Planning on running a prize draw or competition on social media? Read our top tips before you land your brand in hot water!

We thought we’d highlight how vital it is to set up prize promotions, contests, giveaways or competitions compliantly and effectively. They might be relatively simple to set up or enter but they still need to be run fairly and compliantly, with both local laws and best practices, and the various, complex rules set by each social media platform.

Here are five tips to help you always run it right across social media

1. Know the rules

   The major social media platforms are constantly updating their functionality and promotional policies. So ensure you keep an eye on the rules as each platform is different.  So Facebook for example  say ‘Promotions may be administered on Pages or within apps on Facebook. But Personal Timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions (eg: “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).’A promotion across different platforms might require slightly different entry processes, so check with experts like us first!

2. Terms and Conditions
   
   You must have a solid set of T&Cs that cover all those facts likely to influence participation as well as ensure compliance with local laws and protect the Promoter. In addition, any promotional post, or teaser advert, should share the summary T&Cs or reference the fact that T&Cs apply. You must always provide a link to the full terms, which can be tricky when your post has little space but you can use shortened URLs to solve the problem.
3. Data Extraction

   To be fair and compliant you must be able to prove you have selected winners from all entrants. It can be tricky to ‘scrape’ data such as Likes, time stamps, comments or pictures on some social media platforms after promotions have started, e.g. TikTok doesn’t currently permit any tool to accurately extract all entry data (which means you’d be running an unfair promotion) and Snapchat posts & Instagram Stories have a very limited lifespan. So it is important to use forward planning and specialist software to enable full data extraction.

4. Winner selection

   All promotions, regardless of size or prize value, should be run properly. The UK CAP code requires promoters to have independent third parties overseeing the random selection of prize draws, the judging of competitions or the distribution of Instant Win chances. This means that you cannot pick your winners yourself even if you think it’s a fair system like the one that landed Molly Mae in hot water.

5. Announce the winners

   This is a big part of promotional compliance and a sure sign that you are running things fairly. If you don’t do this your audience will ask questions. Each platform has different functionality for communicating with users – you might need to ask entrants to change their privacy settings. And always ensure you state in your Terms and Conditions where the winner’s list is, so it is available for anyone to read.

To ask our legal, operations or promotional marketing experts for advice or support with your next social media campaign contact info@promoveritas.com  or call +44 (0)20 3325 6000.