Facebook Releases New Promotions Guidelines

On December 1, 2010, Facebook released its new promotions guidelines that cover both conducting and publicizing promotions on Facebook.  While the new guidelines are substantively quite similar to the previous guidelines, there are some important differences, particularly with regard to conducting promotions on Facebook.  The most notable difference is that explicit approval from Facebook and ad buys are no longer required to conduct promotions on Facebook.  Previously, advertisers wishing to conduct promotions on Facebook had to both obtain prior approval from Facebook and make an ad buy.  The previous guidelines also allowed advertisers conducting promotions to only allow fans of their Page to access the tab that contains the third-party application for the promotion.  The new guidelines expand this and allow advertisers to require users to "like" the advertiser's Page, check-in to the advertiser's Place, or connect to the advertiser's Platform integration before they can enter the promotion.   Similarly, the previous guidelines prohibited advertisers from conducting a promotion on Facebook that users automatically enter by becoming a fan of the advertiser's Page.  The new guidelines expand on this prohibition by prohibiting advertisers from conducting a promotion on Facebook that users automatically enter by "liking" the advertiser's Page, checking in to the advertiser's Place, or connecting to the advertiser's Platform integration.  Notably, promotions still must be conducted through a third party application and cannot utilize native Facebook functionality, and advertisers still 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.

Tip: Advertisers can now run promotions on Facebook without obtaining explicit consent from Facebook or making an ad buy and can leverage Places and Platform integration in their promotions on Facebook.