Facebook Clarifies Minimum Spending Requirements for Page Promotions
Facebook requires that anyone wanting to administer a promotion or sweepstakes on their Facebook Page first get written approval. But part of the approval process has been surprising people since it was updated last November. In order to be approved, you need an account representative at Facebook. And to get an account representative in the first place, you need to spend around $10,000 on Facebook advertising.
On its face, it might appear that Facebook is trying to quietly force people to pay an extra, not-obvious fee — to make more money. But this is not the case, the company tells us. The fee threshold exists because the company doesn’t have enough staff to preview every possible promotion that anyone might to do, it says; it has to preview every promotion, because it could possibly be held liable for illegal promotions run by third parties.
Specifically, Section 3 of the promotions guidelines says:
You may not administer any promotion through Facebook, except that you may administer a promotion through the Facebook Platform with our prior written approval. Such written approval may be obtained only through an account representative at Facebook. If you are already working with an account representative, please contact that representative to begin the approval process. If you do not work with an account representative, you can use this contact form to inquire about working with an account representative. If we provide you such approval, you agree to the following: [read the rest here].”
A mish-mash of state and national laws govern promotions in the United States, and the same goes for other countries. The preview requirement is another way that Facebook is trying to maintain quality, and avoid lawsuits from, say, a user who thinks they should have won a $1 million dollar jackpot promotion that’s actually a scam.
The company separately asks advertisers to comply its general terms of service, specific terms regarding advertising, as well as its promotions guidelines. The business model, with pages, is to try to get as many people using them as possible, then make a little money from each person if they want to do paid advertising — the preview fee goes against this model to try to keep Facebook legally safe.
The problem, as many people trying to build promotions for Facebook have been discovering on their own, is that the fee requirement is never clearly spelled out. And, neither is the rationale for the fee. The result is confusion among marketers and developers trying to build promotions for Facebook, especially for small-business clients. Facebook has quickly grown to 400 million users, and thousands of marketers are trying to figure out how to use it
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:35 am
Wildfireapp.com is the answer – set up a promotion on a fan page w/o the $10k media buy.
February 25th, 2010 at 10:58 am
[...] Anyone who wants to run a promotion on Facebook first needs to get approval from an account representative at the company. In order to access a representative, though, one first needs to spend around $10,000 in Facebook advertising. [...]
February 25th, 2010 at 10:59 am
[...] Anyone who wants to run a promotion on Facebook first needs to get approval from an account representative at the company. In order to access a representative, though, one first needs to spend around $10,000 in Facebook advertising. [...]
February 25th, 2010 at 11:06 am
[...] Anyone who wants to run a promotion on Facebook first needs to get approval from an account representative at the company. In order to access a representative, though, one first needs to spend around $10,000 in Facebook advertising. [...]
February 25th, 2010 at 11:22 am
[...] Anyone who wants to run a promotion on Facebook first needs to get approval from an account representative at the company. In order to access a representative, though, one first needs to spend around $10,000 in Facebook advertising. [...]
February 25th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
[...] are noticing that in order to receive approval for a contest being operated within the platform a minimum $10,000 monthly ad buy (click to read more via InsideFacebook.com) which is required in order to receive approval. Your [...]
February 26th, 2010 at 4:43 am
[...] on Your Facebook Page May Cost You $10K.” According to a quote in this article by Eric Eldon at Inside Facebook, you may not administer any form of promotion through Facebook unless you receive a “written [...]
February 26th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
[...] This should also lead to Facebook Pages getting more fans, due to the increased exposure. Beware, however, that running a promotion on your Facebook Page may cost you ten thousand dollars, because Facebook’s policy guidelines indicate that you must get written approval from a Facebook account rep. In order to get one of those, you must spend that much in advertising, according to Eric Eldon of Inside Facebook. [...]
February 28th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
[...] This morning I read Chris Crum’s article titled: Google Makes Facebook Pages a Higher Priority for Businesses As usual his article was thorough. I took particular notice this section quoted below: Beware, however, that running a promotion on your Facebook Page may cost you ten thousand dollars, because Facebook’s policy guidelines indicate that you must get written approval from a Facebook account rep. In order to get one of those, you must spend that much in advertising, according to Eric Eldon of Inside Facebook. [...]
March 15th, 2010 at 9:33 am
[...] This should also lead to Facebook Pages getting more fans, due to the increased exposure. Beware, however, that running a promotion on your Facebook Page may cost you ten thousand dollars, because Facebook’s policy guidelines indicate that you must get written approval from a Facebook account rep. In order to get one of those, you must spend that much in advertising, according to Eric Eldon of Inside Facebook. [...]
April 20th, 2010 at 2:27 am
[...] More, Facebook’s policy dictates that one must get written approval from a Facebook account representative. In order to get one of those, you have to spend about ten grand advertising with the company, according to Eric Eldon at Inside Facebook. [...]
June 3rd, 2010 at 6:56 am
@Spanky, but you would still need facebook approval, even using platforms as wildfire.
September 14th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
[...] Facebook platform and more importantly it requires approval from Facebook. You can get approval by committing to spend $10,000 in Facebook advertising, it is Facebook’s way of protecting [...]
September 29th, 2010 at 10:40 am
[...] you have a large budget (I've seen the number at $10,000 but it might even be more: http://www.insidefacebook.com/20…), people are on their own as far as deciding how to target ads.If you are getting irrelevant ads, [...]
December 14th, 2010 at 8:08 am
1 of December 2010. Facebook changed the policy. This page should be revised. There is no more chapter 3 with those aberrations. :)
December 19th, 2010 at 12:39 am
[...] impuse de marea retea. Teoretic, pana acum cei interesati sa lanseze o promotie / un concurs trebuiau sa ceara acordul Facebook si sa investeasca cel putin 10,000 $ pe reclama. Pe final de saptamana, [...]
January 28th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
[...] And while a brand can set up a basic presence for free on Facebook, the social network mandates minimum ad buys in order to offer [...]
March 9th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
[...] must get written approval from a Facebook account representative. In order to get one of those, you have to spend about US$10,000 on advertising with the company. Some have suggested that Facebook has eased on these rules – anyone who knows for sure, [...]
March 1st, 2012 at 2:57 am
[...] Anyone who wants to run a promotion on Facebook first needs to get approval from an account representative at the company. In order to access a representative, though, one first needs to spend around $10,000 in Facebook advertising. [...]
January 9th, 2013 at 9:39 pm
[...] Facebook platform and more importantly it requires approval from Facebook. You can get approval by committing to spend $10,000 in Facebook advertising, it is Facebook’s way of protecting [...]