Social Media Archives - iRespectOnline

July 5, 2020 By Fiona Lucas

Contests on Facebook and Instagram – getting it right

Competitions, contests and giveaways can be a great strategy for creating engagement or promoting something new on Facebook and Instagram. However it’s important to do them right to protect your brand. Edited July 2020.

What constitutes a contest, giveaway or promotion?

Competitions, or giveaways/promotions offer those entering the chance to “win” something of value. It may be a subscription, a gift basket or box, a a voucher or some other prize. The opportunity to win being given to those who participate by either giving up their details, completing an entry form, providing a story, commenting or some other task.

Retro pop art illustration of a happy woman throwing money to illustrate winning a contest — images by depositphotos

Pros of running Contests and Giveaways:

Sparks engagement and excitement to your brand
Built for sharing
Generate organic traffic
Brings your brand to the attention of new audiences
Can produce great virality
Creates user generated content (see our previous article on user generated content )
Awareness of new products or services
Promote opening a new venue

Cons of running Contests and Promotions:

Many come for the prize only and will not engage with the brand
May not be from your ideal customer base
Short term fans only
If not run correctly can actually risk your brand
Can add extra administrative burden
Sometimes genuine fans/customers are disgruntled when a random person wins (clarity of rules is important here)

Although the rules around Facebook and IG competitions have been around as long as the platforms, there are still many business owners putting their page/accounts at risk by not following the guidelines.

Don’t risk losing your Page

Time and time again we hear of people who have lost access to a Facebook page or Instagram account. Generally page owners feel they have done nothing wrong. Interestingly, a close investigation often (not always) finds that competitions and giveaways were being run on the account which were not in accordance with conditions.

Both Facebook Conditions and instagram guidelines do get updated, so it’s really important to make sure you check before publishing to protect your brand.

Below we outline the basics you need to know.

Important conditions for all contents and giveaways

The number one most important condition for all platforms is to make sure that you include a disclaimer. This removes the platform from any association with your contest.

Both Facebook and Instagram require that contests or promotions must include:

A complete release of responsibility for Facebook and/or Instagram toward each entrant or participant; and
Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by or associated with Facebook and/or Instagram.

The next most important condition for contests and promotions is to ensure you have clear terms and conditions of entry.

Facebook and Instagram both state that these must include the following:

Official rules of the contest or promotion;
Offer terms and eligibility requirements (ex: age and residency restrictions); and
- - - - Compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered.
        (ex: registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals).
      - Lotteries (where someone must buy a ticket to win) are not allowed.

General guidelines for contest rules:

Your rules should include the start and end date of the contest or promotion; any age limitations (for example only persons over the age of 18) ; the jurisdiction for which participants qualify (Where they live: for example is the contest local, State, National, Worldwide) and how the contest winner is chosen. Consider, for example will you be doing a random draw, voting by public, judging an entry or other condition? These rules may be posted on a web site but a clear link and statement that entrants agree to the Terms and Conditions must be provided in your post.

It is also important that it is stated that no purchase is required for entry. If an entrant chooses voluntarily to purchase, that a purchase does not increase chances of winning.

When Facebook says “no consideration” it means that nothing of value should change hands. Some countries you may find that giving up an email address or other information is considered a consideration, so make sure you look into laws closely.

You should ensure the details of the prize are clearly described.

It is vital that you also consider any laws for contests and competitions/giveaways in your State or Country. If your contest is open more broadly, then you must ensure that each Countries laws are also covered. For this reason we often recommend either local contests be run and that a contest is not a random draw.

Generally anything drawn at random becomes a “game of chance” and is subject to more legal requirements than a “game of skill”.

A game of skill involves participants having to complete something in order to win, whether it is writing a short essay, completing a puzzle or other task and having entries judged according to a set of criteria. You don’t have to tell entrants why they did not win (no correspondence will be entered into) but you should make sure the rules are clear how the judging process works to ensure it is ethical and fair.

You must also check whether there are other local, state or national laws which impact on the type or value of a prize. Some contests may require being registered.

If entrants are required to produce a creative work (whether image, photograph, illustration or written) that your rules advise them that entering grants you the right to use the intellectual property and use such works in advertising or other promotional purposes.

Having clear rules can protect your brand reputation by avoiding confusion or frustration by entrants.

Be aware that neither Facebook nor Instagram will assist you with contests or promotions. Both platforms state: “We will not assist you in the administration of your promotion and cannot advise you on whether consent is required for use of user content or on how to obtain any necessary consent.”

Best Practice Facebook Competitions & Giveaways

The biggest mistake we still see regularly is the tag and share competition.

Facebook explicitly states: “Promotions may be administered on Pages, Groups, Events, or within apps on Facebook. Personal Timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions (example: “share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend’s Timeline to get additional entries”, and “tag your friends in this post to enter” are not permitted).

This is to try and prevent spamming (engagement baiting) onto profiles and deter the use of fake profiles.

You cannot ask for likes on shares on Facebook as a condition of entry, but you can have links that take entrants off the platform and ask for actions there. This is where third party contest software with referral features can be handy. The main reason is that once something is shared you cannot trace it properly, you need entries to be in one location to ensure all is fair and transparent. You can suggest folk follow the page to keep up to date, but it must not be part of the condition of entry.

You also must not request that entrants tag friends in order to enter. Bringing up the level of excitement so that they want to share with their friends is fine. As long as the tag is not requested as part of the conditions of entry it is fine.

Competitions which require interaction and contribution from contestants work really well.

Make sure you have been clear how winners will be notified, and notify them BEFORE you announce on Facebook.

Best Practice Instagram Competitions & Giveaways

When it comes to Instagram, the rules are not quite as strict but along with the general guidelines indicated above, there are a few other things you can do to protect your brand. Again you must use a brand not a personal profile for competitions

Surprisingly for many, as with Facebook you cannot ask people to tag themselves on an image and share it unless they are actually in the image. That doesn’t mean you can’t ask them to tag friends in the comments , but not on the image.

Place a clear link to your terms and conditions in your BIO.

Create a specific hashtag to use with the competition along with your brand hashtag and ask people to use these tags in entries. This is fabulous if you are asking people to share a photo or image on their feed or in stories that they have created, and which you can also use later on (once again , remember to put that in your terms and conditions).

Don’t tag people or products/brands in your image who are not officially part of your competition or giveaway. Make it clear who is hosting the giveaway (for example with a makeup brand if its a collaboration your own brand, their brand and perhaps the founder if you have permission are ok to be tagged).

Keep it clear and simple, especially if there are multiple steps in the competition. Make it as easy as 1, 2 3.

One of the easiest competition is to ask people to like the image, follow your profile and make a comment. You can ask them to tag a friend in the comments, but avoid asking for more than one (if they do tag more thats up to them). A great idea is to have them nominate someone to win a prize. For example, during Covid19 a competition that nominates a front line worker is a nice way to both thank them, acknowledge them, but also helps your brand. Do be careful choosing this kind of strategy as if it is worded badly it can backfire and look as if you are trying to profit from difficult times. Make sure its all about them, not you.

Running contests with third party apps:

You may decide to use a third party platform to administer contests, promotions or giveaway . These third party programs will give you more control over entries, allow you to collect data and choose winners. Examples of these include Woobox, Shortstack and Wishpond (examples for your interest only, we are not affiliated with or endorse any particular product).

The drawbacks are that you have to pay (free products can be very limiting in features, often payments are for annual use. Also design features can be limited (so your contest can look like others and not stand out as much). Then there is a learning curve (some even require some coding knowledge).

You’ve got this

It may seem a little daunting at first, but once you have written out rules and conditions, its easy to tweek them for future contests. Understanding the rules will become more natural to you as you use them.

Before you run any contest, think about what it is you are trying to achieve. Are you after engagement, trying to build fans, wanting to build a list of prospects, introducing a new product or service, or other launch? Setting a goal will help you define your competition.

If you need help setting up or running a competition, then get in touch with us for help. We offer mentoring and creative ideas sessions to help you get your competition up and running. Contact us today!

Disclaimer: this information is provided as a general guide only. It is up to the reader to ensure they investigate and cover all requirements for running contests and competitions for their brand.

Helpful links :

Guide to writing rules from Woobox

Facebook promotions guide

May 3, 2020 By Fiona Lucas

Facebook Pages vs Profile – where are you doing business?

Dear Business owners,

So glad you have understood that you can gain great value and grow your business through Social Media, but did you seek advice before you started? I actually wrote this blog originally back in June 2012 on my old blog Socially Skilled, but I’m reproducing with a few updates which I will note as I still see it happening, businesses operating from a personal Facebook profile instead of a Page.

I can’t believe I’m posting on this topic again – but still I see so many new businesses starting up as a personal profile under a business name, or operating their business from a personal profile. I know it might seem easier, and you feel you don’t want to personally “be” on facebook, but this is against facebook terms and is a poor business decision. (Update: using your personal messenger is also a pretty spammy way to do business).

It kinda makes me want to cry!

Because I am passionate about supporting businesses to grow, I usually drop a friendly private message to give the business a heads up… but I find it so frustrating that so many still do it. On an ethical level I will no longer “friend” a business – it would be hypocritical of me. (Update: I never did “friend” a profile in a brand name). However create a page and if your product or service is something I value, and proides value, then I will LIKE away, and engage!

Remember a LIKE is an endorsement of a product or service – if you are getting value from a page then you should LIKE them to say thanks! Update: We value engagement so much, comments, hearts and shares will always give your business a boost!

(Note that this is a reproduction of the original post from 2012 with updates or amendments noted).

After sending messages to a few pages, I had a couple come back saying they get better engagement with a personal profile – but the principles are all wrong. Let’s just examine a few from both the business perspective and that of someone “friending” the business as opposed to becoming a fan:

Do you really intend to push your business out onto all your friends – many of your friends may not appreciate that you are spruiking to them, and it is very poor social etiquette to do so.
On the other side, if you “friend” a business they are able to spam your friends .. NOT good social etiquette at all
as a business on a profile, you cannot take advantage of all the cool things that the Tabs can do help your business to grow. Update: Pages include messaging, shop, services and insights and more!)
You risk building a huge base of fans only to have it all it all shut down – at some point, especially with facebook now privatised, they are going to do some serious culling – then all your work is lost!
It is almost impossible to implement any kind of reasonable social media marketing strategy when you are operating as a personal profile, and any self respecting and qualified social media consultant should not encourage it. If you want to start list building – then do it through offering something of value and create an opt in offer.
Without a page you cannot take advantage of the analytical tools on offer – so how are you measuring your engagement?
Having an individual profile will limit you to a maximum of 5000 friends, pages can have millions of followers.
Converting to a page later is messy and doesn’t always work as well as you might like. It may not work in the best interests of your brand to later change over where some fans may move and others might still interact with the profile. You miss opportunities for engagement with a much broader audience.
You can link a page to your website and include a buttons to improve engagement, you can’t do this with a profile.
If you later create a personal profile then you are again in breach of facebook terms which clearly state that personal profiles must be in the name of a real identifiable individual (yes not your dog, cat, boat or business) and you may only have one. If you also have a business set up as a profile then you risk having both your profiles shut down.
It actually doesn’t help anyone to do it this way as it causes the statistics to be incorrect – and if you are trying to measure your ROI accurately then we all need to play the game fairly.

I could go on, but the number one thing that you are doing when you set up your business as a personal profile – is not being honest. No one knows who you are – it does not generate trust. If you are being transparent and using your own name, but using the profile for business, you are missing out on many benefits of a page. Be proud of what you have created and let it shine on it’s very own page. If you are not sure what to do, or don’t have a strategy, seek help from an expert so you don’t waste precious time and money, because you never get time back.

Update: I don’t really need to update any of the points, as they are all still really relevant despite me writing them back in 2012!

Fi.

October 6, 2019 By Fiona Lucas

Are you using user generated content?

Humanize your brand with user generated content

The quest for new content is never ending. What is user generated content? It’s allowing your fans, customers, clients, users to tell their story of your brand, or to contribute in other ways to your social media presence. It’s marketing generated by them for you.

image by davicidig depositphotos

User Generated Content (UGC) is becoming a big go to for brands big and small. It’s not a new concept, but it is developing in the ways it can be incorporated into a business strategy.

Becoming creative with your clients, letting them tell the story of your brand, letting them take the lead? Perhaps it’s time too consider.

According to research by Stackla in the “Bridging the Gap” 2019 Data report

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful than influencer content when making purchasing decisions…” quote=”Consumers find UGC 9.8x more impactful than influencer content when making purchasing decision, yet 49% of marketers are planning to increase their investment in influencer marketing in 2019″ theme=”style3″]

So consumers seem to prefer to connect with Peers and “regular” people over influencers. That’s pretty big.

It also is a call to influencers to choose to promote products that match their brand and that they actually like and use. Nothing is worse for a brand than an endorsement made purely because of the monetary transaction that took place. Seek out micro and macro influencers, people in your own community and local area who can become brand ambassadors for you and share content with you. Best of all engage your customers in your marketing.

Use contests and promotions

Another fabulous way to bring engagement and fun to your social media pages is to run a contest or promotion which requires entrants to post their entries. Whether a creative image, or a paragraph, all of the above not only creates engagement, but it’s done for you. Nothing beats the excitment of interaction with a little competition. Be sure to follow the appropriate rules when running promotions however.

Celebrate their wins

Asking your audience to share their wins and achievements, whether business or personally is another way to generate content for your brand.

It’s such a feel good thing, just writing this makes us smile! Every business is only as good as its customers, so celebrate them, respect them and get to know them

Make Sure you have permission

Having permission is everything. Whether you are talking to a client, an influencer or strangers with a competition, it is vital to ensure they have given permission for content to be used. For a competition this would be written in the terms and conditions. For a client or influencer, make sure you have a signed agreement in place which outlines how you may use any content provided.

Of course if they are posting it directly themselves, then permission has been granted by the very act. We would still recommend having terms and conditions somewhere on your blog or on Facebook as a note or in the about of your page that content posted may be used. One thing to be wary of, is that you need to be sure the person sharing the content, owns the content.

There have been issues where folk have entered a photographic competition for example, with an image that was not theirs to share. Make sure you have a line in terms and conditions that says entrants are agreeing that they have copyright and are giving you rights to their intellectual property.

Would you be game to ask a stranger to judge your product?

It might sound risky, but if you are confident in your product, getting the reaction of someone seeing/using that product for the first time is worth a million words. That first look of surprise and delight is pretty hard to fake! You can ask people at events, tradeshows, marketplaces and on the street and video their reactions, or ask them to film an “unboxing” of a product. (see above, make sure you have permission to use the content, have them sign a disclaimer before you give them the product).

Whatever you do, be authentic – mean it!

Please don’t ask questions or run competitions just for the attention. You will build much greater trust and rapport if what. you do genuinely comes from an interest in your clients/customers and prospects.

July 26, 2016 By Fiona Lucas

Procrastination and the getting around to it

I’ve been meaning to write about procrastination but I just didn’t get around to it.

Does this kind of excuse sound familiar?

Procrastination, it’s something we have all dealt with at some time. Whilst some people would say they never procrastinate, I think in all honesty most people would have at some time. Whether it was putting off cleaning out the garage or booking the car for a service, at times we put off things, the things that don’t really excite us, or things that perhaps intimidate us. In relationships we sometimes put off saying things we really should have earlier to avoid breakdowns and in business we see owners ignoring warning signs and trying to continue when in fact they should have taken action earlier.

Factors that make us procrastinate:

FEAR: We might fear that we are not good enough, fear that we may hurt someone or let them down, fear that we might fail, and sometimes fear that we might actually succeed.

OVERWHELM/BURNOUT: Letting things build up to a point where everything seems to much and there are so many little things demanding our attention that we can’t focus on anything, let alone the big stuff. Have you been there?

DISTRACTIONS: Allowing other things to get in the way. Finding a balance between social needs and work is important, but the important word is balance. Social Media and the internet can be a distraction, we can find ourselves not just engaging with the people we want to, but allowing ourselves to be drawn into others conversations, or just being drawn on a merry path. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if we consistently lose track of our time we can find ourselves going down a very deep rabbit burrow quite quickly. If you work from home making sure that you plan to have undisturbed time so you can focus on what needs to be done. Keep housekeeping time separate and avoid further distractions like the television.

INCOMPETENCE: Something that we don’t like to consider, but the truth is we can’t always do everything. We can try but we may not be efficient or effective. When it comes to start ups and entrepreneurs often we try to do everything we possibly can, especially when cashflow may not have started yet and capital is scarce. What can happen is that the jobs we are not good at doing start to pile up, and it becomes easier in our minds just to ignore them.

It often goes like something like this: Hmm I need to get ontop off these bills. Perhaps I need an overdraft. I will go online and see what the bank offers. Perhaps I will Google some options. Oh look at the news. Hey Jack’s on Facebook haven’t heard from him for ages I will just pop over to say hi… Oh look a cat video. You get the picture.

But wait, didn’t I say that not all procrastination is bad? That is true.

How can procrastination be a good thing?

Procrastination can give us time to formulate better responses. Provided we are not just avoiding, but actually still considering the problem and gathering more information, procrastination can lead to a better outcome.

People who procrastinate are often the big thinkers. They look at the big picture and consider the risks and benefits. I read an article a while ago that said that every great invention was discovered by someone who was meant to be doing something else! I can’t guarantee the accuracy of that statement but it does make sense.

Procrastination can allow more time for creative thinkers to gather bigger and better ideas. If being creative is a big part of your business or study then allowing yourself the time to be creative is a good thing. Where it can go wrong is if you are creating ideas which have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

So what can we do?

The key is in planning and scheduling and documenting what you need to do. Write down the things that are nagging you to complete. The overdue tax, the spare room that needs to be tidied, the bills in the drawer that are not going away. Consider the importance of each task.
Write down what is important about each task. Getting your paperwork sorted means you lodge tax on time, paying your bills on time means avoiding late fees, and keeping on top of tasks gives you more time to be working on your business rather than in it. If you are a student, balancing your time can mean less stress and potentially better marks.

Even if its just 10 minutes a day, start scheduling tasks into your days so that you can get things done.
Block off times in your diary.
Having a deadline is always a great idea. Some of the best works can come under the pressure of a deadline, but make sure you are not doing it at the risk of your health.
Don’t underestimate how long a task might take. Always allow more time than you think you will need.
Create a task sandwich! Schedule the work you don’t like so much, between two tasks that you enjoy. Giving yourself a reward for completing a task “gamifies” the work and makes it a more enjoyable challenge.
Be aware that although you might think you are not in the mood for a job, starting it can be just the motivation you need to see it through.
Use blocking software to help eliminate distractions. Self Control for Mac or Freedom are just a couple. These let you turn off sites so you can’t get sidetracked when working (especially with cloud based apps that see us connected on the net all the time!)
Break up tasks into managable chunks
Consider who you can delegate work to. Split up chores at home or consider hiring some help. Delegating is such an important skill to earn. Consider outsourcing tasks such as bookkeeping or hiring a Virtual Assistant to help.

You can listen to my Facebook Live recording on Procrastination below.

Another interesting talk on Procrastination is by the king of Procrastion Tim Urban. Here is his Ted Talk

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Please feel free to share your thoughts, stories and tips below.