Running a successful social media competition in 2024 can do wonders for your brand. You can attract new customers, actively engage with your current audience, or raise awareness for a new product or collaboration.
Instagram competition posts receive an average of 3.5 times more likes and 64 times more comments than regular posts, so they can be a fruitful way to create buzz around your social media page or meet any goals you may have.
Including competitions within your social media strategy can grow your following around 70% faster.
However, understanding the do’s and don’ts of social media competitions is crucial for brands who want to reap the rewards of positive social media engagement.
So, we thought we’d outline what you can and can’t get away with for any competition you’re currently planning or may want to run in the future.
Facebook
With 2.91 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the OG social media giant. They do state for all competition hosts that: “Facebook will not assist you in the administration of your promotion, and if you use our service, you must agree to administer your promotion at your own risk”. Any competition you run is solely your responsibility and must have nothing to do with Facebook. However, you are allowed to promote your competition on various Pages, Events or Groups, but this has to be your own doing & in line with any other promotional guidelines in place.
Asking participants to “share to enter” is not allowed on Facebook, with the platform stating: “Personal Timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions”. This isn’t an efficient way to encourage people to enter a competition anyway, as various privacy barriers hide many individual Facebook profiles.
Likewise, it is also prohibited to ask entrants to “tag” their family, friends, co-workers, or uncle’s best friend’s mum’s dog in the comments to win. Users are able to mention their Facebook friends, but not as a prerequisite for a competition entry; instead, as a way to say, “Hey ‘X’, if you win this free holiday, please can you give it to me? I promise I’d do the same for you…”.
Rules in 2024
The rules for running a Facebook competition in 2024 aren’t too dissimilar from previous years.
According to Facebook, users must:
- Create detailed, clear contest rules
- Make it clear that Facebook is not the competition planner’s sponsor
- Understand which competitions are allowed on Facebook (competitions that require payment to enter are strictly prohibited)
- Not require users to engage with your posts to enter. Users are free to like your competition post if they wish, but you must not make this a prerequisite
- Not run competitions on their personal profiles
- Get permission to use contestant content
- Not ask Facebook to run the giveaway
Instagram
Instagram rules are, unsurprisingly, very similar to Facebook.
Instagram does go one step further when mentioning the ability to tag friends on posts, stating: “You must not inaccurately tag content or encourage users to inaccurately tag content”. You may have seen countless competitions on Instagram that ask entrants to “mention ‘X’ number of friends in the comments” to take part; this is technically okay.
Tagging and mentioning people on Instagram are two different things. When you mention someone, you’re directly commenting their username underneath a post. Tagging refers to the inclusion of people or pages in a photo. As the rules don’t state “mentioning” accounts in competition posts, it’s believed that this is allowed. Tagging is, therefore, something that would break competition rules, especially if the person is being inaccurately tagged.
Including the terms and conditions within your post is vital. Mentioning age and residency requirements will deter those who do not fall into such brackets from entering and should cover your back if someone from Instagram were to come snooping.
Rules in 2024
According to Instagram, users who want to run a competition on the platform must:
- Acknowledge that the giveaway isn’t associated with Instagram in any way – this should be referenced within the caption or any accompanying graphics
- Provide the name of the company hosting the giveaway
- Clearly specify the running dates and times of the giveaway
- State any participation restrictions, i.e., “Over 18s only”
- Provide clear entry guidelines
- Clearly inform all participants about the prize
- Explain how winners will be chosen
Finally, whilst it’s not necessarily a prerequisite from Instagram, to ensure fairness and transparency, it’s encouraged all competition hosts pick the winner using an automated tool. This will remove all bias in the selection process and give each participant an equal chance of winning.
X
X's rules are similar to Instagram’s & Facebook’s, but as the platform’s interface and functions are different, so too are its competitions. Users may enter by “retweeting” the post, tagging their friends, answering particular questions in the comments or simply by following the hosting account. We don’t recommend the latter as an entry requirement, as you may attract the wrong people to your account, those being users who only want free stuff.
X states that users are: “liable to get all of their accounts suspended” if they repeatedly enter a competition using multiple accounts. Competition hosts must include this disclaimer within the promotion’s copy and let entrants know that this can get them disqualified.
Similarly, participants may not complete duplicate entries, such as being asked to retweet the competition more times than other entrants to win. This could also get their accounts disqualified or, at the most, suspended.
It’s important to ask entrants to mention you within their retweets or comments so that you can easily find them to pick your winner. You may not be able to see certain participants who enter due to their accounts being private or if they fail to include your brand’s name within their submission. Attempting to use the search function to find participants may fail to show everyone who has entered.
Hashtags are essential to X, as they help users organise their posts to be relevant to a particular topic. If you’re using hashtags that link to a competition, they must directly associate with the competition. Encouraging entrants to use “totally unrelated” hashtags may cause them to violate X's Rules. Whilst it wasn’t for a social media competition, I’m sure everyone can remember the hashtag blunder that Susan Boyle had when she aimed to promote her new album release, one example of a hashtag that inadvertently missed the point of the post.
Rules in 2024
Competition rules for X in 2024 include:
- Discouraging the creation of multiple accounts. This needs to be made clear, and users need to know that if they use multiple accounts to enter, their extra votes will be “ineligible”
- Discouraging repeated posts, such as stating that “whoever Reposts this the most wins”
- Asking users to tag you in their entries, especially if a Repost or standard post is an entry prerequisite. When it comes to picking a winner, you want to be able to see all entries, as doing a manual search for people who may have entered can filter out some entrants
- Encouraging the use of topics relevant to the contest, such as relevant hashtags
- Following X’s rules for safety and privacy
So, there you have it. Our short guide on what you can and can’t do when creating or hosting a social media competition on Facebook, Instagram and X. Need a bit more help with your social media marketing campaigns? Get in touch with us today!
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