Important as it pertains to running contests from/on your team’s Facebook Fan Page, that is.

Very recently, Facebook as taken a pretty conservative position in light of privacy laws on running contests from the platform itself. In fact, Facebook has zero interest in allowing it to happen and restricts this activity to 3rd party apps. The fear here is that personal information may be exchanged via Facebook, something they want to stay very far away from. Contesting frequently requires the exchange of personal information – contact info, phone #’s, email addresses, etc…

Unfortunately for many, this directly limits the immediacy, and direct engagement that Facebook offers a team and their online market. Taking these activities off the platform limits viral visibility and community awareness.

Failure to comply with this new mandate could result in account restrictions, blocks or shut downs – this can grind your social media activity and current sponsorship integrations to a halt.

This is a constantly changing landscape and markerters need to be adaptable and quick to change course. Facebook has been less than pro-active in letting marketers know about these changes and many contests have been interrupted and shut down in the middle of the promotion.

Here’s a link with a story/more background about a global brand – IKEA – and their Facebook contest. CLICK HERE.

Running a contest right now? Got questions? Use my Contact Page…