Get to grips with Facebook’s competition rules and learn how to create competitions that comply with the guidelines while effectively engaging your audience.
Thomas Haurum
A great many businesses take advantage of the opportunity to run competitions on Facebook. And it is easy to see why, as there are so many benefits – more shares, greater exposure and, hopefully, more customers in the end.
BUT – navigating Facebook’s competition rules can be something of a minefield. Some rules make perfect sense, while others are a little unclear even for the most experienced. This may explain why so many businesses fail to comply with Facebook’s competition rules when running competitions and giveaways. In other cases, it may simply be because they cannot be bothered to familiarise themselves with the rules from the outset, or they just copy what countless others do on Facebook without really considering what is and is not allowed as part of a competition.
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As a business, you might think: “Why should I follow the rules when so many of my competitors don’t?”
The answer is: “Are you willing to risk your business on the chance that your competition will not be reported to Facebook or the Danish Consumer Ombudsman?”
It may not happen the first or even the fifth time – or ever, for that matter. But it only takes a single complaint from a consumer for the Consumer Ombudsman to take a closer look, and your business could end up in hot water.
If you are caught breaking the rules, you could be fined. In the worst-case scenario, Facebook could decide to close your page.
This would be a real shame, especially since your only intention was to delight a lucky winner with a great prize (and gain a bit of extra publicity for your business)!
It is not always deliberate or down to laziness when businesses break the rules. Sometimes it is simply because the rules have changed so many times and do not always make much sense.
So, to set out the rules for competitions on Facebook once and for all – or at least for the foreseeable future – here they are:
WHAT YOU ARE ALLOWED TO DO:
WHAT YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO:
It is also important to always make clear that your competition is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by or associated with Facebook.
You can read Facebook’s official competition rules here.
In addition to Facebook’s own competition rules, businesses must also comply with Danish legislation regarding competitions on Facebook and marketing on social media. The Consumer Ombudsman can also intervene if the Danish Marketing Act is not observed.
So, what does Danish law say about competitions on social media?
First and foremost, the terms and conditions of competitions must be clear to participants.
This means you must provide information about:
There are two types of competitions on social media, and the type must also be made clear to participants:
See the two sample texts below. One does not comply with the rules, while the other does.
DOES NOT COMPLY WITH THE RULES
COMPLIES WITH THE RULES
Additionally, the Consumer Ombudsman stated in the report “The Nordic Consumer Ombudsmen’s Position on Marketing via Social Media, 3 May 2012”:
“If a business rewards a user or creates a special incentive […] for the user to share or spread […] commercial messages, the Consumer Ombudsman will consider the messages to come from the business, and users’ friends must therefore have the opportunity to opt out of these, see section 3.5…
… If participating in a competition causes a commercial message to appear on the user’s wall and then on friends’ news feeds, the user’s friends must therefore have the option to opt out of future messages from the business.”
This means that, according to Danish law, it is not illegal to ask users to share, as long as there is an option to hide the content from the business.
(Remember, Facebook has its own rules in this area, which you must also take into account)
See below how this option appears on Facebook, both for hiding a specific post and for hiding all content from a business permanently.
The option to opt out of content from businesses can also be important in other situations besides the sharing function in a competition. Many businesses have found a “workaround” for Facebook’s “tag a friend” rule, which also gets a commercial message into users’ friends’ news feeds. Instead of requiring users to tag a friend, they ask participants to “comment on who you would like to share the prize with” or similar.
This is, in itself, entirely legal according to Facebook’s rules, as you are not directly asking participants to “tag” someone – with the knowledge that most participants will do so anyway.
However, according to the Consumer Ombudsman, it is important that a user’s friends are able to hide content from the business behind the post they are tagged in if they are not interested.
You can read the full report from the Consumer Ombudsman here: https://www.forbrugerombudsmanden.dk/media/46472/2016-standpunkt-til-nordisk-standpunkt-for-markedsfoering-via-sociale-medier.pdf
Since many businesses operate on both Facebook and Instagram, and the same issues arise on both platforms, here are the Instagram competition rules as well:
YOU ARE ALLOWED TO:
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO:
You must also remember to:
– State that the competition is neither sponsored, endorsed, administered by nor associated with Instagram.
Although competitions are a great way to increase your reach and raise awareness of your business or products, it is wise to think carefully before launching one competition after another. As a Facebook user, it can sometimes feel like you are being spammed with competitions, and the last thing you want as a business is to become an irritation to users.
So, choose your competitions and giveaways carefully. Ask yourself which competitions provide value for users, but never forget that they must also create value for your business! Lavish prizes unrelated to your business may attract plenty of likes and shares, but they are not necessarily participants who are in your target group or will stay engaged after the competition ends.
Another useful thing to have a handle on is Facebook’s text rules. Jannick explains these – in an easy-to-understand way – here.
Other than that, all that remains is to wish you the best of luck!
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