Last Thursday, the Facebook Marketing page announced new guidelines for running promotions through Fan Pages. Why more marketers aren’t in a frenzy, I don’t know, because in one short posting, they basically annihilate 90% of the reason any brand actually has a Fan Page—having something of value to communicate to their customers on the cheap.
The most important restrictions are the prohibition of:
- Photo contests which require profile photo manipulation
- Status update contests which require posting status updates for entry
- Contest entries once a user has become a fan
- Promotions appearing anywhere but in an application on a tab within the respective Fan Page
Even worse, every promotion must be approved by Facebook through an account representative and have a listed disclaimer!
So, with these new limitations, what is a brand to do? At the risk of seeming arrogant, I have to point out that premium brands must now stop the insistence that they can handle their own Fan Pages and social media. They must turn it over to someone who can develop apps, has a standing relationship with account reps, as well as have the strategic thinking behind how in the world to get users to care about a Widget Deluxe Fan Page when they get nothing free from it. In plain English, they need a marketing agency.
Not to toot my own horn or do the sales pitch, but in past posts, we’ve pointed out how it is virtually impossible for a one-man-band to handle a full social media strategy—emphasis on strategy. So, throw in creative web application development on top of legalese, and it’s way over what Jimmy the 18-year-old intern can handle on his own. And while this may seem discouraging to brands that have relied on this “cheap” form of social media connection, I must remind us all that in marketing, we get what we pay for.
So, Facebook has, in essence, secured the need for a well-thought-out plan of attack and I applaud them for taking such measures to keep their product premium and free of spam-inducing promotions popping up on their highly-successful product. Though it might be hard at first for premium brands to part with their dollars to produce a new way of reaching Fans on their Page, it really is long overdue if they want any chance of retaining their premium status on Facebook.
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