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FaceBook Competitions Prove Unpopular

Announcement posted by CompetitionsGuide.com.au 30 Dec 2010

A survey at CompetitionsGuide.com.au has shown most people don't like competitions run on FaceBook company fan pages.
Sydney, Australia: A survey run on www.CompetitionsGuide.com.au has found an overwhelming majority of people are against the idea of competitions run exclusively on FaceBook fan pages.

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Editor, Craig Seitam, launched the survey after noticing a significant drop in visitors to competitions labelled as being involved with FaceBook.

According to Seitam: "Businesses are wanting to boost the number of people liking their fan pages, so to do this competitions seem like a good idea. The strategy is that people receive entries in a competition by clicking the 'like' button, or sometimes by referring the competition to their friends for additional entries."

CompetitionsGuide.com.au simply asked their members what they thought about competitions run on FaceBook, in their blog 'FaceBook Competitions (Your Thoughts?)'

Seitam said "We thought that the results would be around 50/50, but it turned out that most members were strongly against the idea of FaceBook competitions, for several reasons. Firstly, people don't like being forced to be FaceBook members. Secondly, traditional online competitions aren't public, but FaceBook is. You must publicly like a company, and often answer a question that's open for all to see. These are real privacy issues."

He added, "The idea of earning extra entries by asking your friends to like a fan page is also unpopular. People feel that they are being intrusive."

Although the results would indicate otherwise, Seitam still believes companies can attract people to their fan pages by taking a balanced approach to competitions. He said, "FaceBook is undoubtedly a phenomenon that business wants to be a part of, but it's unwise to assume everyone wants to go along for the ride. By all means, run competitions that have a FaceBook element, but don't make them exclusive. Give people the option, that's all they're after."