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22 sep

Facebook Bans Like Gating for Promotions

By: Jennifer French | In: Best Practices, Contests, Facebook, Legal and Prize Fulfillment, Marketing, Sweepstakes

Planning to run a sweepstakes or contest on Facebook in the near future?  There is an important change that you should be aware of before you proceed.  Today the latest Facebook change and how Facebook bans like gating for promotions, i.e. requiring people to like a page before they can enter the sweepstakes or contest.  Here is Facebook’s reason for the change.

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.

It’s Facebook’s aim to make sure that the almighty “like” retains its value.  If you are required to like a page for the purpose of entering a sweepstakes rather than being an actual fan of the page, it may tend to water down the user experience, which may equate to the user spending less time on Facebook.

Obviously, increasing your likes is still an important goal, so this just means you will need to think of other ways around the ban.  One idea is to offer a Facebook “like” icon on your entry page and gently invite people to like your page rather than making it a required step.

In addition to this major change, there have been other important changes within Facebook’s promotion policy that were rolled out throughout the year. This is why it’s imperative to hire an agency like Sync Marketing who specializes in promotion law to administer your sweepstakes and contests. At Sync Marketing, we stay up-to-date on all of these important changes and can help you formulate a plan to increase your reach on Facebook (and beyond) despite this new restriction and future changes.


08 sep

The Benefits of Running an Instagram Promotion

By: Julie Link | In: Best Practices, Contests, Instagram, Legal and Prize Fulfillment, Sweepstakes, User Generated Content

Social media has come a long way in the past several years and it has become a fantastic tool for companies and brands to promote their products and/or services. We have found that Instagram is an extremely useful and effective platform to run promotions for brands looking to increase their visibility and their connections with their consumers. Today I’m going to cover the benefits of running an Instagram promotion.

If your key demo is between the ages of 13-24, an Instagram sweepstakes or contest is a great way to grow your follower base. Typically during a promotion, entrants are asked to follow and tag your brand in order to enter as well as include a specific hashtag that relates to the sweepstakes or contest. By asking entrants to take these steps, you are instantly increasing your visibility and creating user-generated content. Speaking of UGC; Instagram is all about sharing experiences and passions through photos. Running an Instagram sweepstakes or contest is a simple yet effective way to ask your consumers to express themselves, all while giving you the possibility of collecting meaningful and visually-interesting user generated content. Sync Marketing recently ran a successful Instagram sweepstakes for their client CBI specifically for their Claire’s division. Learn more about it here.

Instagram Photos

Although it all seems easy enough to orchestrate, it’s highly recommended that you hire an agency who specializes in sweepstakes and contest law to handle the legal portion of your campaign. Not only does promotion law change on a daily basis (bye bye Facebook likegate), but hiring an agency to produce the official rules and necessary winner release forms is an investment that is absolutely worth it to protect your company from possible infractions due to these changes. Sync Marketing has a knowledgeable and experienced team that can walk you through the process of running an Instagram photo sweepstakes or contest and will provide you with all of the legal elements to ensure a successful and legally-compliant promotion. We even check all social media posts and marketing materials to make sure your program is consistent and correct from a legal and customer service standpoint.

Contact us today is you’re interested in running an Instagram sweepstakes or contest! 323.596.7962.