To say I was ignorant of Facebook's views and regulations on running any form of promotion on our Merci Beaucoup fan page would be a lie. I cannot plead insanity nor incompetence. I've known for awhile that, due to some misguided liability concerns, Facebook basically prohibits any and all contests on their site unless you use a third party app. Even then, it is easy for them to turn around and claim you're doing something wrong.
Most of the third party apps also require payment and end up being cumbersome and annoying. All we want to do is have fun with our fans and friends and engage each other in conversation etc. The stuff we give away in quizzes is small and usually left over from something else we've done. It's not like we're offering a cruise! But we cannot collect any form of information via FB, even though they collect and distribute our information on a daily basis. No answers, no emails, I can't even write a winner's name down in a post. Nothing. So, we cannot do little giveaways on Facebook any longer.
Instead, we will be doing all future contests etc. on here, our blog. A safe heaven where I can do whatever I want without worrying about a nervous multi million dollar internet company destroying all my hard work to build our page because they don't want to get sued over me mailing out a fondant leaf cutter. Will it be more work on our end? Absolutely. Will it be more work on your end? A little, yes. I can post a link to our contests on Facebook, but after that, everything will have to be run through the blog.
If you're confused yourself about their policies, check out this article.
The genesis of this comes from a lot of stepped up activity by the Facebook police including accounts being temporarily banned at an alarming rate. I've yet to hear of anyone with a deleted account, but that's probably because they've been deleted! We have over 3,100 fans, and I can't risk losing that to a knee jerk FB intern. We still want to be able to build a community on FB and interact with all of you, we just have to move our contests.
Today I posted our first quiz on Tumblr and it has caused great confusion for both myself and all of you. I'm sorry about that, blame Facebook. Even as I was trying to do things correctly and steer you over to Tumblr, I got a message from FB about their promotion rules. A warning essentially. It sucks, and I wish we could all just have fun on there without Big Brother pooping on the party.
What is ridiculous is all they have to do is develop a simple promotion app with a disclaimer on it that we could all use easily but instead they are hooked in with third party developers including one they funded. As far as the internet has come, there is still a lot left to be desired.
As far as the referral contest goes, I don't know yet. Technically, because it requires the use of a Facebook function (the "like" button), I don't think we can continue with it, but I'm not prepared to let those who worked hard to help us out go without reward, so we'll figure all of that our very soon I promise.
And damn them all, I am stepping up our contests shortly too! We're gonna have a Halloween contest with a trophy and everything!!
Thank you for your patience everyone and your participation. We'll sort this out so we can all just have some fun again soon. Sincerely,
Reva & Mic
That sucks; I guess if you're not paying, you're not playing. I'm sure they could find something better to do like actually explain how their ads actually work with their charges, etc.
Posted by: Nichelle Butler Sankey | 17 August 2011 at 06:07 PM
Somehow FB finds a way to ruin a lot of good things that are just for fun. I am really sorry they wrecked every ones hard work! Maybe a fan will have a better way to run this, you have such a huge variety of fans someone is bound to know something! Can't wait to be recovered and get in on one of these contests!!
Posted by: Amber Di | 17 August 2011 at 07:31 PM
Facebook fans begin to leave comments on the pages of foreign fans. Fans do not interact, or seem to be interested at all, but we can be sure that you are not joining the fan page, and you're really interested. However, because the fans can not buy as true as true fans, you should see as many builders.
Posted by: Get Facebook Fans | 15 November 2011 at 10:11 PM