reserve the right to reject or remove Pages for any reason. These terms are subject to change at any time.” Be safe and follow the rule is your best bet. Nobody wants their Page removed after it gains a large number of fans. Here are five simple steps to start competitions on Facebook and staying within their rules:
1). Define your goal
What are the reasons behind this competition? Trend is not the right answer. Define your target as clear as possible. What do you want to earn or learn? Growing your audience members, engaging your loyal fans to your brand or increasing their awareness about a new product? Define your goal to keep you on the right track.
2). Plan and stay on the line
If your fans win, what will they get? How do they enter the competition? Remember, don’t make it too complicated. Be aware of strict competition rules and licensing laws. If you run a lottery, you will need a license. You can run other types of competition by making it a ‘game of skill’ where the participants require a particular knowledge to win, like answering a series of questions about your brand, for example. You also need to put some “terms and conditions” and a link to this, since people usually need to be able to see the details of your competition.
3). Prepare the competition
Choose some third-party apps which able to run your competition. Facebook has outlined several strict rules about running competitions and you should read them as your basic guidelines. If you break these rules, you risk of having Facebook disable your Page.
How about selecting a random fan for giveaway prizes? A big no. This is another form of lottery. You can effectively using Facebook to “open registration and collect participants”. Moreover, you cannot use Facebook to contact the winners, whether it is via private message, chat, posting on their wall or your own Facebook Page wall. So the third-party party applications are your best shot to hold competitions on Facebook. Here are some good third-party apps for Facebook competition:
4). Post the progress of the competition and other promotions as well
You have to create a content calendar with posting plan.Sometimes when business owners held a competition, the regular posts are subsided. Remember to continue the usual information that you normally post and include the competition updates in where they naturally fit.
Always keep in mind that your Facebook Page has a “peak hour” or the best time to post. Don’t overload your fans timeline with status updates just about the competition. Consider spending some dollars on promotional posts to boost interaction and increase the number of people who see it.
5). Review everything that you have done
In the scouting world, there is a motto: Plan, Do and Review. This motto is appropriate for the business world too. Once you have planned your competition in advance, then you can execute it step by step, knowing exactly what is going to happen at each step. Furthermore, reviewing you previous action is very important. You will gain valuable lessons and experience. Don’t forget to take note of what didn’t work. This will give you extra precautions in the future.