If you didn’t hear, there was an really brilliant contest held on Facebook for 48 hours involving Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism and WestJet.
Image screen captured from their Facebook Group
It was wonderful to see the enthusiasm both on the NL Tourism Facebook page as well as the excited posts I saw in my news feed of friends and family both local and abroad vying to win.
According to the contest details, if someone from Newfoundland and Labrador wins, they must fly someone to the province (which is a really great rule). How many people commented on the Facebook page that they had a loved one living away that they desperately wanted to bring home.
I know that for Matt and I, we would have a very tough time deciding who would get that lucky ticket.
Thanks to Scott Stratten (AKA UnMarketing) I recently learned the importance of reviewing Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (more specifically their promotional guidelines) and their rules around contests.
Did you know: it is against Facebook’s guidelines to hold a contest on your page unless you are using a third party provider. So any time you see a post along the lines of “Hey everyone! ‘Like’ our status and we’ll pick someone at random to win X!” That’s not actually legit. While I have trouble trusting applications due to the security breaches that have occurred, I didn’t hesitate to add this contest’s app because it was from two brands I trust: Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism and WestJet.
I’m not sure to what extent Facebook will go when violations occur. Maybe you receive a warning, but they could in fact shut someone’s Facebook account and pages down if they had the desire to do so. Remember: you get what you pay for and Facebook is free.
After checking out Scott’s Facebook page, I’ve learned that Social Media Examiner also has some helping information about Facebook contests.
So back to the contest. Did you enter your name? Did you stay up all night waiting to see if you won? Do you know anyone who did win? If you had won, would you be coming to our fine province or were you planning to bring someone here?