Ask Auntie Social: How do I run a competition on Facebook within their rules?

Facebook competitions are a fantastic method for activating engagement and increasing brand exposure.  However there are some rules that business owners need to adhere to when creating a competition on Facebook.

Facebook want to make it easy for businesses of all sizes to benefit but sharing, inviting or asking someone to post something on their personal timeline is a no go for a Facebook competition as set out by the Facebook Promotion Guidelines.

The rationale behind this decision is a technical one, as Facebook users can limit the visibility of the content they post to only friends or groups. Business pages won’t therefore have the ability to access all the entries that people post on their own timeline unless the entries are public.