Back in 2007 we blogged about a potential new source of competitions. That source was the social network called Facebook and today it’s incredibly popular for compers. The prizes have improved to include cars and holidays and promoters actively use it to attract “likes” and interaction for their sites and brands. Given the vast number of competitions, many compers have opened up a second Facebook account. The idea being to keep the long comping timelines separate from their personal one. Having two accounts is against Facebook’s terms but many people do manage to keep them running. As we’ve seen from their contest guidelines, no one takes any notice and Facebook don’t tend to enforce their own terms.
Competition Profiles Will Be Void
However, today we’ve been notified of something that thankfully is isolated but it’s something worth being wary about. The following rules appear for competitions being run by a Music Merchandise and Fashion retailer. “Only entries from genuine Facebook pages will be valid for entry, any profile that is deemed to be a “competition” profile (i.e. a profile that’s sole purpose is for entering competitions and has very little/no other purpose) will have their entry voided”. So, at a guess if they check your timeline and see that it’s full of competition information they’ll not award you the prize…. except (we think anyway) that they can’t see your timeline unless you allow them to do so.
Mix Up Your Timeline
That means they have ask to befriend you and then do a check of your timeline or they have to base their judgements on your friends lists, activity and interests, and possibly your username (we know some compers include an indicator in their name of which site their using). Our advice is simple, just make sure your timeline contains some non-competition related messages. It’s also worth remembering that if a promoter is running a competition within Facebook’s guidelines then they shouldn’t be messaging you – they should be contacting you via email! Before you all panic and decide that this is the reason why you’re not winning (we know what you’re like lol), remember that this is only one promoter though and thankfully not all adopt this attitude.
Alienating Potential Customers
However, it truly amazes us that sites/brands set up competitions and then wonder why people who like winning stuff enter them! It amazes us further when they then put in terms and conditions that make them a look a little bit silly. Compers do buy things, they do interact online and they can be used for brand awareness. We do understand that some sites want to reward their loyal readers or customers. That’s fair enough! The key is to set up the competition to do that. Putting in rules for people who like entering competitions or happen to use a particular website just alienates potential customers and users. We’ll be keeping an eye out to see if other promoters adopt similar rules – but as we’ve said above, thankfully it’s an isolated case.