Remember almost a year ago when I painstakingly explained how to properly run a Facebook contest?
Forget everything I said.
Facebook has again changed its promotion & guideline rules, effectively turning upside down what everyone has dutifully done on the Facebook pages for quite a while now.
The big news is is that you do NOT have to use a 3rd party app in order to run a promotion on Facebook. Now it’s okay to do something like say “Comment on our photo and be entered to win!” whereas before, doing something like that could have caused your page to be shut down.
I know, I told everyone not to do that for over a year and now I’m taking it all back.
So, this is good news for Facebook pages — it is definitely going to help to increase engagement and help to build brands. However, it’s bad news for companies like Shortstack and Wildfire, who have built their business being able to provide the 3rd party apps previously needed for Facebook promotions.
Also, I’m curious what will happen with pages in terms of what their fans can see on their newsfeeds. Faceboook also changed their newsfeed algorithm AGAIN last week and I can’t help but think that the two announcements are related.
In short, I think that Facebook is going to strongarm brand pages to have to pay to promote their photos and posts that are now promotions. Running a promotion on Facebook was always free, other than what you had to pay to the 3rd party app. I’m getting a sneaky suspicion that is all about to change.
To find out more about the changes on how to run a promotion, you can read their official guideline here.
Just remember, everything to do with Facebook is always subject to change, so make sure you familiarize yourself with their guideline and more importantly, keep checking to make sure it hasn’t changed.
By the way, Facebook? I think you owe an apology to the pages you shut down for breaking the rules before this change. I bet they're pretty upset right now.
GigaMom is about to do what is now known as the "Facebook Facepalm." Join me, won't you?
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