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Promotions can now be administered on Facebook Timeline

Facebook announced yesterday a change in their contests and promotion policy. From now on page administrators are allowed to run contests on their page timeline and Facebook no longer requires the use of third-party applications.

What are the main new changes?

Users can now participate in a contest

  • by posting, commenting or liking a Page post
  • by sending a private message to the Page
  • Furthermore businesses can now utilize likes as a voting mechanism.

    It is still not possible to use personal timelines to administer promotions and to participate in a contest by asking users:

  • to tag themselves in the picture of a new product
  • to share a post with their friends
  • Can I still use Page tabs and apps to administer a promotion?

    Yes, of course. The Facebook promotion guidelines state explicitly that Page administrators have the option whether they use an application or the Page to run promotions.

    What are the benefits of an app promotion?

    One reason Facebook changed its guidelines was to make it easier for small companies to create and administer promotions. However, there are plenty of advantages why a marketer would rather use a Facebook application than his Timeline to run promotions.
    The social network listed itself the advantages when using an application:

  • Create a more personalized experience
  • Remain in line with your branding strategy
  • More space and flexibility for the content
  • Collect data in a structured, more secure way
  • Not to forget that promotions without application prevent marketers to offer subscriptions to newsletters and make it more difficult to comply with the promotion regulations of each country.