5 Things Brands and Agencies Should Know About Facebook’s New Promotion Guidelines

Nov 11

5 Things Brands and Agencies Should Know About Facebook’s New Promotion Guidelines

by Kristin Parrish
Category: Digital Influence

Facebook has recently developed guidelines for any promotions being announced or held on the Facebook platform.

With such growth in popularity and participation over the past year or so, more and more brands and companies are joining Facebook to get closer to their employees, customers and peers.

As more Facebook programs have been developed, Facebook now sees a need to establish a few guidelines for brands, agencies and companies to follow moving forward.

Before starting a new Facebook program, be sure to take a look at these new promotion guidelines and talk to a Facebook representative if you have any questions.

Here are 5 things you should know about Facebook’s new promotion guidelines:

1. Promotions will only be considered for review/approval by existing Facebook clients - through either direct or inside sales. (e.g. need to pay for advertising before being considered for Facebook promotions)

2. All promotions (including contests, sweepstakes or competitions) in which Facebook participants are eligible to win must be approved by a Facebook representative (plan for a 7 day approval timeframe).

3. All promotions must be hosted on a third-party site and through an opt-in application developed specifically for the promotion. Promotions using general Facebook features such as photo uploads, wall posts or discussion boards are not acceptable. Winners of these promotions cannot be contacted through Facebook, either.

** For example: a winner cannot be chosen based on their participation in a discussion board or an upload of a photo to a Facebook album - instead, a specific photo sharing application or discussion submission application would need to be developed for this promotion. This application should also include collection of participants contact information, so that the winner(s) can be contacted via email - and not Facebook message. (Facebook is happy to refer you to a number of third-party developers with whom they have worked with in the past to help develop a specific application.)

4. As to be expected, promotions can’t be targeted to anyone under 18 years of age and those under 18 cannot be allowed to participate. Promotion of gambling, alcohol, firearms and tobacco is strictly prohibited. Please note, as of today promotion of prescription drugs, dairy products and gasoline is also prohibited (although is scheduled to be discussed in a Thursday meeting with Facebook’s legal team).

5. Promotions that are hosting completely off of Facebook can be announced on a Facebook page without prior approval from Facebook, however, the term “Facebook” should not be included in the promotion copy, or in any of the promotion’s rules - for that matter. Additionally, all promotions held on Facebook need to include the following disclosure:

“This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to [recipient(s) of information] and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for [disclose any way that you plan to use the user's information].”

Based on these new guidelines - a key takeaway for future Facebook promotions is to plan ahead and allow for a larger promotion budget to include the development of a Facebook applicaiton or a third-party promotion page on a brand Web site.

When developing these promotions, keep in mind that ads driving traffic off of Facebook reach around .1% click-through rate (the industry average), whiles ads that drive Facebook participation usually perform at least 2-3X better. It is my assumption that it will be the same for promotions - with Facebook applications seeing a higher participation rate than sending Facebook users off to a third-party site.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 10:46 am and is filed under Digital Influence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

28 COMMENTS
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28 Responses to “5 Things Brands and Agencies Should Know About Facebook’s New Promotion Guidelines”

Nick S. Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Nice write-up, Kristin. It’s also interesting to note that you can’t advertise a promotion via Facebook that is open to individuals in Belgium, Norway, Sweden, or India. Thanks for the post.
Vane Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
“Facebook participants are eligible to win must be approved by a Facebook representative (plan for a 7 day approval timeframe).”

I´ve tried to contact Facebook several times in the past 3 or 4 months. How do they expect brands to write to them, when they don´t answer the most simple of questions?
5 cosas que las marcas y agencias tendrían que saber sobre la nueva guía para promociones de Facebook | En Español Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
[...] Esto es una traducción del artículo original: 5 Things Brands and Agencies Should Know About Facebook’s New Promotion Guidelines [...]
Matías Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Great article!

I hope that you don’t mind that I translated the article to Spanish myself (proper attribution and linkback in it). The last trackback would be it.

Let me know if it is not OK so I can pull it down.
Shannon Nelson Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Thank you for the recap–very well written!
Jason Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I guess these means hassle for brands and opportunities for consultant who specialize in these things.
jeney andreson Says:
November 15th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Nice content it would be helpfull for me .I am impressed your website . Its layout is very attractive .Thanks and keep on working.
Collective Conversation » Bandwidth » Blog Archive » Facebook’s new promotional guidelines mean more time, more $$$ Says:
November 15th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
[...] Ogilvy 360 - 5 Things Brands and Agencies Should Know [...]
Red Links 16/11/09 : Alexia Golez Says:
November 16th, 2009 at 7:25 am
[...] have published a nice post on Facebook’s new guidelines for promotions that businesses, agencies and the Stoked might find [...]
diditzism » Blog Archive » 3 Reasons your brand might not be hurt by the new Facebook promotion policies Says:
November 17th, 2009 at 11:49 am
[...] of the implications of these new policies can be found on the blogs of Nick O’Neal, Justin Smith, Kristen Parrish , CNETand Mari [...]
Moo Says:
November 17th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Why the prohibition on “dairy products?” Doesn’t seem that cheese would fall into the same category as firearms and tobacco…
Bruce Wilson Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Great analysis, succinct and actionable: thanks Kristin. Because one of my small business clients is about to announce a contest on their Facebook page I also looked at the new rules very carefully and think I may have come up with some loopholes for people who don’t want to wait for a Facebook manager to contact them (I requested that someone contact me weeks ago and still have not received a response, probably because our contest “budget” was so low) or create a custom Facebook Application for their contest. The longer answer is in a post - http://manydoors.net/2009/11/10/promoting-a-contest-on-facebook-heads-up-new-rules/ - but the short answer is: so long as you use Facebook only to announce a promotion, and not as a necessary means by which people participate in it, no worries.

Yes, the dairy thing sounds weird. But somebody with dairy industry experience contacted me to say that the dairy industry is just as regulated (by the Feds) as alcohol, tobacco, or prescription drugs, thus Facebook applies its limitations to all of them.
Facebook promotion guidelines « social roadtrip Says:
December 1st, 2009 at 10:46 am
[...] (via) [...]
Burton Haynes Says:
January 25th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
This is a very good blog post, keep up the great work. I look forward to coming back and reading more.
Luigi Fulk Says:
January 25th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
I hope you keep up with posting more great blog posts like this one. I will subscribe to your rss feed to keep up to date.
Will Says:
February 10th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Great Article Justin,

I am finding it difficult to “contact a Facebook representative for approval” as requested by the new promotion guidelines.

Do you have any advice for me? Do you know of anyone who has successfully gone through this process?

Thanks again,
Will
Lisa Keller Says:
March 10th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
From what I understand, you first have to spend $10K in Facebook Ads to get a FB rep. Good luck small businesses! Doesn’t seem fair to me.

Does anyone know the details/rules about giving away coupons to anyone that becomes a Facebook fan? Do the same promotion rules apply?

Thanks,
Lisa
Så fick vi 200 nya Facebook Fans på 48h! Says:
March 20th, 2010 at 12:53 am
[...] kampanjer. Läs Facebooks regler, Econsultancy´s tolkning av reglerna , Examiner´s guidelines, OgilvyPR´s checklista och döm själv. Jag var inte medveten om dessa regler. Korkat och naivt kan tyckas men så är [...]
Regler för kampanjer på Facebook? Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 8:55 am
[...] Börja med att läsa Facebooks regler, Econsultancy´s tolkning av reglerna , Examiner´s guidelines, OgilvyPR´s checklista. [...]
Får man göra kampanjer på Facebook? | Sociala medier för beslutsfattare Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 4:38 am
[...] det själv, läs Facebooks regler, Econsultancy´s tolkning av reglerna , Examiner´s guidelines, OgilvyPR´s checklista. Efter att jag har granskat alla kommentarer på blogginlägget, FB:s regler och tolkningarna av [...]
Jude Jeschke Says:
July 18th, 2010 at 6:15 am
Great stuff ici.
Catch Advertising Says:
July 24th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
thanks for the update and well explained in detail
Mitsuko Says:
November 27th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
Wow people!!! Happy Thanksgiving! .! :)
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Eleazar | Entrepinoy Bank Says:
January 9th, 2011 at 1:12 am
It’s better to follow Facebook rules to avoid being ban for life and miss tons of opportunities while Facebook continues to attract more users. A couple of years to come, Facebook will be the next best thing and will surpass Google.
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