Facebook Opens Page Promotions to Small Businesses, Drops Pre-Approval And Minimum Spend Requirements
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A key gripe among Facebook Page owners — at least those who don’t do a lot of ad spending — has been the spending restriction Facebook put in place on promotions last year. If you hadn’t bought at least $10,000 in Facebook ads, the company wouldn’t give you the written prior permission it required to run a promotion, whether it was a “sweepstakes, contest, competition or other similar offering.”
It is dropping the spending requirement and approval process, we’ve confirmed with the company, following an email it reportedly sent about the changes to some Page owners earlier today.
Until now, disobeying the promotions guidelines could cause Facebook to do things like block your Page.
Promotions can be done for minimal cost, just the worth of the prize if nothing else, so they’re a natural type of marketing plan for smaller businesses. Facebook first instituted the restrictions last November, and told us more recently that its guidelines weren’t about making money. It didn’t have enough staff to be able to preview everything quickly, and if it didn’t have some sort of full review process in place, it could still be found legally responsible for material posted by Page owners.
But the company has been busy hiring for sales operations and related roles over the past year, and apparently it feels comfortable enough with its current processes that it has dropped the restrictions. Note that the guidelines terms haven’t been updated to reflect these changes, although we assume that will happen shortly.
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November 29th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
This is huge!
November 30th, 2010 at 1:08 am
why this huge?
November 30th, 2010 at 4:28 am
[...] informovala stránka InsideFacebook.com, niektoré stránky už túto informáciu dostali aj priamo od Facebook-u. Oficiálne by mal [...]
November 30th, 2010 at 5:55 am
[...] Laut allfacebook.com sollen die Gewinnspielrichtlinien von Facebook bald geändert werden. Bisher durfte man (eigentlich – hat sich aber nicht jeder dran gehalten) Gewinnspiele nur nach Genehmigung auf Facebook oder nur auf einem externen Server durchführen. Das soll jetzt geändert werden. [...]
November 30th, 2010 at 7:08 am
It’s about time! I worked at a non-profit organization and we wanted to run a promotion in which we gave away a copy of our 60th anniversary commemorative book. Facebook told us that we had to spend $10,000 to give away a book that sells for $60.00. It was madness!
November 30th, 2010 at 8:03 am
WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the heads-up – stupendous news!
November 30th, 2010 at 9:05 am
Great news for advertisers who could not budget for the minimum spend needed to run a promotion fully within Facebook – but this does not undermine the best practice that media buys (in FB or anywhere else)is an important component to create awareness and participation a couple degrees outside of your current fan base.
The other edge to this sword is that the number of promotions within Facebook should dramatically go up and therefore dilute the impact that fewer promotions had before.
What won’t change is that promotions require careful thought to be successful and a thorough understanding of the promotional guidelines that Facebook has in place and the Federal and State laws regarding contests, sweeps, games of chance, etc. Fortunately there are companies out there who can help so that we don’t all have to live and breathe the complex promotional niche.
November 30th, 2010 at 9:06 am
This is brillant news. Facebook is a great option for small business marketing! This gives so much more flexiblity!
November 30th, 2010 at 9:47 am
Does this mean that promotions no longer have to be done through 3rd party apps??
November 30th, 2010 at 11:59 am
This will likely open up new channels for promotion innovation. Anything related to a monetary giveaway has been locked down for a year, and the existing ‘platform legal’ giveaway apps aren’t stellar.
November 30th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Good News for SMBs: Facebook Dropping Contest Pre-Approval…
Inside Facebook is reporting the receipt of an email, later confirmed officially by Facebook–they are dropping the pre-approval and spending limits on Pages to fun contests/sweepstakes. The change has not happened yet, but appears to be imminent….
December 1st, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Any insight on Kevin’s question? Does this mean that promotions no longer have to be done through 3rd party apps? Because if not, then it really doesn’t change things. Using 3rd party apps as allowed businesses to skirt the $10k ad spend for a while.
December 3rd, 2010 at 6:29 am
[...] prize if nothing else, so they’re a natural type of marketing plan for smaller businesses,” notes Eric Eldon at [...]
December 4th, 2010 at 5:31 am
[...] of ways. Facebook finally gave into pressure by removing their rule against running promotions without their prior consent and media purchases. When boiled down, you can run promotions in three different ways [...]
December 4th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Great news indeed! It is moves like this that makes Facebook becoming more and more popular to small business and that’s truly keeping them in business.
December 5th, 2010 at 4:30 am
[...] really is for your children and that the other issues need to be pushed aside during those times. Facebook Opens Page Promotions to Small Businesses, Drops Pre-Approval And Minimum Spend Requiremen… – This is huge news for small businesses who want to run promotions on their Facebook pages. [...]
December 6th, 2010 at 4:00 am
[...] I just received notice that Facebook is repealing the no contests or giveaways rules they instilled in November, which means that small business owners will again be allowed to run contests on their pages. For info, check out this post. [...]
December 10th, 2010 at 10:28 am
[...] more commentary on the news in ClickZ, Inside Facebook, and Marketing [...]
December 19th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
[...] everyone,Good news! Looks like Facebook decided to drop their crazy pre-approval requirement for contests. Ya know, the one where they wouldn’t [...]
March 28th, 2011 at 1:54 am
[...] http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/11/29/facebook-opens-page-promotions-to-small-businesses-drops-pr… [...]