No this isn’t click bait. Many of the competitions that agents are running on Facebook are in direct breach of Facebook’s Page & Promotions terms and conditions.

It’s important to note that you most definitely CAN run competitions on your Facebook page, so long as you follow the terms and conditions provided by Facebook and it’s legal to do so in your state or country.

But where agents are falling foul of Facebook is in the method they’re using to promote these competitions and gain extra exposure.

The incredibly popular “Like & Share to enter” competition is a ticking time bomb. It’s in direct breach of Facebook’s Ts & Cs and all it takes is for someone to report your competition and Facebook can, by rights, step in and shutdown your page. Ordinarily you will get warned first, but there have been incidents of pages being shutdown without warning.

Here’s the key part of Facebook’s Ts&C’s that agents should be paying very close attention to:

“Personal Timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions (ex: “share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend’s Timeline to get additional entries”, and “tag your friends in this post to enter” are not permitted).”

By making it a condition of entry that people share the post/competition, agents are breaching the terms and leaving themselves at risk of losing their page.

This doesn’t mean you can’t run a competition on your page, all it means is that you may need to adjust how you’re running them and ensure you’re not operating contrary to the terms and conditions.

There is nothing wrong with requiring people to like your post and or page as a condition of entry and as such competitions remain an excellent way of building your following.

Here’s the full promotions Ts & Cs from Facebook and a link to the Page Ts & Cs.

E.    Promotions

1. If you use Facebook to communicate or administer a promotion (ex: a contest or sweepstakes), you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion, including:

     a.   The official rules;

     b.   Offer terms and eligibility requirements (ex: age and residency restrictions); and

     c.   Compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered (ex: registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals)
2. Promotions on Facebook must include the following:

     a.   A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant.

       b.   Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

3. Promotions may be administered on Pages or within apps on Facebook. Personal Timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions (ex: “share on your Timeline to          enter” or “share on your friend’s Timeline to get additional entries”, and “tag your friends in this post to enter” are not permitted).

4. We will not assist you in the administration of your promotion, and you agree that if you use our service to administer your promotion, you do so at your own risk.

Here’s the link to Facebook’s page terms and conditions – https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php