New rules for competitions on Facebook Pages

I heard on Friday that Facebook is cracking down on their rules for running competitions on Pages. In essence, you have to run them through a third party app, and you are not allowed to do things like:

• Fan this Page for a chance to win
• Upload your photos to win
• Add a comment to enter prize draw

The wording I got on email from Facebook's representative is :

Promotions may only be administered on Facebook through a third-party application on the Facebook platform. For example, you cannot post a status update through a Page and ask users to comment for a chance to win a prize, nor may you encourage users to fan your Page by entering them into a promotion upon becoming a fan. However, upon receiving permission from us, you may accomplish administer your promotion through a third-party application and may allow that application to exist on a tab on your Facebook Page or on an application canvas Page.

They gave me examples of what is allowed and what isn't. Which is nice.

This isn't.

This is:




They are pretty damn explicit:

The following is the only way Facebook can be mentioned in the rules of the promotion or in any marketing materials promoting the promotion: “You can enter the promotion through the [name of the application] application on the Facebook Platform.”

Another thing that is really worrying is that to run a competition , as well as building a third party application, you now need a letter of indemnity from Facebook. Again, their wording is:

Prior to promoting any promotion on Facebook, you must sign an indemnity letter with us. The indemnity letter must be signed by the actual sponsor of the promotion (most likely, you, the advertiser); an agent may not sign on the sponsor’s behalf. For us to provide this letter to you, you must provide the following information to the Facebook account representative that you work with:

1. Full corporate name of the sponsor of the promotion you are promoting on Facebook or the Facebook platform.
2. Full name of the sponsor’s signor.
3. Physical address of the sponsor and email address where the sponsor will receive the letter.

I reckon this will really demotivate people from running competitions as its too hard, it will take ages, will involve lawyers at clients and ultimately will be too expensive to develop an app every time you want to do a giveaway for, say, free tickets to a gig. I'm guessing this is Facebook's way of driving people to develop lots of apps for their Platform.

IMHO, as a Page admin, it's a right pain in the backside and limits how brands can give something back to fans, encourage new ones to join and generally makes marketing through Facebook a lot damn harder. I think it will also cause marketers to look at other platforms and social networks, that may be easier to deal with.

Overall, this is definitely not a great move.