If you advertise on Facebook or if you are a page admin, you'll want to make sure to read through Facebook's new Promotions Guidelines released this week. The new guidelines govern the use of Facebook in administering and promoting sweepstakes, contests and similar activities. To get right to the point, it is not acceptable to use the Facebook platform to directly engage in these activities - rather a third party tool is required, and depending on the approach, a disclaimer, etc. Near the end of the list of guidelines, Facebook gives examples of what are and what are not acceptable uses of the platform in plain English (here are a few):
You cannot: Condition entry in the promotion upon a user providing content on Facebook, such as making a post on a profile or Page, status comment or photo upload.
You can: Use a third party application to condition entry to the promotion upon a user providing content. For example, you may administer a photo contest whereby a user uploads a photo through a third-party application to enter the contest.
You cannot: Administer a promotion that users automatically enter by becoming a fan of your Page.
You can: Only allow fans of your Page to access the tab that contains the third-party application for the promotion.
One can only surmise that the reason for such a change in terms is to limit the legal risk faced by Facebook as its user base continues to grow exponentially. What we're likely to see as a result is a surge in more third party tools such as Wildfire Interactive.
So how does this change affect your social advertising approach on Facebook?
