Facebook Promotional Guidelines

Read along!!

Facebook has become a dream to marketer’s and business owners’ world wide because you have the potential to access to 500 million people.

What many marketers and business owner do not understand is that Facebook does have guidelines concerning promotions and sweepstakes. If you choose to ignore these guidelines Facebook has the authority to remove any material related to the promotion and they could disable your page.

Here are the most important guidelines in a nut shell

1. All promotions that run on Facebook must be fully located on either
a. The canvas of an application
b. In an application box or tab on the Facebook page
2. AND you must get prior approval from Facebook before the promotion starts.


All contest promotions must be run through third party applications, and must be approved by Facebook at least 7 days in advance of the start date!

The guidelines clearly state that users can not be required to purchase a product or complete a lengthy task in order to enter.

The promotion or competition can not in any way indicate that Facebook is a sponsor or administrator of the promotion.

I have included a list of reputable third party applications for you to use when you deicide to run a promotion.

So what does this mean for you?

You cannot condition the entry in the promotion upon user providing content, like upload the best picture, liking your page, liking your update, etc.

You cannot tell users that they are automatically entered into a completion if they become a “like of your page

You cannot notify winner through Facebook, like direct message, wall posts, or Chat.

I have included a complete list of reputable third party applications to take care of all your promotion and sweepstake needs.

Vitrue, Wildfire, Buddy Media, Fanappz, Involver, Context Optional, Votigo, and theUKbuzz.

To read Face books Promotion Guidelines you can visit the website at:
http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php