Facebook Platform Policy Updates: What You Need to Know

FB Developer Guidelnes & Giveaways

*READ THIS* It’s possible the contents of this article, written in 2014, are outdated. Check out our Facebook Promotion Guidelines page for all current info.

Last week, Facebook published a blog post on their developer blog bringing attention to their Graph API v2.1 and several other changes, but more importantly, they announced an update to their platform policy that affects third-party apps built on their platform. This new policy Facebook has put into place reads as follows:

You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, checkin at a place or enter a promotion on your app’s Page. To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.

You can read the full post about the changes and the following discussion here. In the past, you’d probably expect to read about updates surrounding promotions on Facebook through the page guidelines doc, but this update was specific to app creators that create software which integrates with Facebook. If you’re not an app developer, this update may have caught you off guard.

What do these updates mean?

The new policy update is very specific — it reads “this includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page”.

When Facebook mentions gating an app, this refers to what you probably know as ‘fan-gating’. Fan-gating an app means that you put some content behind a door that can only be accessed by becoming a fan of the page. You’ve probably seen Facebook fan pages ask you to become a fan of their page before you can access a coupon, an ebook download, or a promotion.

In addition, the new rules state “you must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page.” Moving forward, all apps created on the Facebook platform cannot encourage people to like a Facebook page so they’ll get a discount, a music download, a freebie, or an entry into a promotion.

With those changes being introduced, Facebook is encouraging app developers to “update their apps to comply with these policy changes by November 5, 2014.” Since this is a fairly large update and a lot of app developers are integrated with this particular functionality, Facebook has given developers three months to become compliant with these updates and make the appropriate changes needed.

How does this affect Rafflecopter?

UPDATE 11/15 – here’s a recent blog post on changes that were made due to these Facebook updates

Rafflecopter giveaways aren’t dependent on Facebook (which is great! — more on that later). But, we do offer some convenient Facebook integrations: the Rafflecopter Facebook app, the ‘Liking a Facebook fan page’ entry option, and the Facebook flash giveaway app.

The Rafflecopter Facebook App

First, the Rafflecopter Facebook app makes it easy to host a Rafflecopter widget on a Facebook page tab, and one of its features is automatic fan-gating. If they’re not a fan, they’ll see the following image:

Facebook Fan-gate Image

According to Facebook’s new policies, the fan-gate functionality shown above will not be allowed after November 5th. This feature of the Facebook app will be removed before then. When this feature is removed, both fans and non-fans will be able to access your promotion.

The ‘Liking a Fan Page’ Entry Option

Second, the ‘Liking a Fan Page’ entry option is an entry option that can be set up where participants can receive an entry for being a fan of your Facebook page. Below is an example screenshot of the ‘Like a Fan Page’ entry option:

Facebook Like Entry Option

According to Facebook’s new policies, this would fall under the rule of “incentivizing people to use social plugins or to like a Page”. Similar to the fan-gate functionality, this entry option will likely be removed before the November 5th deadline.

The Rafflecopter Facebook Flash Giveaway App

Finally, the Rafflecopter Facebook flash giveaway app lets you run a giveaway directly through a status update (Facebook OK’d this in August 2013).

There haven’t been any changes to the page guidelines regarding promotions being run on your timeline. Because of this, this app will remain unaffected by the recent updates.

Four Upsides To These Changes

If you’re a Facebook page admin, there’s probably a good chance that at some point you tried to increase the number of fans your page had, probably with a fan-gate or some kind of incentive. While at first glance you might think this is a surprising and upsetting change, these changes may encourage Facebook page admins to shift in a direction that might be better for your Facebook community.

Increased Creativity From Facebook Page Admins

In a way, fan-gating functionality was a magic bullet that took out a lot of the strategic thinking around the question “how can my page gather more Facebook likes?”, when Facebook page admins should really be asking themselves “how can I keep my growing fan-base engaged and excited about my brand?”. You could say fan-gating encouraged folks to ask themselves the wrong question.

With a fan-gate, it was very easy to ask non-fans to like your page to access a coupon, discount, promotion, ebook, music download, etc. The removal of the fan-gate and social incentives will force Facebook page admins to ask different questions and think more creatively when it comes to managing their page.

Fan-gates and social incentives aside — online contests, sweepstakes, and giveaways will still have their place in the marketing mix. On that note, expect to see an increased amount of creativity when it comes to how marketers and page owners think about the promotions they run. If you’re a local mom and pop retail store or eatery, perhaps you’ll reconsider giving away a generic iPad and replace it with a prize more authentic to your brand that makes sense.

The Facebook Promotion Guideline Debates Will Finally Stop

For the past three years, there’s no question that Facebook promotion guidelines have been a hot topic amongst social media marketers. Three of our five of our highest trafficked & commented blog posts discussed Facebook promotion guidelines (read these posts and follow the evolution of Facebook promotion guidelines from 2011, 2012, and 2013).

There has always been a fair amount of gray area surrounding what could and couldn’t be done in regards to having fans like your page, how you could incentivize, when the line was crossed, etc. Since these new rules shift from focusing on Facebook page admins to app developers, it takes a lot of pressure off Facebook page admins. Because this update removes a fair amount of the gray area that surrounded this topic, you might expect this topic to become less debated.

Decline in Fake Facebook Accounts

There will be less of an incentive for folks to create second and third Facebook accounts. While creating multiple accounts is in violation of Facebook’s terms, it’s still something that’s difficult to enforce and something we’ve seen a fair amount of.

To detail this further, here’s a scenario that we frequently see: an individual sees a handful giveaways being run on various pages, but doesn’t have a strong interest with that brand running the promotion. Regardless, the individual still wants to enter their promotions, but all the promotions offered are behind fan-gates. The individual doesn’t want their news feed flooded with status updates from pages they’re not interested in. Instead of liking each page and unliking it after the promotion, the entrant creates a second Facebook account.

More Development in Areas Outside of Facebook

When Rafflecopter was conceived three years ago, it was intended to be an app that would allow you to run giveaways on your blog or website. In 2011, there weren’t many affordable options that would allow you to do this. The Rafflecopter Facebook page tab app was somewhat of an afterthought of that first app and was released a year later. With this most recent update to the platform policy, you’ll start seeing more folks gravitate towards running contests and sweepstakes off of Facebook, which is what Rafflecopter was built for.

As a marketer, this encourages you to diversify your social media efforts, and in turn your promotion efforts. As an app developer, this brings our focus away from Facebook and back to our roots. Rafflecopter is designed to make it possible to run a promotion on your own website. You can expect to see some deeper integrations and more advanced customizations over the next several months from us.

Facebook’s Motivations Behind the Updates

Below are a few possibilities that could have played a role into Facebook making these updates:

  • Encourages organic growth of a fan page. The rate of folks liking Facebook pages will probably slow, but those that do like a page will do so for more authentic reasons.
  • Puts more focus on quality, engaging content & less emphasis on increasing likes. Arguably, the main purpose of fan-gates were to incentivize non-fans to become fans of your page. Now that fan-gates are being phased out, this should help Facebook page admins focus on the content that gets their fans excited vs increasing the number of total likes their page gets.
  • Places more emphasis on Facebook ads. In Facebook’s updates, they write that “we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives”. If this holds to be true, the average value of one Facebook fan should be worth more. That will make their advertising services more effective. In addition, removing the ability to incentivize non-fans to like your page in some ways can be viewed as competition to or an alternative to using Facebook ads.
  • Discourages individuals from creating fake accounts. As discussed above, this update should discourage people from creating multiple accounts on Facebook. The less fake account there are on Facebook, better user experience from an individual’s perspective as well as from a brand’s perspective will follow.

What To Expect From Here

Come November 5th, the days of fan-gating coupons, discounts, social promotions, downloads, freebies, and ebooks on Facebook are over. In the next 90 days, we’ll be keeping everyone informed ahead of time of the following:

  • Details behind the changes we decide to make
  • When changes will be made and how they’ll be implemented
  • new product releases surrounding deeper integrations and more advanced customizations

We’ll make these future announcements on our blog and be sure to spread the word on our social media accounts (Facebook and Twitter) in addition to our newsletter. While we have until November 5th to implement these updates, we’ll explain the updates ahead of time so there’s a fair amount of heads-up time.

To add some thoughts from an app developer’s perspective, we’ve seen Facebook make big changes surrounding promotions about once a year towards the end of the summer every year since 2011. While this change came by surprise, it wasn’t too unexpected. Expect to see app developers affected by this change to focus on becoming a social media campaign builder, moving away from the realm of being a Facebook app vendor. You’ll also see an emphasis on running giveaways and promotions not to gain new fans, but to engage and give back to your current fans.

The concept of running a promotion like a sweepstakes or a contest will always continue to have value, but the way we choose to administer them online & best practices will always be changing. What do you think of these updates? Vote in the widget below and leave a note in the comments!

About the author

Greg Goodson

Greg Goodson is the cofounder of Rafflecopter. 25x ultramarathoner, bluegrass guitarist, & weather enthusiast. Owner of one doge.

  • I like

  • Since this new update is geared toward app developers: is this rule strictly about using APPS to ask people to follow our pages, or is it also restricting us from posting “like the page to enter” and manually checking/auditing entries?

    • Jo-Anne Pfoh

      Facebook cannot dictate beyond their page. I understand that they do not want the app used that automatically validates a like and issues an entry. Maybe they are going to get into the contesting field and sell their own platform. Yes they have a right to say dont use our database however that is where it ends. Using an optional field to ask the participant to like the page and then manually checking if this was done (if you can) is outside of their authority. What we add to the optional fields is up to us as long as there is no automated steps regarding the facebook database.

      • @Jo-Anne- I hope you’re right because my giveaways are what drives people to want to sponsor my Non-Profit organization.

    • Google+ TOS actually forbids exchanging follows (likes) for giveaway entries. Facebook can do the same and can punish pages that do not follow the rule.

  • Jessica Whitehouse

    Honestly, I LOVE giveaways and enter a ton of them. I’m not a blogger, just an average FaceBook junkie. That being said, I think these changes are great.

    I like huge multi-vendor giveaways, but I hate the fact that I have to “like” 20-plus pages just to complete the mandatory entries. For example, one giveaway on my to-do list has 50 pages to like in order to enter. (You MUST like ALL pages to qualify.) So if I chose to enter an average of 10 similar giveaways per week, within 2 months, my FaceBook likes would be maxed out and my newsfeed would be clogged with hundreds of posts from pages I only followed to get an entry to win- not because I was actually interested in the page or product.

    • In recent months, we’ve seen Facebook go after those who liked 50+ pages at a time (entrants) as opposed to the folks administering these giveaways. These updates will definitely have an effect on giveaways w/ many entry options I would think.

    • That is crazy! I am a blogger and I would never, ever ask someone to like that many pages. All I ask is for a blog post comment on the product I am giving away, for you to like my page and the business that is giving it away…so three entries max the rest are there if you want like twitter etc, but never mandatory. I would have been turned off by having to do 50, but I know you are not lying because I have seen other bloggers do it and I just don’t bother entering.

  • Maria M

    As long as they haven’t changed their promotional guidelines, you could technically do an “invent your own” option & add “liking” the page as an option.

    • I think that’s an interesting point. Currently, it’s against Facebook’s page guidelines to ask people to *share* a status update to enter a promotion on your Facebook timeline, but page admins still do this all the time. It could be that they’re not familiar with the rules, or they just ignore them.

      Whenever a rule like this is put in place, I think you’ll see most page admins respect the new rules, but there will always be a handful of folks seeing how they can work around the rule, which will undoubtedly happen. Should be interesting to see how that plays out after November 5th.

      • Maria M

        They haven’t actually updated the promotion guidelines, have they? I’ve always followed & respected the guidelines/rules, and am unlikely to offer “likes” when it’s no longer an option in RC. However, these new rules have been aimed solely at developers thus far, no?

        • Olivia @ This West Coast Mommy

          Second this question. Is this change aimed only at developers or do page admins need to make these changes as well?

          • Anne S.

            Until it is made more clear by Facebook, I am inclined to interpret it that it’s ok for a blogger to offer an optional “like” as an entry on a contest hosted on their blog.

          • I would be very careful if you are going to try to use a work-around.

            Speaking as someone who has had their Facebook page shut down at one point in time, Facebook doesn’t actually need a reason to shut your entire page down and could at any time for any reason (giving them a reason is not a good idea, IMO).

            My page was ultimately re-opened with an apology from Facebook, but it took a month. And I was one of the lucky ones. Having pages reviewed and reopened is NOT the norm for most people who have their pages shut down.

            I would really err on the side of caution here.

          • Merikay Noah

            I agree – having worked in that industry, that’s exactly what they’ll do. It’s their game and if you’re going to play it then you have to follow their rules.

          • Anne Sweden

            But they can shut you down even when you follow the rules. That’s what happened with Giveaway Promote, right? It’s not that big a deal to me, honestly. My blog is where I want my traffic and interaction; that’s my space. Facebook is simply a tool. And I still feel that sharing a Facebook page with my readers and inviting them to like it is perfectly within FB guidelines, and shouldn’t put me on the radar.

        • Yes – you’re correct. The promotion guidelines (found in section III here: https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php) haven’t changed with this update. This update is aimed at developers that create an app using Facebook functionalities. But I have a good feeling Facebook will from upon finding a work around.

      • KH

        I had contacted FB to clarify the “Share” entry for me and was informed that we can use Share as long as it’s optional. They said it could only not be used as a mandatory entry

        • Then shouldn’t fan-gating be allowed as long at is wasn’t the ONLY way to enter the contest or download the app?

    • Anne S

      Maria, this is EXACTLY what I was thinking as I read the guidelines and the blog post. It could be interpreted that the blogger is incentivizing a Facebook like, and not Rafflecopter (the developer).

  • As a page owner, I can honestly say that people rarely go out of their way to “Like” you on social media unless there is something right in front of them constantly reminding them to do it. When I don’t use giveaways, I only get about 5 likes a day. When I use a giveaway though, it doubles. I have a lot of return visitors to my site each month out of the 10k or so that visit. Only about a third of them have followed me on Facebook. People are honestly too lazy to go to a second site to follow someone if they are already a frequent visitor. It’s a bummer for someone like me because companies want my Facebook stats, which aren’t exactly a fair representation of my followers. All in all, I think that this is a huge load of bullcrap. Facebook’s business model and IPO failed horribly, and now they are trying like mad rabbits to ensure that no one is able to get decent representation on Facebook without paying them for it. Scammy, schemey, corporate money-mongering. That is all this amounts to.

    • Also, I want to point out that the reason I believe money is behind this and not “authenticity concerns” is because Facebook is providing a way for people to purchase followers. Who is really creating destroying authenticity in social media – people who pay $500 a month with a Facebook ad asking you to “Like if you love your mom!” (because duh)… or hard-working business owners who ask that you give them a like if they give you their coupon? Google+ doesn’t allow incentivizing for followers either – for the same reasons Facebook is giving – but guess what? They don’t provide a way for you to pay for those followers either. If Facebook wasn’t a relevant platform for businesses (and I pray it isn’t forever)… I’d drop it.

      • Drake Featherwing

        The only good thing about Boosting your page is the reach. The cost to gain that reach is beyond appalling though… Especially for a company that just spent $2 BILLION buying out Oculus VR… Money that could’ve been used in lots of other ways. But to prevent people from reaching out by making ways to do so worthy of page/account shutdown? Yeah… Kinda extreme… But eh. That’s business for you… Zuckerberg Zucking all the fun out of liking pages on Social Media… XP

      • Sarah Titus

        The thing I dislike most about the whole thing is that I spent hundreds of dollars running sidebar ads on Facebook to get people to like my page, and then not a month later, they changed the algorithms, so now I can’t even reach any of those people I paid to see me? I have to pay AGAIN for the SAME people to see my posts now, and all the sudden, after I STOPPED paying for those ads, now those same people are unliking my page. This strikes me as hugely shady. If I didn’t know any better, I would be tempted to think that Facebook is the one with fake profiles. Not that my page is super awesome, but it is popular and people don’t usually unlike in hoards like that. Who even goes back through who they’ve liked and deletes, really? Something doesn’t seem right.

  • Cara Louise Reitbauer

    thank you for removing the mystery surrounding this change!

  • Pingback: Facebook Promotion Guidelines Update: What You Need To Know()

  • Pingback: Facebook Giveaway / Contest Rules & Regulations Explained()

  • Pingback: Join the Change-Diapers Cloth Diaper Facebook Group()

  • James

    Long story short: more money out of admins pocket to promote ones page. Small businesses will virtually die because we cannot afford to reach even 5% of our fan base. Thanks alot, got to keep your shareholders happy, aye?

    • Are unauthentic likes from sweepers any better for small businesses?

      • The giveaways I run do entice people to like the businesses Fan Page, but my take on it has always been that the people are entering because they want that product from that brand therefore liking said brand page is authentic. If they didn’t want the product they wouldn’t enter the giveaway.

    • Drake Featherwing

      Boosting a page/status is something I never really wrapped my head around… I admin a couple of pages myself and saw the option, but to put more money in a company that recently brought out Oculus for $2 billion (Yes, BILLION), I personally wouldn’t even boost… If people saw the page they’d like, naturally spreading the word, and giving things to those that stay loyal? Now that’s worth liking a page for… Yeah, I’ll pay $10 bucks to reach 50 people … $100 to reach 400? Ugh. That’s businesses for you, hate to see pages (and especially business) suffer because they’re giving their own time/money to garner a few extra likes to their page and Zuckerberg trying to Zuck all the good stuff out of social media…

  • I experienced joining a Rafflecopter giveaways that has lots of points to be completed before finishing it. I mean it’s like taking my time, answering and taking my liberty to choose who to follow,etc. Moreover, some Rafflecopter hosts giveaways, and very greedy to inject more than 10 or 20 items to be completed which makes the giveaway a chance to rob participants. As such, sometimes, they grouped to hold giveaway with so many likes, follow, comments, shares and other things to be completed because they were the ones running the giveaway? As such after the host didn’t bother to report who’s the winner and how to choose a winner? I want to join this giveaway because I want to win, but with so many items to be completed, I felt angry because of its greediness of the host. Also, there were restrictions as; for US residents only, comeback for tomorrow to gain another entry points….This greediness must be stopped and be regulated to 5 items only, no more, no less.

  • Nancy McClain

    Why doesn’t FB have a contest section? You can send me royalties for my idea!

  • I think average sweepers that haven’t run contest may think this is a great idea–at first. However, if those people who run the small to medium sized contest, normally the average blogger, sees little benefit from it they won’t do it. They’ll be less contests–and both the sweepers and Facebook will lose in the long run. It takes a lot of work to run a contest. Most brands and advertisers want to see FB numbers, not just twitter numbers. If a contest can’t add FB followers, and can’t add Google Plus followers, financially and timewise most bloggers will find participation in a contest almost pointless.

  • Jenn

    I honestly don’t care either way.. I stopped messing with Facebook long ago. If people want to like my page they are welcome to, and if not there are other means of getting quality traffic. I have come to like Pinterest, Twitter and Google a lot. One thing I love about Google is they tell it like it is, there is no reading between the lines.

  • Pingback: Facebook Bans the Like Gate - What You Need to Know - Pro Blog School()

  • Pingback: Facebook Policy Changes and The Effect on Giveaways and Sweepstakes - Dragon Blogger Technology()

  • binabug

    this is awesome as I had in the past gotten banned from access to fb for liking too many pages (all of those blogs and rafflecopter) When that happened I basically quit going to blog contests as I use fb to keep in contact with family as well as entering sweeps (and there are tons of company sweeps on fb who do NOT require you to like 50 pages in order to win their product

    • Rachel

      i agree! liking 50 pages you don’t know just to to enter is insane. You know why they do that don’t you? So they can have a bigger prize. Say the giveaway is a $1,000 Amazon gift card and you have to like 50 FB pages, well each blogger chipped in $20 for that prize. So basically they paid $20 to earn new likes from the other 49 participants—way cheaper than paying FB for advertising. So slimy. Also, most do not follow proper FTC rules for giveaways and many are being reported. Hopefully the FTC will step in soon as well.

  • annoyed with facebook

    who makes these rules? they should get a kick in the pants! how can you tell people to not create incentives but your stupid website is the one who JUST created a FACEBOOK STORE. isnt that an incentive to make people use facebook more??? the amount of stupidity that arrises from this website just baffles me!

  • Galih Purwo Nugroho

    I love giveaway
    I wish win the contest in the near future from rafflecopter

  • I wouldn’t mind it if FB wasn’t hiding our pages from our fan’s news feeds! FB is not a friend of the blogging community!

  • Rachel

    I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about this news. As a blogger, I have never liked the large giveaways where a reader needs to follow 20+ pages that they have no idea who they are just to enter a giveaway. I want followers who authentically want to be following my page, not ones who think I am cluttering their feed. Now we can really see what bloggers have an authentic FB following (too bad they can’t lose all those likes they earned by dangling a carrot for a like)

    • Liz

      They could have at least put in a limit restriction, though. :(

      This harms page owners.

  • Shannon

    How far in advance will you let us know that you will be doing away with the Like this page to enter feature? I know wed really love some great advanced planning time so we can make the most of the remaining time to utilize this feature!

    • Hey Shannon! We’ll be giving 30 days notice in regards to when the fan-gate / Like entry option will be removed. We’ll be announcing those updates and the 30 day notice on our blog and across our social network profiles. While the deadline is November 5th, it will probably be done sooner than that. Hope that helps!

      • Shannon

        PLEASE PLEASE give us as much time as possible <3 LOVE our Rafflecopter and as someone who does a LOT of promoting not only my page on Facebook but LOTS of other shops, we would love as much time as possible before that Nov 5th date. <3 <3

        • Merikay Noah

          I agree with Shannon – I’d like to keep this feature up until the bitter end if possible (maybe Nov. 1) so I can use it until then, I’ve found it to be a really useful way to get loyal followers (possibly because I don’t abuse it but use it responsibly). Thanks!

    • Josh @ Rafflecopter

      Hey Shannon – Happy to clarify :) When we do roll out any updates we will let all of our users know at least 30 days prior. If you have any further qestions please don’t hesitate to reach out at support(at)rafflecopter.com

  • Caulon @ GiveawayFrenzy

    I am not sure this is a good plan I actually think it helps with branding and growth even if it’s considered a growth hack. It would have been better if they had a system in place to prevent abuse. Having promoted over 80 giveaways for startups businesses, facebook likes is probably the most important next to site registrations. But the rules must be obeyed.

  • leslielovesveggies

    Thanks Greg, Lots of great information. This FB like stuff has been driving me nuts for years!
    Leslie

  • Pingback: Blogger Beware! Facebook Contest Policy Changes You Need To Know About by Mitchell Wright()

  • Pingback: Google+ Linky Party, Week 34 #google+ #linky - The Ultimate Linky()

  • Pingback: Facebook’s Upcoming Policy Change and How It Will Affect Book Tours & Giveaways | Fire and Ice Book Tours()

  • Let’s be honest, Facebook did this so they could make you pay to get more likes. Likes that won’t see your posts anyway unless you pay to boost them.

  • Merikay Noah

    The cynical part of me, and the part that’s worked in the dot-com business for a long time, believes the bottom line is that FB is doing this primarily so it can better monitize those pages by getting us to pay for ads to attract “friends.” The friends i’ve attracted through Rafflecopter giveaways have stayed with the page, so I hate to lose that ability. Still, it is what it is and we’ll just have to deal with it. It’s sad when a company begins to operate in reaction mode and begins to scale because it loses a lot of the creativity it had before – in many cases, the very things that attracted people to it.

  • Pingback: Facebook Just Hobbled Author Pages | Amy Leigh Strickland()

  • lorraine masterson

    Thanks for the information, it was exactly what I was looking for.

  • vicky brinius

    how can we reward the followers we already have? can we say current fb followers get an entry?

  • Melissa

    As a small business, I don’t really care how many “Likes” I get on Facebook. So far, all my likes have been organic, and I choose to keep it that way. I do not believe in paying someone else to make sure I get visitors to my page – or to keep them coming back. If I have likes, that is fine – if I don’t, that is fine too. All this jibber jabber about giveaways and such seems like a waste to me. If I can’t keep folks coming back to my page, shop or blog, then I have failed –

  • Melissa J Rutter

    You hit the nail on the head with the, ‘Places more emphasis on Facebook ads.’ line. I mean, really, all this is about is another attempt to force page owners into paying FB to advertise their page, FB is already worth billions and still its not enough. Surely, if an author wants to offer a free book as an incentive to get more likes on their page, what the hell does it have to do with FB. You already restrict the numbers of likers who see the posts and remove them from the page if they don’t interact with that page for a while. Its a joke, even Anne Rice, best selling author, has noticed her one million likers are not seeing her posts. We are not stupid, we will not be forced to pay you to advertise our pages, if we could do that, we wouldn’t be on Facebook in the first place. All you will do is drive authors to Goodreads and Twitter. Keep up the good work, you obviously care more about money then the thousands of fake profiles and fraudsters on Facebook.

  • Pingback: September S.M.A.R.T. Goals And What I Learned In August.()

  • Pingback: September 2014 Top Fans & Daily Alternate Entry()

  • EDee Williams

    FaceBook is no longer relevant. Unless you pay for Fans to see your content, no one is ever going to seeing it. It no longer matters if people “Like” your page – no one is seeing it.

  • While perhaps a tad frustrating, I do think this could result in more true fans that really want to engage with a page and less “likes” just to enter a contest. In the end, that could be a positive.

  • I hope Rafflecopter will update its users very soon on app changes. I have a giveaway scheduled to begin October 1st and end November 10th. I need to know the new terms of engagements before I install my giveaway.

  • Kathryn

    I am feeling very dumb here. Can we still use “Like” a page for an entry but not make it mandatory? Or is that cheating!

    • Josh @ Rafflecopter

      Hey @Kathryn — Starting Nov 5th we will no longer have the ‘like a facebook page’ entry option as part of our platform. Before that though, you’re completely fine! If you need any further clarification on this please don’t hesitate to get ahold of us at support(at)rafflecopter(dot)com

  • Lori Boness Caswell

    I wish Facebook would notify us Page Admins about the rules if we don’t use an app like Rafflecopter. If you had not informed us of this we would never have known and we don’t want to break the rules and have our pages shut down. I use a Google Docs for some of my giveaways on my blog and ask people to “like” my Facebook page for Bonus entries. They have to go to my page and manually click “like”. Is this a violation so no app is involved? I think we all need to know in advance so we don’t break their rules. It needs to be in plain easy to understand language too. I will remove this option in November thanks to Rafflecopter, but what about all those bloggers out there that do not use Rafflecopter? How are they even going to know what is coming. I have searched everywhere for more information aside what is posted here and have found nothing. My blog posts are automatically linked to my Facebook page and the non Rafflecopter giveaways are on my blog not on Facebook . Are these links still going to be permitted if the post includes a giveaway? It is all very confusing to me.

  • Pingback: Facebook Platform Policy Updates & Upcoming Changes()

  • This is going to really hurt me as a Promoter. One of the biggest things I did for sponsors for my NON PROFIT organization was run giveaways to bring them new likes. My take on it is people wouldn’t like the pages if they didn’t like the products. Why would someone enter for a giveaway for products/brands they didn’t want?

  • Pingback: Friday Link Love - Two Places at Once()

  • Pingback: November 2014 Top Fans & Daily Alternate Entry()

  • Pingback: Rafflecopter Updates: An Alternative To Fan-Gating()

  • John Hill

    hi there. Very interesting info, thanks for posting! Quick question: can you set a minimum number of registrants as a condition of running the contest? A rule like this: “Contest will run only if a minimum number of valid registrants is over 100.”? Hate to commit to give something valuable away if only a few people register for it. Thanks!

    • Dave Criswell

      Hey John, that isn’t currently possible to do automatically. However, you could use your Terms and Conditions plus communicate that on the landing page the giveaway is on.

      I’ll let our product team know about this.

  • kitcatfit

    Can you use Facebook to post a promotion and ask people to follow you on other platforms like Twiiter, Instagram?

  • Pingback: The Top 10 Most Popular Rafflecopter Blog Posts of 2015()

  • Betsy_Marro

    Can you direct me to some information that would help me set up a giveaway tab on my FB author page — the hitch here is that this giveaway involves five books and five authors, so we are sharing the same link and images, etc. what do I need to do to make sure the single contest we are all involved in (it was set up by one of the five, not me) appears on a FB giveaway tab? Also, when I joined Rafflecopter and tried to set up a tab using the FB app, I couldn’t find out how to navigate the app towards my fan/author page. It only offered me my personal timeline. Thanks.

  • Hey everyone! I wanted to let you know that we recently created a page that will keep everyone up to speed when it comes to Facebook Promotion Guidelines. You can read about all things FB promotion guidelines related here:

    https://www.rafflecopter.com/facebook-promotion-guidelines

    Because of that, I’m closing the comments section on this post, but we added a comments section to that URL so feel free to add to the conversation there. Just didn’t want people to come to this page and read comments that were outdated. Cheers!