# A Facebook Contest That Works



## ScaredPanda

We just launched our monthly Facebook giveaway and I thought this would be a great time to explain an effective contest model that we've come up with. Katie came up with the idea for this contest, so I can't take any credit for its success other than setting it up and managing it.

Each month we post a photo on Facebook and encourage users tag themselves in it within the next 24 hours. When the alloted time is up, we draw from the people who have tagged themselves and select a winner - that person gets a free t-shirt of their choice

Hosting contests and giveaways on Facebook can be extremely effective because of its viral nature - but it has to be done right. When executed correctly you will see your fan base explode, more importantly you'll get your company in front of countless new potential customers. Here is how we did it.

*Create a Facebook album*

The first step is to create a photo album with a couple of pictures of your product with instructions for the giveaway as the album description

In our experience it's best to post multiple pictures because there's a limit to how many people can tag themselves in a picture. We learned this lesson when we received messages from concerned contestants when they couldn't tag themselves in the one picture we posted. If, for some reason, you can't post more pictures just have people leave a comment on your fan page telling you why they love your product as a way to enter the contest. Anything that gets people involved and creates some interaction is always good.

*Create a Facebook ad that links to your Facebook album*

Yeah, yeah you're probably thinking that you weren't going to have to spend any money on this, right? Well, I thought the same thing once as well, but then I got to thinking, "how else are people going to get to our page if we don't specifically put it in front of them?" Here is an example of our ad.

Your ad should have a clever message that catches the users attention. Be clear to state that there is something in it for them - why else would they care about clicking over to your page? Along side your text, include an eye catching photo with your ad. Most people say not to use your logo as the image, but our logo seems to generate some conversation so we stuck with it and it worked out great for us.

Also make sure to have your ad link back to your Facebook page and not your website. There is a great post in this forum here explaining why this is important, but besides those facts our goal here is to drive traffic to the giveaway and get users to tag themselves in the picture.

When you create the Facebook ad, I suggest setting it up so that you pay per impressions versus paying per clicks. Our last ad received 465,732 impressions in two days. That's a ton of people being exposed to our brand. In the past we have run pay per click ads and saw nothing like the response we got when payed per impression.

*Tagging creates a ripple effect*

The point of a Facebook contest is not only to create interaction between your brand and the fans, but also to spread your name. This happens in two ways. One, you created a Facebook ad that is being broadcast to literally hundreds of thousands of potential customers. And two, when someone tags themselves in a picture, it is broadcast to all of their friends. They in turn see your contest and decide to tag themselves as well and so on and so on...

Hope this helps anyone looking to create an awesome Facebook contest. Please leave a comment if you've tried this and how your results ended up.

In addition to the information we gave you in this post, check out this post by tango9984, it's really helped us out. "How to make Facebook work for you."

I hope this helps anyone out there who is looking for some advice on running a good Facebook ad.

- Clint


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## kevinjh

Awesome! Thank you so much for posting this information on the site. I am definitely going to work on doing something like this.


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## ScaredPanda

No problem. I hope it works out for you. Be sure to keep us posted if you give it a go.


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## splathead

ScaredPanda said:


> When you create the Facebook ad, I suggest setting it up so that you pay per impressions versus paying per clicks. Our last ad received 465,732 impressions in two days. That's a ton of people being exposed to our brand. In the past we have run pay per click ads and saw nothing like the response we got when payed per impression


Clint, can you help me understand why cost per impression is better for you than cost per click? How many clicks did you get out of those impressions? Based on those clicks, what would have been less expensive; CPI or CPC?

Impression numbers seem so useless to me, especially since I rarely look at ads on facebook pages.


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## ScaredPanda

splathead said:


> Clint, can you help me understand why cost per impression is better for you than cost per click? How many clicks did you get out of those impressions? Based on those clicks, what would have been less expensive; CPI or CPC?
> 
> Impression numbers seem so useless to me, especially since I rarely look at ads on facebook pages.


Hey Joe, I'd love to explain that. Basically it comes down to you paying for every time someone clicks on your ad or how many times Facebook shows it to someone. An impression is anytime Facebook shows your ad, when your ad shows up on a page, that is an impression. You pay per 1,000 impressions versus per 1 click. We've had more luck with impressions than with clicks. 

For instance, lets say that I pay $.85 for every click and my daily budget is $50. Within 58 clicks I've hit my budget and the ad is done. However, with impressions, traffic is still being generated to my page no matter how many of those people click on my ad. The impression model is like throwing a whole bunch of users against a wall and seeing who sticks. Compared to the cost per click model where I'm only guaranteed that 58 people will arrive on my page versus n number.

I agree, I rarely click on Facebook ads either. But the results from our last ad changed my perspective on using them. One user actually emailed me to tell me that she never clicks on Facebook ads but thought our logo was "too cute" to pass up and ultimately did. 

In our last ad we had 300 people click on our ad and reach our page with the budget set at $50. If we were paying per click instead of impression the number would be quit smaller.

Let me know what you think.


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## splathead

Perfect explanation, it's crystal clear to me now. 

Going forward, with such a catchy name, I suggest you incorporate your full scaredpanda.com name in your ad. Those folks who don't click on it right away, are more apt to remember to later.


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## ScaredPanda

Great! And thanks for the advice about the name. That's a good point.


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## brice

So how do you measure success of your contest? Sales, revenue? How are you measuring ROI for your campaign?


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## ScaredPanda

brice said:


> So how do you measure success of your contest? Sales, revenue? How are you measuring ROI for your campaign?


Good question, Brice. Success is a hard thing to measure. I think it depends on the company and what their overall goals are. But in our case, we measure success by the amount of Facebook fans that we gain. Our goal with the contest isn't necessarily to sell t-shirts - in a round about way everything we do is to sell tees - but with this particular contest we are trying to build brand awareness as well as a fan base that we can eventually market to in the future.

We tend to sell a few shirts during these contests as well and that helps pay for the cost of the ad. But I measure success from the feedback that I get from customers and potential customers. When people like our page and tag themselves in our album, it shows me that people are interested in our product. And to me that is success.

How do you measure success when you advertise?


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## vai

Clint, great idea! I'm going to try it. But because FB only allows a max number of tags, do you think that hitting the 'Like' button will have the same effect? It will still show up in the News Feed. And I didn't see where you explained to the contestants how the winner will be chosen, or did I miss it somewhere?


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## ScaredPanda

vai said:


> Clint, great idea! I'm going to try it. But because FB only allows a max number of tags, do you think that hitting the 'Like' button will have the same effect? It will still show up in the News Feed. And I didn't see where you explained to the contestants how the winner will be chosen, or did I miss it somewhere?


I ran into that issue before when I only had two images in my album. Hitting the 'like' button will work but I don't think it will be nearly as effective as the image. To get around the limit of tags, just add three to four images to your folder.

You're right, I never explained how we pick the winners. I wrote a blog post about that here. Take a look, it explains how we use a spreadsheet and random number generator.


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## scuba_steve2699

Awesome idea and great explanation. You have inspired me to look at how we can implement this for our page. Thank you for sharing!


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## aggieeight

Great Idea


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## ScaredPanda

scuba_steve2699 said:


> Awesome idea and great explanation. You have inspired me to look at how we can implement this for our page. Thank you for sharing!


That's awesome! Please let us know how it turns out for you.


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## mtroup

I am a printer and just launched my first contest. I'm going to run it for a month and give away 24 2-color front/back shirts. I went from 96 fans to 237 in 3 1/2 hours.. so i'd say its pretty effective. I'd say so far that 90% of the people's friends coming to the page are local so whether or not they buy anything from me in the future, at least I have more than doubled the amount of exposure my work is getting each time I post an image.

Also, one thing to note is that you have to work a little harder to allow your fans to tag themselves in the photos, however a quick search in Google will bring up many examples of using the "hidden" url trick to get to the photo settings.

Thanks again for the great guide!


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## Optiq

ok.... this sounds really good... I'm still a little lost though with the impressions... you gave a dollar example on the per click... but I didn't really see one for the impression.... but I did see you say you pay per thousand impressions... how much does it cost per thousand impressions versus per click?... As far as the impressions... does one impression only apply to one viewer at a time?... or does FB all at once put one impression out to thousands of people at one time?.. so after that thousand impressions there have been millions of people who have seen it?.... I've noticed those little adds on the side myself and have noticed that they are things that are relevant to me somehow.. it's hardly ever just random so I'm guessing they have a keyword system that identifies with whatever likes we list as interests on our profiles...

I love this idea and have been thinking of a way to do something similar myself... I paint portraits in photoshop as well and I've done TONS of them on FB of different friends and tagged them in it... they in turn put it in their profile... a lot of them even make them their main pics.. which has driven people to me simply because they want one... I know just from posting fliers that you can tag 50 people in one picture... so I was trying to think of a way to gather them all together.. which is over 300 people.... and have them tag 50 friends in their portraits... some of them have more than one that I've done... so calculating it out, if these 300 people tag 50 people in their portraits, and these 50 people each have at least 500 friends who will see that they've been tagged in a pic when scrolling down their wall.... that will trickle down to a potential of 7,500,000 people seeing my photos... of course there are people who share friends... which means the effect will be even more concentrated on them.... I take into account that some people only have like 200 friends.... but I have quite a few friends who have over 2,000 friends who I intentionally did a portrait of and tagged them in it just so all those people could see it... I've just been trying to think of a way to pull everyone together and get them all to do it on the same exact day.... I actually have over 300 different people to work with... but not quite 400 that have a portrait... but I feel the idea you just gave would work out well with that once I get through thinking it out.... thanks for sharing


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## mtroup

I just wanted to post a follow up and say that I am overly impressed with how effective this seems to be. The contest model that I used was to create a photo album advertising the giveaway and require the user to tag themselves in the picture and then refer their friends to "like" our page and then post their name to our wall. It takes some time to tally the votes but since launching the contest on this past thursday night I have went from 96 fans to 773 as of right now. I have also continued uploading work and have received much more feedback on it than before. Since I launched the contest I have received 2 calls on jobs and both stated they found me via facebook due to the contest. The first quote I gave was approved and that job will pay for the giveaway prize and some.

Thank you again, and to anyone who hasn't tried this.. You need to!


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## greivox

This seems so obvious but yet so easy to over look. I appreciate your sharing this wonderful idea. Its almost the best tool to get semi free advertising for a start up business. 

I am definately logging this away for future use. 


Bravo.


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## ScaredPanda

mtroup said:


> I just wanted to post a follow up and say that I am overly impressed with how effective this seems to be. The contest model that I used was to create a photo album advertising the giveaway and require the user to tag themselves in the picture and then refer their friends to "like" our page and then post their name to our wall. It takes some time to tally the votes but since launching the contest on this past thursday night I have went from 96 fans to 773 as of right now. I have also continued uploading work and have received much more feedback on it than before. Since I launched the contest I have received 2 calls on jobs and both stated they found me via facebook due to the contest. The first quote I gave was approved and that job will pay for the giveaway prize and some.
> 
> Thank you again, and to anyone who hasn't tried this.. You need to!


Whoa! That's a lot of new friends you just made. Congrats, that is fantastic. I'm so happy that you were able to utilize this.


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## ScaredPanda

greivox said:


> This seems so obvious but yet so easy to over look. I appreciate your sharing this wonderful idea. Its almost the best tool to get semi free advertising for a start up business.
> 
> I am definately logging this away for future use.
> 
> 
> Bravo.


Right? When we did it we were shocked that we didn't think of it earlier. Sometimes some of the best ideas are the ones that are so obvious and get over looked. 

So many marketers talk about "word-of-mouth" marketing. But in the digital age where Facebook has become the norm, I think that this is as close to online word of mouth as you can get. For now, until someone discovers another great method.


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## ScaredPanda

Optiq said:


> ok.... this sounds really good... I'm still a little lost though with the impressions... you gave a dollar example on the per click... but I didn't really see one for the impression.... but I did see you say you pay per thousand impressions... how much does it cost per thousand impressions versus per click?... As far as the impressions... does one impression only apply to one viewer at a time?... or does FB all at once put one impression out to thousands of people at one time?.. so after that thousand impressions there have been millions of people who have seen it?.... I've noticed those little adds on the side myself and have noticed that they are things that are relevant to me somehow.. it's hardly ever just random so I'm guessing they have a keyword system that identifies with whatever likes we list as interests on our profiles...
> 
> I love this idea and have been thinking of a way to do something similar myself... I paint portraits in photoshop as well and I've done TONS of them on FB of different friends and tagged them in it... they in turn put it in their profile... a lot of them even make them their main pics.. which has driven people to me simply because they want one... I know just from posting fliers that you can tag 50 people in one picture... so I was trying to think of a way to gather them all together.. which is over 300 people.... and have them tag 50 friends in their portraits... some of them have more than one that I've done... so calculating it out, if these 300 people tag 50 people in their portraits, and these 50 people each have at least 500 friends who will see that they've been tagged in a pic when scrolling down their wall.... that will trickle down to a potential of 7,500,000 people seeing my photos... of course there are people who share friends... which means the effect will be even more concentrated on them.... I take into account that some people only have like 200 friends.... but I have quite a few friends who have over 2,000 friends who I intentionally did a portrait of and tagged them in it just so all those people could see it... I've just been trying to think of a way to pull everyone together and get them all to do it on the same exact day.... I actually have over 300 different people to work with... but not quite 400 that have a portrait... but I feel the idea you just gave would work out well with that once I get through thinking it out.... thanks for sharing


it sounds like you got this pretty well. ;-)

As far as impressions, I'm not entirely sure how Facebook handles their release of your content, but I'm very sure it's not one ad per user at a time. I assume they put out 1 ad to hundreds of people at a time.


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## ShowdownErik

That is fantastic. Well done!


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## Paperplates

going to use this method.. very smart.


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## Sure Shop Appare

Hey Clint, do think the facebook ad word work as good if my t-shirt company has a friend page instead of a like/fan page?


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## Sure Shop Appare

Thanks for the great Idea too BTW. Really smart.


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## PeikkoKasvot

Hello Scared Panda and everyone,

thanks for this great info! I just can't wait to start my own contest on FB soon, and yeah I am really excited reading all the feedbacks here! 

Thanks all.


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## ScaredPanda

Sure Shop Appare said:


> Hey Clint, do think the facebook ad word work as good if my t-shirt company has a friend page instead of a like/fan page?


Hi there. Short answer, yes. The ad and idea will generally work for a friend page just as well as a fan page. Users will still see that their friends are tagged in your photo. However, they will be less likely to add your page as a friend versus 'liking' your page. Personally I like to keep my 'friends' on Facebook to my actual friends and I think many other people feel the same way. Being friends opens up the users profile and generally speaking not many people will feel comfortable with that. Have you thought about transitioning to a 'like' system instead of the 'friend'?

Also, it appears that when you comment on someone's status or picture now Facebook makes it more visible on your friend's news feed. So just getting people to comment on your status and photos could help you gain some friends.


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## ScaredPanda

PeikkoKasvot said:


> Hello Scared Panda and everyone,
> 
> thanks for this great info! I just can't wait to start my own contest on FB soon, and yeah I am really excited reading all the feedbacks here!
> 
> Thanks all.


Be sure to update us on your progress and how it turns out!


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## PeikkoKasvot

ScaredPanda said:


> Be sure to update us on your progress and how it turns out!


yeah, sure!


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## DivineBling

Sure Shop Appare said:


> Hey Clint, do think the facebook ad word work as good if my t-shirt company has a friend page instead of a like/fan page?


Using a friend page for a business is against Facebook rules so you could run the risk of them shutting you down if you do that. You should really use a Fan page for your business and your friend page for personal use.


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## paddylonergan

Awesome idea and thanks for sharing. I just started my clothing line and I am going to try this in April and will post the outcome in May. I am really trying to get more 'likes' for my Facebook page, so hopefully this will work! 

One question though, is there a problem announcing winners for a t-shirt contest on your Facebook page? 

Thanks!


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## ScaredPanda

paddylonergan said:


> Awesome idea and thanks for sharing. I just started my clothing line and I am going to try this in April and will post the outcome in May. I am really trying to get more 'likes' for my Facebook page, so hopefully this will work!
> 
> One question though, is there a problem announcing winners for a t-shirt contest on your Facebook page?
> 
> Thanks!


No, not at all. Once the contest is over and we have a winner, we post their name on our wall with some congrats text. Then we send that person a Facebook message from one of our personal accounts to let them know they won.


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## paddylonergan

Awesome thanks... One problem that I encountered when I tried to tag myself in one of your photos - the 'tag this photo' option was missing and was replaced by 'report this photo'!? I already 'liked' your page, so I don't know why this happened. There was only 11 people tagged, so there was plenty of room for me. 

Any suggestions on why this happened? It could be just a Facebook bug or something simple that I am doing wrong. Thanks.


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## archproject

I just want to know how are you guys extracting the people who likes your page if your page has about a few thousands of likes ? is there like an extract to excel or something like that ?

Facebook has changed alot I can't seem to tag a picture just share a picture only from a facebook page album photo. 

Please Help


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## DivineBling

archproject said:


> I just want to know how are you guys extracting the people who likes your page if your page has about a few thousands of likes ? is there like an extract to excel or something like that ?
> 
> Facebook has changed alot I can't seem to tag a picture just share a picture only from a facebook page album photo.
> 
> Please Help


I had this problem, too, and spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out why people couldn't tag themselves in my photos. Log into Facebook as your personal account and then type your business name up in the search bar. 
On the upper right hand side, click the Edit Page box.
On the left hand side, click Apps.
Under the heading Photos, click on Go to App.

From there you can select Allow fans to tag themselves, etc.

I hope this helps!

Make sure that you're not logged in under your business name because you can't edit anything on your page. You have to be logged in as the administrator, which is your personal log in.


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## archproject

Wow thatvwas quick thank u so much i will try it later and is there any limit of the number of people who can tag 1 picture and how to get the list of people who tag one photo



DivineBling said:


> I had this problem, too, and spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out why people couldn't tag themselves in my photos. Log into Facebook as your personal account and then type your business name up in the search bar.
> On the upper right hand side, click the Edit Page box.
> On the left hand side, click Apps.
> Under the heading Photos, click on Go to App.
> 
> From there you can select Allow fans to tag themselves, etc.
> 
> I hope this helps!
> 
> Make sure that you're not logged in under your business name because you can't edit anything on your page. You have to be logged in as the administrator, which is your personal log in.


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## scuba_steve2699

Great explanation DB!


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## TwistedLogik

DivineBling said:


> I had this problem, too, and spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out why people couldn't tag themselves in my photos. Log into Facebook as your personal account and then type your business name up in the search bar.
> On the upper right hand side, click the Edit Page box.
> On the left hand side, click Apps.
> Under the heading Photos, click on Go to App.
> 
> From there you can select Allow fans to tag themselves, etc.
> 
> I hope this helps!
> 
> Make sure that you're not logged in under your business name because you can't edit anything on your page. You have to be logged in as the administrator, which is your personal log in.



This is brilliant thanks Stephanie! I was struggling to work this out and remembered I had read this thread before so now I can start the tagging contest 

Thanks to the OP as well and everyone who has contributed to this thread


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## chrisf116

Great write up! I have done both facebook advertising and contests but not in this manner. I will be trying this soon! I've also just become a fan of yours, you've got some nice tees!


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## ScaredPanda

Sweet! Looks like we solved another problem within the thread. W00t W00t


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## ScaredPanda

BaySickClothing said:


> Great write up! I have done both facebook advertising and contests but not in this manner. I will be trying this soon! I've also just become a fan of yours, you've got some nice tees!


That Raiders logo tee is pretty bad ***. Let me know if you give this a shot and it works out for ya.


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## DivineBling

TwistedLogik said:


> This is brilliant thanks Stephanie! I was struggling to work this out and remembered I had read this thread before so now I can start the tagging contest
> 
> Thanks to the OP as well and everyone who has contributed to this thread


You are so welcome! I'm so glad I could help in some way! 

I'm on my phone so I can't see if you included a link to your Facebook page. Is it under the same name as your username on here?
I'd love to go find and Like it!


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## bsdclothing

I'm trying this out now, I'll let you know how it goes for me. People definitely like free stuff haha.

Brightside District Clothing | Facebook


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## TwistedLogik

DivineBling said:


> You are so welcome! I'm so glad I could help in some way!
> 
> I'm on my phone so I can't see if you included a link to your Facebook page. Is it under the same name as your username on here?
> I'd love to go find and Like it!


Thanks  Its Twisted Logik Clothing on FB. I will be looking to take some pics in the next week and do the tag contest after that. How long do you guys recommend running the contest for? A week? more?

EDIT: BTW I love your designs so liked you page too


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## TshirtDhaka

This is nice article 
Thanks


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## chrisf116

ScaredPanda said:


> That Raiders logo tee is pretty bad ***. Let me know if you give this a shot and it works out for ya.


thanks! appreciate the love


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## GCshirts

Awesome post and will be quite useful as we are about to do our first facebook contest/ad. And thanks a ton to DivineBling for posting on how to change the settings to allow people to tag themselves in your pics, I thought facebook changed it so you couldn't do that anymore.

Question though, how exactly do you pick a winner for a contest? I mean, if you post multiple pics and get a ton of people to tag themselves, is there an easy way to organize their names? Or even just count the total number of people taged in pics? (not sure if it will say "10 people taged themselves in this photo" or not, sort of like how it says for likes on a post)


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## GCshirts

Reading facebook's policies trying to understand what they actually are, I find this amusing gem: 

*You cannot:* Condition entry in the promotion upon a user providing content on Facebook, such as posting on a Wall of a Page, uploading a photo, or posting a status update.
*You can*: Use a third party application to condition entry to the promotion upon a user providing content to the application. For example, you may administer a photo contest whereby a user uploads a photo to a third-party application to enter the contest.
*You cannot:* Administer a promotion that users automatically enter by liking your Page, checking in to your Place or connecting to your Platform integration.
*You can*: Require entrants to like your Page, check in to your Place or connect to your Platform integration before they provide their full entry information, such as name and contact information.
*You cannot:* Notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.
*You can*: Collect an email or address through the third-party application for the promotion in order to contact the winner by email or standard mail.
*You cannot:* Instruct people (in the rules or elsewhere) to sign up for a Facebook account before they enter the promotion.
*You can*: Instruct users to visit the third-party application to enter the promotion (as described in Section 2.3.2.1). Since users must have a Facebook account in order to access an application on the Facebook Platform, if you give this instruction, they will be prompted to sign up for a Facebook account if they do not already have one.

Amusing because I am pretty sure that every single ad on facebook violates some of those things. However it does mean that running a contest is a bit risky since FB can just shut down your fan page if they feel like it.
Also, someone earlier posted that they usually send a message to the winner, can't do that according to his joke of rules


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## DivineBling

Wow! That's totally eye-opening! What in the world could they possibly have as a reason for those rules? Oh, yeah... they get money from third-party applications. :


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## Retro Campaigns

GCshirts said:


> Amusing because I am pretty sure that every single ad on facebook violates some of those things. However it does mean that running a contest is a bit risky since FB can just shut down your fan page if they feel like it.
> Also, someone earlier posted that they usually send a message to the winner, can't do that according to his joke of rules


Yeah I wouldn't mess with Facebook's rules for promotions. They will summarily take Pages down for violations. Every day it seems like I see a Page running a contest where if you click Like you're entered, or they'll pick a winner based on comments on a post, stuff like that.

It does suck, but you have to use a third-party app. Or, of course, make your own third-party app, where everything is hosted off of the Facebook site. As you mention, you can't use Facebook Messenging to alert your winner; it must be via email. (Though as far as I'm aware, you can congratulate the winner in a post, after you've contacted him.)

They don't want to have anything whatsoever to do with your contest. Sorry to say but I think anything to do with tagging people in photos (which is a Facebook app) and pulling names from there is almost certainly a violation as well.

Of course, you'll see lots of people running contests either knowingly (or more likely, unknowingly) that violate Facebook's rules. Most probably will not ever have any problems with Facebook, but some will. It depends on how much of a gambler you are.

Here is an article about all of this that helped sort it out for me:

Facebook Promotions: What You Need to Know | Social Media Examiner

edit: also in case anyone thinks I'm pimping for an app or something - I don't use any of the apps she mentions in her article


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## GCshirts

That social examiner site is great - lots of info on social media.
And I agree, it's probably better not to gamble and just use a 3rd party app or some other work around instead of just violating the rules, even if that's what everyone else does.


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## Retro Campaigns

Oh wow it looks like they just today updated their Guidelines (yet again):

https://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php

Off the top of my head, unless I'm misremembering, I think the stipulation that your contest must include "a complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant" is new.

edit: n/m, I guess that must have been there in the last update as well.


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## ishredbanez

Very nice, though its a shame that its against the rules I guess...  I wanted to use this method! I see pages do it, but eh... (For example, "leave a comment on this post explaining such-and-such for a chance to win!)
So you *can* for sure congratulate a winner on a wall post and/or status update?
(You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.)
Can you do "first comment on this post wins a shirt!"?

Also, on RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service , it talks about (under paid services) getting audited for lotteries and sweepstakes, and to have the info to show you did the drawing?
It's on their "paid services" page I think.. Somewhere.


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## shirtnewbie

What an awesome idea


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## Retro Campaigns

ishredbanez said:


> Very nice, though its a shame that its against the rules I guess...  I wanted to use this method! I see pages do it, but eh... (For example, "leave a comment on this post explaining such-and-such for a chance to win!)
> So you *can* for sure congratulate a winner on a wall post and/or status update?
> (You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.)
> Can you do "first comment on this post wins a shirt!"?


My understanding is that you can congratulate people on the Wall, but you have to have told them previously that they've won. No, you can't have a contest tied to Wall comments, as you'd be using Facebook's "features or functionality."



ishredbanez said:


> Also, on RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service , it talks about (under paid services) getting audited for lotteries and sweepstakes, and to have the info to show you did the drawing?
> It's on their "paid services" page I think.. Somewhere.


Yeah, I use that. You can use the free Random.org service to randomly pick a winner, but they don't hold the records of the drawing. If you're confident that your entrants aren't a particularly litigious bunch, then this would be fine. If you use the paid service, which starts at $5.00 for 500 entrants per draw, they'll keep the record for you if you ever need to prove it to someone.

These are the Facebook rules as of May 26, 2011 - lord knows they could change it all tomorrow ...


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## ShowdownErik

We have one up and running with the drawing on May 31.

Is there a way to change the header/name of the ad? Example of ours below, the header says Showdown Poker Gear. I would like to change that but it seems to be a greyed out section? Anyone else been able to do that?


Showdown Poker Gear







Free T-Shirt Giveaway Contest! Enter to win a t-shirt of your choice from Showdown Poker Gear! T-shirts available for men and women!


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## ShowdownErik

Retro Campaigns said:


> Oh wow it looks like they just today updated their Guidelines (yet again):
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php
> 
> Off the top of my head, unless I'm misremembering, I think the stipulation that your contest must include "a complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant" is new.
> 
> edit: n/m, I guess that must have been there in the last update as well.


I'm no great legal mind, but doesn't this pretty much make this contest talked about here basically illegal? I could definitely use some help clarifying that. Thanks.


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## Retro Campaigns

ShowdownErik said:


> I'm no great legal mind, but doesn't this pretty much make this contest talked about here basically illegal? I could definitely use some help clarifying that. Thanks.


As far as I can see, yes. Because you're using Facebook Photos, which is their app and their functionality.


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## northerntees

I like this I did sumthin similiar in my first month of starting out since. But u can't beat hard work and graft I've been getting my Seo sorted and since I opened 10 weeks ago I've I had I've 3000 hits on my site using Facebook etc but most referrals come from google! This week sales have Bren outstanding!


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## shirtnewbie

That's unfortunate that facebook changed their guidelines again.  Thanks alot mark zuckerburger


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## ThreadBusiness

Great idea and very generous post. Thanks for sharing mate


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## BradsLee

This is a great idea and an awesome fan generator. My Facebook page currently has about 2300 fans and we are looking to double, triple and beyond that number by the end of the summer. We have a new shirt coming out at the end of the week and are definitely going to give this a shot. Thanks so much for sharing!


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## LeLemon

I am not sure if this has been asked yet but how many pictures would you recommend to make for people to tag on?


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## blinger

LeLemon said:


> I am not sure if this has been asked yet but how many pictures would you recommend to make for people to tag on?


the more the merrier. There are tag limits on photos. If you don't create enough, chances are people will not be able to tag themselves.


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## SmarteBuy

Great job and contribution! Many thanks for sharing your experience here.


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## franko76

Retro Campaigns said:


> As far as I can see, yes. Because you're using Facebook Photos, which is their app and their functionality.


This bites...pretty much negates this thread...which is a bummer because I wanted to try this or other creative ways of holding a contest on Facebook. Looks like I'll be looking into building apps now...

and it looks like some people haven't read about this yet:
Promotions Guidelines | Facebook

no contests in facebook unless you do so in an app...


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## gabenick2

I paid for the impressions and facebook had to approve it first, which they did. I am not sure if I did it correctly, I have not had one tag/like


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## JEMEPEEL

Wow, this is a cool idea. I should try this out. =)


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## SpecMat

franko76 said:


> This bites...pretty much negates this thread...which is a bummer because I wanted to try this or other creative ways of holding a contest on Facebook. Looks like I'll be looking into building apps now...
> 
> and it looks like some people haven't read about this yet:
> Promotions Guidelines | Facebook
> 
> no contests in facebook unless you do so in an app...


Yeah- that bummed me out too and I definitely do not want to risk having them delete the company facebook page. 

We just started a design contest today using easypromos basic, which lets you do the first promotion free, so that's helpful at least. Here's their facebook page...

Easypromos - Wall | Facebook

You have to be a facebook fan in order to enter, but not vote. That's the drawback to the basic. The next step up is the premium, which is $100 and it is laid out so every voter has to be a facebook fan. 

Hope this helps someone get something going for free!

Thank you.


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## SpecMat

Here's an information pack about marketing on facebook, and the first 5,000 to download it gets $25 in free facebook advertising. 

Facebook Marketing Solutions - FREE Official Guide to Business Success | Facebook

I don't know if 5,000 people have downloaded it yet or not, but it's worth a try. 

I'm all about the freebies this week!  

I haven't used my free advertising yet, but I'm thinking of using it to promote the design contest we just started.


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## gruntstyle

Are you still doing Facebook? I see very little activity.


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