Social Media has changed the perception of people and companies altogether of online business. In other words, promoting a business online was never this easy.
We will be talking about a part of promoting business or a product or a brand using competitions, sweepstakes. Few companies do not consider the fact that they have to follow certain rules and regulations, when promoting through social media campaigns. Companies are supposed to follow law, meet the special requirements of social media, and need to take risks. Having said that, here are some basic considerations a company should take in account while promoting the business using Social Media.
Use Appropriate Titles
We are not sure why this happens but we are confident that this happens. Many of the companies do not use appropriate titles or should we say “To the point” titles for their social media campaign. There are some companies which already have mixed up the concept of ‘sweepstake’ and ‘competition’. Some of the companies consider it the synonyms of each other and they use it interchangeably. For such companies, here is the major difference of a sweepstake and a competition.
- Sweepstakes refers to the promotion in which users are provided a chance to win the award.
- Contests refer to the promotion in which users provided awards based on the skills they have shown.
So, you as a company need to know the difference and also to consider the fact that when you promote your business using social media, clarify to the user if you are providing sweepstakes or contest, this also ensures that you would not face any legal issues afterwards.
Knowledge About Law
As a company it is your responsibility to know the law of different states where your contest or sweepstake is going to take place. For example: You cannot enforce people to make payments to enter a sweepstake competition, however, as long as you provide the user an option to enter in the sweepstake for free you can ask for payments as the other option. This implies that, you as company should provide the user a free entry option if you are asking for payments, and also need to ensure that both of the entries are treated equally.
As an online business owner, you need to know the laws of each country, state, city in which your business operates. We know there are a lot of things going on in law, so why not work with professional law firms and let them do their work and you focus on what you are good at i.e. managing your business requirements and focusing on the promotion tactics.
Platform Rules
Social Media companies also have some rules and guidelines, which companies need to follow in order to promote their business (sweepstake and contests) using their platform. Let’s say Facebook for example, Facebook Promotion Guidelines indicate users cannot win an entry to a sweepstake by only liking the page. Facebook wants the brands to make their own custom Facebook application or to use one of the pre-defined application provided for a page to promote itself.
A company not following the policy or guidelines defined by the social media company, might be kicked out of the platform. So, in our opinion, do not cross the line and ensure you read the guidelines and follow them very strictly.
Know the Risks you take
We do know that every step a company takes doesn’t lead to success, some strategies fail and some shine like the moon in the sky. Social media as we all know is all about user’s opinion, the more control you give the users, the less you will have. There a number of people who look to avail an opportunity which passes by them.
Conclusion: As an organization you need to make sure that before promotion of the product you need to consider all the things which may have loop holes or lacuna in it. We know everything can’t be perfect, so at your end make sure the app is 99% safe and tested. Just a little bit of your attention can save a lot of your time and money dealing with the lawsuits and other things.
