How to Stop Facebook Contest Fraud and Deter Prize Hunters

By Emeric Ernoult
Published May 12, 2014

Did you know that some Facebook contest entries are fake?

Have you thought about how fake entries can hurt your campaign?

Left unchecked, phony entries can negatively impact your contest and drag down your page’s reach and credibility.

In this article you’ll discover how people cheat, and more importantly, how you can guard against prize hunters.

With Facebook’s recent changes to its news feed algorithm, it’s harder to reach your audience organically. If you can’t reach your audience, you lose interactivity and engagement–and your spot in the news feed.

A Facebook promotion (i.e., a contest or giveaway) is widely thought to be a good tactic to get people’s attention, engagement and more eyes on your page. But if you’re planning to host a Facebook promotion, be aware of potential fraudulent behavior so you can protect your fans and your brand.

A quick look at a scammer’s profile reveals a sparse or completely blank page.

Make no mistake, Facebook entry fraud is real—these cheaters know what they’re doing.

Here’s how it works: They start by creating multiple email accounts that they then use to make fake Facebook profiles, generally with pictures of pets or symbols.

They use these multiple profiles to continually enter random draw promotions and rack up votes in voting contests.

The example below is another good representation of a fake Facebook profile. This one is clever because the last name, Concours, means contest. That should tell you a lot about her intentions.

Facebook cheaters set up multiple accounts to take advantage of you.

These guys work in concert with fellow scammers who also have multiple profiles. They create forums where they share promotion links, agree to trade votes, share answers to your giveaway quizzes and more.

These fake profiles cause at least three problems for you: You end up with fake fans, useless data and angry “real” fans.

If you’re like-gating your promotion, you’ll get an increase in fans, but they won’t be genuine. These phony fans hide your updates from their news feed, which in turn affects your visibility to all of your fans.

If you’re asking for emails to build your list, you’ll likely be getting fake emails that clog your CRM with useless emails and data. Your newsletters will probably either bounce or be marked as spam.

When you discover cheaters, react quickly and appropriately.

Here’s the worst part: They cheat your true fans out of your attention and loyalty. While fake profiles are busy gaming the system, your true fans are playing by the rules and expecting fair treatment.

So how can you avoid phony entries? Here are five things you can do to ensure your campaign is reaching the right people.

The type of promotion you choose to host (e.g., giveaway, voting contest, random draw, etc.) has the biggest impact on how many fake entries you get.

Promotions that rely on the participation of others are the most susceptible to fraud. Voting contests (e.g., photo and video contests) and random draws with viral bonus options (e.g., asking entrants to have their friends participate) run the highest risk of drawing the wrong crowd.

Run a promotion with a strict random draw and airtight rules. They’re less attractive to scammers because even the use of multiple accounts can’t help their chances much without a viral bonus option.

Hold a promotion that’s won by jury selection (not votes by their friends) – it’s the least attractive of all.

If you’re like most people, you want your promotion to draw your fans back to your page and encourage them to interact with you and to garner more likes and possibly build your list. And let’s face it, the bigger the prize, the more attention and exposure you get.

As I’ve said, that can be good and bad.

To minimize the entries from prize hunters, offer rewards that only appeal to your genuine fans or prospects. The broader the spectrum of interest in your prize, the more susceptible you are to fraudulent entries.

To enter this giveaway, participants had to be existing clients, ensuring entrants were 100% genuine!

If you must give away a prize that appeals to a wider audience, consider using your rules and qualification form to limit your promotion to your target audience only. (I’ll talk more about rules in just a minute.)

A tempting way to get extended reach is to offer extra entries for asking friends to like and enter the promotion. The promise of extra entries is terribly appealing for fans, and it’s a win for you because it gives you coveted viral reach and some new likes.

The problem with that type of entry is that it’s easily exploited. People with multiple profiles already have a lot of friends to invite—the “friends” on their fake profiles and the forums I mentioned earlier.

If you elect to use this viral entry option, I encourage you to use a Facebook app that has strong fraud protection measures in place.

Although Facebook recently changed its rules for promotions, hosting your contest or giveaway via an app is the best way to cut down on fake entries.

When choosing a promotions app provider, look for protection features like flagging suspicious entrants (for example, tracking multiple entries from a single IP address). For a voting contest, make sure your app reveals who voted for what.

Make sure you can easily identify cheaters (and all of their fake accounts) and ban them from your campaign.

Easy elimination is another important feature your app should provide. You should be able to quickly and easily ban all suspicious users from your contest, as well as ban them from interacting with your timeline at all.

When installing an app, most people use the simplest version of its entry process—just clicking a voting or entry button. Unfortunately, these are the easiest promotions to scam because there’s nothing built in to hinder multiple fraudulent entries.

The more effective way to encourage genuine entrants is to require them to download the app to enter.

Requiring the installation of a Facebook app is the first defense against entries by fictitious profiles.

Some community managers stick to the simple button option because they believe it eliminates barriers to entry, but based on our research of hundreds of Facebook campaigns over the years, we’ve found this isn’t true.

When brands require app installation, the conversion rates remain higher than 80% in most cases—sometimes much higher.

App installation is a simple step for an honest participant, but a major hindrance for scammers using multiple profiles.

Requiring all participants to install your contest app is like building a firewall against cheaters because it identifies your participants thanks to their Facebook profile data. Without this identification, you have no way of knowing or tracking your entrants.

One of the best ways to deter dishonest entries is to write good giveaway and contest rules. They’re your first line of defense against cheating.

Most of your real participants may never read your contest rules, but scammers will carefully examine each word.

In your rules, carefully explain how you will choose your winners and list valid reasons for disqualification. Here’s an ideal paragraph you can use:

“Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify contestants. Contestants shall not enter multiple times or vote for their own entry with a fake Facebook account. Fraudulent activities will be monitored and will lead to exclusion.”

Your rules determine your promotion’s winner(s), not your app. For example, even if your app shows that someone receives the most votes, your rules determine how you choose the winner.

If you’re hosting a voting contest, consider a tiered awards system. For example, choose your grand prize winner by jury. The jury can keep the number of votes in mind, but won’t be bound by them.

After the overall winner is chosen, offer a random draw among all participants. This system not only protects you, it keeps your contest interesting because everyone (even the least-talented photographer) thinks they have a chance to win something!

Facebook ads are a great way to promote your giveaway or contest, and depending on your goals, their robust native targeting options can help you protect yourself as well.

But remember, the broader your target audience, the more risk you’ll face. If your goal is fan recruitment, be prepared to implement strong fraud protection tools.

Your safest bet will always be to target your clients or customers. Targeting identified prospects increases your risk slightly, and open targeting puts you at high risk.

Wrapping Up

Your page’s fans need to be genuine in order to have good interactivity and engagement, which in turn makes for a healthy overall page reach.

Your fans are expecting you to be genuine and fair. They’re counting on you to make sure your brand rewards its true fans, and it’s your job to make good on that expectation.

Identify those entrants who use multiple fake accounts to rack up entries and votes, ban them and their participation from your contest, then tell your true fans about the actions you’ve taken. They’ll appreciate your efforts and you’ll be encouraging higher trust and loyalty.

What do you think? Have you ever had fake entries in a promotion? How did you handle the situation? Share your thoughts and comments below.

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6 Tips to Improve Your Facebook Page

By Scott Ayres
Published May 20, 2014

Do you want a highly effective Facebook page?

Do you know which elements make up a good Facebook page?

While there are an unlimited number of strategic factors that can contribute to the success of a Facebook page, many share common elements.

In this article you’ll discover the six elements of successful Facebook pages and how you can improve your Facebook page.

When Facebook users land on your page, you want them to figure out who you are and what you do in about 3 seconds. That’s why a good cover photo is important.

Here’s a good example from Coca-Cola.

There’s no misunderstanding what brand this cover image represents.

Thankfully, Facebook has seriously relaxed the rules regarding cover photos. The current guidelines are the only rules to date (these are subject to change):

All cover images are public. This means that anyone who visits your page will be able to see your cover image.Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading or infringe on anyone else’s copyright.You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines.

The 20% text rule doesn’t apply to cover images, so there’s no restriction on including prices or calls to action. Even so, I advise against filling your cover full of unneeded text. The simpler, the better.

Tips for Cover Images

Make sure your cover images are high quality. Use an image that is at least 851 x 315 pixels. Facebook will expand any image that’s smaller than these dimensions and that makes your cover blurry.

Smaller images stretched to fit cover dimensions will appear blurry, like this.

Only use images and text that relate to your brand, services or products. For example, if you sell boats, don’t use images of trucks.

To avoid a stale page appearance, change your cover in conjunction with the seasons, holidays or events that make sense for your brand.

If you don’t have professional image editing software, here are some free and paid tools to help you create a great cover image:

While your cover photo gives users who land on your Facebook page their first impression, it’s your profile photo they’ll see the most.

Unless they visit your timeline again, all they’ll see from you branding-wise is your profile photo on the news feed.

Your profile pic is more important than the cover photo because it appears in:

The news feed of your followersPosts on your page’s timelineReplies in commentsComments and posts you make on other pages while using your pageOver the cover photo on your timeline

Tips for Profile Pics

Rectangular images must be cropped as square to upload as a profile pic so it’s best to use a square image.

ShortStack’s profile pic was designed to fit a square space.

Your profile pic is uploaded at 180 x 180 pixels, but displayed at 160 x 160 pixels. Check to make sure the smaller image still looks good, like this one from ShortStack.

ShortStack’s profile pic is easily recognizable at any size in the news feed.

As the news feed of your followers is the highest visibility for your profile pic, you should design your profile pic for that location; profile pics are resized to 100 x 100 pixels in a fan’s news feed, to 86 x 86 pixels next to posts on your timeline, and 43 x 43 pixels next to comments. Again, check to make sure your image is recognizable at news feed or timeline location.

An incomplete or misconfigured About section could result in missed traffic and likes on your page.

Be aware that this section will look slightly different, depending on the category you choose when you create your page.

Poco Auto & Tire is a “Local Business” with a physical location, so its About section includes address, contact information and business hours.

Example of what shows in the About section of a page in the Local Business category.

If you don’t have a physical location or it’s not common for people to come to your place of business, select a category such as “Company” or “Brand” when you create your page.

Example of what shows in the About section of a page in the Company or Brand categories.

Choosing either of these options lets Facebook show your short description under the profile pic on your timeline. And that description can include a hyperlink to your website!

Tips for Your Short Description

Regardless of the category you choose during page setup, you should complete every field you can because portions of the About section show up under the profile pic on your timeline for desktop viewers.

To edit the short description for company or brand pages, click on Edit Page in the admin panel, and then Update Page Info. From here, click on the pencil icon next to Short Description.

Add your URL to your Short Description.

Type in your URL at the beginning, so it’s the first thing people see.

You get 155 characters to tell people who you are, but I recommend using no more than 100; be clear and concise, and don’t stuff in keywords.

Sometimes the About section shows differently on the Facebook mobile app than it does on the desktop.

This is ShortStack’s page on a desktop:

Shortstack’s description in the Facebook desktop view.

And this is how the page appears on my Facebook mobile app:

ShortStack’s page viewed on a mobile phone.

Notice the difference in the descriptive text?

Here’s another example. This is the Social Media Examiner Facebook page viewed on my phone. The desktop view can be found above in the first portion of this subhead.

Social Media Examiner’s page viewed on a mobile phone.

On my Android device, the About section of ShortStack’s page is displaying the information in the Mission section.

ShortStack’s mission shows in the About section on mobile views.

The Social Media Examiner page shows me their Company Overview information.

Social Media Examiner’s Company Overview text shows on mobile views.

My best guess is that because ShortStack hasn’t filled out their Company Overview section, the mobile app is defaulting to their Mission section.

I suggest making sure your Short Description, Mission and Company Overview all begin with your URL so it shows first when someone visits your page on a mobile device.

Be sure to see how your page shows on all mobile devices.

Some people argue that third-party apps on Facebook pages are useless since Facebook doesn’t allow a default landing page and because app tabs aren’t shown when viewing a page on the mobile app.

But apps can be used to support a wide variety of goals.

Tips for Third-Party App Use

Let people sign up for your newsletter without leaving Facebook.

Collect more email addresses by using a contest app to give users an incentive to enter their email address in exchange for the chance to win a prize.

Cross-promote your other social channels by using an app to include content from Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc., like Amy Porterfield does.

Amy Porterfield uses third-party apps to feature video and her Pinterest feed on Facebook.

There are a wide variety of app providers to choose from and almost all offer free plans with pre-made templates, so even non-tech–oriented people can install them with ease.

Here are a few for you to check out:

The most important element of a successful Facebook page is a well-planned posting strategy.

You can have the prettiest cover photo and profile image, the most well-crafted About section and tons of amazing apps, but if your posting strategy lacks direction, you’re dead in the water!

Recent changes to the news feed algorithm mean you need to post more often to stay top of mind with your followers and get the most engagement. I recommend that pages publish three types of posts every day on their pages:

Tips for Photo Posts

For the most part, stay relevant to your followers. If you’re running a page about real estate, an image of Miley Cyrus makes no sense, but images of amazing homes, vacation spots and pictures of your town do make sense.

That said, feel free to bend the so-called “rules” a bit and post funny images or memes once in a while. Post Planner‘s fans appreciated the humor in the photo below.

This off-topic photo post generated a lot of engagement for Post Planner.

Tips for Text Update Posts

Due to the changes described in Facebook’s latest announcement, text-only updates are reaching fewer people than before:

“Through testing, we have found that when people see more text status updates on Facebook they write more status updates themselves. Over time, we noticed that this effect wasn’t true for text status updates from Pages…The latest update to News Feed ranking treats text status updates from Pages as a different category to text status updates from friends…posts from Pages behave differently to posts from friends and we are working to improve our ranking algorithms so that we do a better job of differentiating between the two types. This will help us show people more content they want to see. Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates…”

Skittles knows this doesn’t make text updates any less important.

Skittles’ text updates generate a lot of likes, comments and shares.

To increase text post engagement, use questions or fill-in-the blank updates that are easy for people to respond to.

Mix in text updates that require a short response from users in the comments.

Tips for Post Links

A business on Facebook should never put all of its stock in getting lots of likes, comments and shares with text and photo posts.

The real value is found in posts that drive traffic to your website that turns to sales or conversions. Once there, users can read your article, sign up for your newsletter or purchase a product.

Make link posts the focus of your posting strategy and you’ll be highly successful.

Include a well-crafted call to action that supports that goal to get people to click and go to your blog or website landing page, like TOMS does.

This link post on the TOMS page includes a strong call to action and an incentivizing coupon code to drive click-throughs to the landing page.

Make sure your landing page has a great image, because link posts now show a full-width photo preview on the news feed, which makes them look like photo posts.

Use a trackable URL from a service like bit.ly or Pretty Link so you can easily measure the click-through rate from Facebook.

In Conclusion

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being awesome) how would you rate your page? Is there room for improvement?

Use the tips above to make sure your page has the five elements of a successful Facebook page.

Create a clear cover photo, design a profile pic that scales well visually, and display your URL in your page’s About section. Next, add tactical functionality to your page with third-party apps and guide your page posting with a defined strategy.

What do you think? Did you find these tips helpful? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Scott Ayres

Scott is the co-author of Facebook All-In-One for Dummies and "Ambassador of Awesome" at Post Planner, where his goal is to make everyone a Facebook Expert! Scott became addicted to social media before even MySpace (the first time around!). Other posts by Scott Ayres »

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Facebook Audience Insights: This Week in Social Media

By Cindy King
Published May 17, 2014

Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.

Facebook Introduces Facebook Audience Insights: “A new tool designed to help marketers learn more about their target audiences, including aggregate information about geography, demographics, purchase behavior and more.”

“Audience Insights is different from Page Insights because it looks at trends about your current or potential customers across Facebook, whereas Page Insights looks at the interactions with your Page (i.e., likes, comments and shares).”

Twitter Announces Mute Feature: This new feature “gives you even more control over the content you see on Twitter by letting you remove a user’s content from key parts of your Twitter experience.”

Pinterest Rolls Out Paid Test: Pinterest is “working with a small group of brands in the U.S. to roll out a paid test in [its] search and category feeds.”

These brands will help “test promoted pins to make sure they’re tasteful, transparent, relevant and improved based on your feedback—so that Pinterest continues to be a great experience for everyone.”

Buffer Introduces Feeds: ”You can now add RSS feeds to your Buffer social profiles and share links directly from your favorite sites from right inside your Buffer dashboard.”

“You have total control of your feeds—from finding and discovering to organizing and updating. Fresh content will always be at your fingertips.”

Here are few cool social media tools worth checking out:

Contextly: “Build your audience via awesome content recommendations.”

Contextly’s “tools are built with a deep understanding of online publishing.”

ReShare: This new app gives you the ability to reshare “what you like to a whole new audience of readers in a different language!”

“ReShare the articles that you love to others who are interested in reading the same articles. Conveying these articles in a different language allows you to share your interest with a brand-new audience.”

BreakFree: “A revolutionary mobile app aimed at controlling smartphone addiction and helping you maintain a healthy digital lifestyle.”

Litely: “Add gorgeous, film-inspired tones to your photos in seconds. Adjust crop, exposure, sharpness, vibrance and vignette for lovelier photos.”

“Subtle tones. Well-made.”

Moju: “A whole new way to capture and share life’s best moments.”

“It’s as simple as point-and-shoot up to 24 frames, then pivot/twist the device to see your images come alive!”

SketchVid: “Create videos of your drawings and share them with your friends on Instagram and Facebook.”

“Draw anything you want and SketchVid will convert your drawing into a 15-second video from a blank canvas to the final masterpiece.”

Tapsule: “Moments that matter, captured by you and those you’re with, strung together in a modern day ‘time capsule’.”

What do you think? Did any other social media news items interest you this week? Have you found any other social media tools worth sharing? Please share your comments below.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Cindy King

Cindy King is the director of editorial for Social Media Examiner. She spent 25 years abroad in international business development and then built her own international business from scratch by using social business networking. Other posts by Cindy King »

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Facebook Video Metrics: This Week in Social Media

By Cindy King
Published May 10, 2014

Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.

Facebook Rolls Out New Video Metrics: “These new metrics are designed to help you learn what’s resonating with people and determine how to more effectively create and promote your videos on Facebook.”

“New video metrics in Page Insights and Ads Reporting are coming soon.”

LinkedIn Introduces Language Preference Targeting: “Through language preference targeting, brands with an audience from around the world can now target their company updates by the users’ selected language.”

“For example, a U.S.-based company targeting Portuguese-speaking professionals in Brazil can now share updates in Portuguese with followers who have selected it as their preferred language on LinkedIn.”

Vine Reveals New Look: The brand-new version includes “a bunch of new features that will help you discover Vine videos on the web.”

“The first thing you’ll see when you visit the website is the Explore page, which features familiar channels like Places and Animals, alongside Trending Tags and Popular Now.”

Evernote and LinkedIn Announce New Card Scanning Service: “LinkedIn members can scan a business card using Evernote’s mobile app and then directly connect with this contact on LinkedIn to maintain the new relationship.”

In Evernote, “members will be able to view profile photos, job titles and company information from LinkedIn right in the notes created when they scan business cards.”

Twitter and Amazon Introduce #AmazonCart: “An exciting new way to add Amazon products to your cart without leaving Twitter.”

HipChat Introduces Video and Screen Sharing: HipChat’s one-to-one video chat and screen sharing are now available on all of their apps.

“Start a video chat and share your screen with anyone on your team.”

Here are a few cool social media tools worth checking out:

Adobe Voice:  A free app to “turn your story into a stunning animated video.”

Base: “An innovative tool that brings your mobile notifications to life.”

“Instead of browsing through dozens of unnecessary notifications every day, Base delivers only what’s really important exactly when you need it.”

Twoople: An app that “makes it easy for others to chat with you.”

Jobr: “Connecting talented individuals with the job they never knew was waiting.”

“Engage with recruiters at top companies and only spend time on those interested in hiring you!”

Mela: “Capture and share videos of moments from your day-to-day life, and watch as they are tied together with moments generated by other users into a seamless themed video.”

“Use the Mela app to record a video of up to 15 seconds, then select 2.5 seconds that embody the essence of that video, come up with three appropriate hashtags and publish it on the platform.”

Mingle: This app “was built from the ground up to make connecting with your contacts faster, easier and more enjoyable in every way!”

What do you think? What news inspired your social media marketing this week? Please share your comments below.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Cindy King

Cindy King is the director of editorial for Social Media Examiner. She spent 25 years abroad in international business development and then built her own international business from scratch by using social business networking. Other posts by Cindy King »

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