• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, August 27, 2013

To make it easier for businesses to run promotions on Facebook, the company said today it’s lifting the requirement that promotions on the social network must be administered through third-party apps only. They can now be managed directly through brand pages as well as within apps.
 
That means marketers, for instance, can now collect entries by having users post to their page or comment on or “like” a post. They can also do so by having people message their page. In addition, companies now have the ability to use likes as a voting mechanism for a contest.
 
“Creating a promotion with a Page is faster and easier. Additionally, as with all Page posts, Page posts about promotions are eligible to be displayed in the News Feeds of the people who like the Page and can be promoted to a broader audience,” stated Facebook’s new promotion guidelines.

Companies, however, still can’t ask people to take part in a promotion by liking, sharing or posting something on their personal profile pages.
 
As part of its updated promotions guidelines, Facebook is also barring companies from “tagging or encouraging people to tag them in content that they are not actually depicted in." Businesses, for example, can ask users to submit names of a new product in exchange for a chance to win a prize. But they can’t ask people to tag themselves in pictures of a new product for a chance to win a prize.
 
Facebook had imposed the requirement for administering promotions via apps in 2011. At the same time, it dropped prior restrictions on promotions involving tobacco, dairy, gambling, firearms and prescription drugs, among other products.