On Tuesday 27th August 2013, Facebook announced a MAJOR change to their contests rules.
The change is that they have relaxed the rule about needing to use 3rd party contest apps to hold contests and sweepstakes from your Facebook page!
You cannot however ask people to tag themselves in your post or photo to enter your contest – that is still against the rules.
You can see full details of the Facebook contest rules update here
However, last week, they announced another change – that one was to do with the way your posts are “graded” for Edgerank – the visibility algorithm that determines how many of your page fans see what you post on your Facebook page.
We’ll never know exactly how they grade posts, but when this new algorithm rolls out, your reach (the number of people who are eligible to see the post) will decrease when you;
- Ask for likes and shares on posts
- Post memes – images with text overlay
- Post non relevant content
So… despite the excitement surrounding this week’s update to the contest T&Cs, most of the benefits have been cancelled out by last week’s Edgerank change! Cunning eh?!
You can see all the details of this change here
Converting Facebook contest entries into warm leads
Of course, the big benefit to using 3rd party Facebook contest apps is the ability to collect email addresses at the point of entry to your competition – which a simple “like and share this post” contest won’t offer.
To be honest, as a business owner, your #1 priority should always be to get a positive ROI on any marketing spend. 
Even if you give away a program or product that doesn’t cost any extra to provide, there is still the cost of your time in creating and administering the contest.
So running a contest without collecting leads is frankly bonkers!
There’s no value in getting your Facebook post or page liked. Any later conversion of those likes is wholly reliant on you having access to your Facebook account, and if you read this post, you’ll understand how vulnerable your business income is when you assume you’ll have access forever.
So the real point you should take away from this post isn’t “YAY I can run a like/share contest now”, but instead to ask yourself “if I run a like/share contest, how will I convert those likes into leads?”
If you don’t have a conversion funnel that includes valuable content and effective engagement at the front end, a Lead Magnet and nurture strategy behind… leading your prospects by the hand towards your no brainer offer to buy from you – then don’t run like/share contests unless you enjoy flushing money down the toilet!
I guess that sometime soon the platform and app functionality will evolve into being able to collect email addresses from within the newsfeed post. Until that time, I would recommend you continue using the 3rd party contest apps to host your contests, unless you’re in the 1% of business owners marketing on Facebook who do have a solid conversion strategy.
What are your thoughts on this rule change? Do you think it’s a good move by Facebook? Please post your thoughts below
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