I have a question about one of Facebook’s rules for contests, specifically this rule:
You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app. For example, you must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.
The company I work for (a company that sells telescopes to amateur astronomers) would like to run a contest in which our fans try to guess what an astronomical object is based on a very small portion of a larger astrophoto. Currently, we have something like that as the third post on our page:

https://www.facebook.com/oriontelescopes
(although it’s currently not a contest because we’re not picking a winner or giving out a prize).
In order to run the contest on an App page (which is another Facebook rule for contests), we plan on using the North Social Photo Showcase app to display the small portion of the astrophoto. And then have people give us their guesses in the comments.
But the North Social app uses the Facebook social plugin to allow commenting – would this be a violation of Facebook’s contest rules?
Thanks in advance for anyone who can help – I really appreciate it.
Frank

Thanks Ashley! So if we said something like “Put your answer in a comment or send an email to contestentry@ourdomain.com” we’d be okay? We couldn’t use mail because our plan would be to announce the winner after 24 hours. We’d prefer to avoid call in entries.

Frank

Great point @Scottprock! I like both of those ideas, and yes @FrankJohnson I believe that would be ok. You can announce the winner on the Facebook page but not directly in the news feed, but you can announce you have chosen a winner and direct your fans on how to go about finding out if they won.

@nmc0330 Nikki You can announce it on your website and post in the news feed ‘Find out if your the winner here’ with a link. Or a custom Facebook Tab again with a similar link. Then you can always ask the winner privately to post about how their experience was, what their prize ended up being and things of that nature to build buzz. I would avoid only commenting on previous status mostly because it just won’t be very visible to the community, but a great way to tag the winner also I am just not positive if it is allowed or not.

@nmc0330 Not a problem, share your Facebook link I’ll be happy to become a fan!

@ashleyhyde Just want to verify that I understood your statement corrrectly on having more than one way to enter a contest.

 I want to run a facebook contest where I post a facebook status that says something along the lines of comment with the answer to this question AND submit an entry form (by going to our ShortStack app) and you will get a discount on registration for our convention. By making them do both and not using a facebook function (liking, commenting, sharing) as the only way a fan wins- am I complying with facebook regulations? I want to get more activity on our wall as opposed to just on the app.

Thanks!

  @ashleyhyde Thank you! and what if I just ask a random question without saying it’s a contest or that you win anything. If anyone answers that question correctly can I say on FB “thanks for your engagement on our page, because you answered correctly we’re sending you _ prize” or if that isn’t allowed can I ask them to send me their email address and just tell them via email that they have won and for them to post on our page saying something along the lines of “just by answering a post I won _ prize.”

Thanks, sorry about all the questions!