Like and Share competitions on Facebook

You must have seen them on Facebook, even if you've only ever visited the site once in your life - all those competition that ask people to "Like and Share" a post or a page in order to enter a competition.

Well, first of all I'm going to go right back to basics and tell you how to do it. And then I'm going to switch direction completely and tell you why you shouldn't!

To like a PAGE 
Either go to the page itself, and click the Like button that appears just below their cover photo,  or if somebody else has shared that page in your timeline, hover over the name of it until a pop up appears with a miniature of the cover photo on it and use the Like button on that.

To share a PAGE
Go to the page, either directly or by following a link in your timeline, and on the far right below the cover photo, you will see the word "Message" with a cogwheel to the right of it. Click on the arrowhead next to the cogwheel and a menu will drop down. The "Share" option here is the one to use if you are asked to share a page, rather than a post.

To like and share POST
I've just been doing some experimenting with this and I was rather surprised by the result. I'd thought that if I saw a post a friend had shared, and clicked "like", that I would be liking the original post. But in the test I did that didn't happen. So all I'd liked was the fact that my friend had shared the post. I'd suspected that was the case with sharing, as when I share something and then other people share it, the notifications come to ME rather than the original poster.
The moral of this is, if  one of your friends Likes and Shares something in order to enter a competition you can't enter by liking and sharing their shared post, you MUST go to the promoter's page and both like and share the original. Otherwise, the promoter won't see you - and you haven't entered!

Should I write "Liked and Shared"?
A lot of us suspect that our likes and shares won't show up if we don't say something, or that the promoter will favour  those who have commented over those who haven't. But just saying "Liked and shared" marks you out straight away as a comper - which some promoters don't like - as well as making it look as if you are too lazy or uninterested to actually interact with the promoter. Why not say a few nice words instead? Praise the promoter, praise the prize, say what a lovely page it is - most people who run like and share comps are small businesses who really value praise and compliments from their Facebook fans - why not them make feel good about running the competition in general and your participation in particular?

So, now you know how to do it, why am I advising you NOT to like and share, if it's all there is to entering a competition?

BECAUSE IT'S AGAINST FACEBOOK RULES

It's not the act of liking and sharing that is against the rules ; the whole Facebook system would fall flat on its face if there weren't millions of middle aged women like me all over the world sharing photos of cute cats - it's the running of a competition that involves Liking and Sharing that breaks the rules.

Facebook's  rules on promotions say that all competitions must be run through an app, or by email, or following a link  to a non-Facebook website. Running a Like and Share competition is against Facebook rules. One of the reasons for this is the number of fake competitions that  are set up in order to get a huge number of likers to a page, which will then be sold to a business too dodgy to build up a fan base of their own, Running a like and share comp can spread things virally so that tens of thousands of people like the page, lured by the promise of free goods that will never materialise, only to wake up one morning finding themselves following a page selling under-the-counter pharmaceutical products they have no need of! Clamping down on like and share competitions helps to stop the spread of these fake pages, but Facebook has two ways of doing it. Sometimes they remove the page running the competition, and sometimes they penalise the page by removing all the people who have liked and shared it! And being such a huge organisation, Facebook doesn't have time to research whether the page is really a fake one or a genuine small business who simply doesn't know the rules,  so even if you are careful to only enter competitions you are certain are 100% legitimate, you could find yourself with a suspension lasting anything from a few hours to 30 days, or even lose your account completely.

So, how can you protect your account? Well, the most straightforward way is not to enter any Like and Share competitions at all. But that can be difficult. They can be so tempting, and you often feel you want to support small businesses, especially if they are run by personal friends. So here are some tips that might help you to avoid suspension (I can't make any promises, but I've not had a suspension since I started doing things this way)

• if you can't give them up, cut right down on them. There are plenty other competitions out there to enter, even if you never move away from Facebook.
• when you DO enter one, don't comment "Liked and Shared". Say something relevant or don't say anything at all. Making multiple comments the same can get you marked down as a spammer.
• Like and share things other than competitions ("Oh, so THAT''s why Jane suddenly started sharing cat photos, jokes and random scientific facts!" I can hear you saying) so the ones you do for  competitions get "diluted" among the other stuff.
• Use your Facebook account for other things. Share some good news, some bad news, a rant, a family event. Comment on a friend's photo, wish somebody a happy birthday. You might even enjoy it!

I've only looked at Like and Share competitions in the most basic of terms here,  but Superlucky Di has some blog posts that go into much more detail. The first looks at a lot of other reasons Like and Share competitions are a bad idea such as difficulty in promoters contacting winners, entries not always being visible and vulnerability to cheating.  The second is a closer look at those Facebook regulations, with some advice to promoters on how to stay within the rules and to compers on how to handle promotions that break them.