Facebook regularly makes adjustments to its Pages Terms after adding new products or services, but it made a key change with the updated Facebook Promotion Guidelines in August.
The change allows for businesses to stop using third-party applications to roll out contests, promotions, draws, and giveaways, because they may start doing it on the Facebook Timeline.
Contests through Facebook Timeline are perfect to engage with your current Facebook fans. Launching has no or minimum cost, and fans can enter easily by liking or commenting on a Facebook Page update, or simply sending a message to the Page. The metric of success is measured through number of interactions, such as likes and shares. It is a good fit for smaller businesses that want to get more buzz on Facebook.
Facebook Wall Contest Pros
1. Fans no longer have to leave the News Feed to join contests. This leads to a seamless Facebook experience.
2. Fans may take part in the contest by liking or commenting a post, and it no longer requires an email address.
3. Photo, video, and essay contests allow fans to vote with one click. Liking Facebook posts has become a valid form of voting.
4. A Facebook wall contest needs to have an image, terms, and a post.
5. A social media manager may edit or update the post anytime, without the need for a third-party app.
6. Promoted or sponsored Facebook posts are effective tools to extend the reach of a contest.
Facebook Wall Contest Cons
1. Due to its openness, Facebook wall contests may be abused and allow people to create or purchase several fake Facebook accounts to vote multiple times.
2. Manual selection of winner and no randomness. Communicating and verifying the identity of the winner is difficult on the social network.
3. The terms of entry cannot be to like a Page, so it is difficult to increase the fan base in this manner.
4. The terms of entry cannot be sharing on a profile. Sharing a post or tagging photos or personal posts is forbidden.
On the contrary, contests through third-party apps can help to gather email addresses, to reach fans out of Facebook with newsletters or email sequences. Such apps can also help to enlarge Facebook fan base. The metric of success is measured through the number of collected email addresses, new likes, and sales. It is a good fit for businesses with Facebook, email, and segmentation strategy.
Should you run your contest on your Facebook Page wall or through a third-party app?
Antavo, a tool to create contest apps, has released an infographic that compares the pros and cons of posting contest on Facebook walls against third-party apps.
