Sunday, November 15, 2009

Failbook Promotions: or, How a Social Media Giant Learned to Stop Meeting The Needs of It's Users and Love the Bomb

So I've been fixing my various giveaways ever since I found out about the new Failbook promotions policies. I don't want to accidentally refer to them by name, since they're all hot about useage of their name, like coupling the word "face" and "book" in a blog giveaway and saying that the sponsor would like to extend you an extra entry just for joining their fan page is somehow going to make Failbook liable for anything. Seriously. It's not like us bloggers are witch doctors who somehow got a hold of their true name and are going to curse it's tech types with impotence. Nope, they're doing that to themselves with their new promotions guidelines.
Seriously? No big. They don't want to exist in the world of promotions and giveaways? Fine. I don't steer traffic to their site, there's less traffic, they make less from advertisers. Who needs em?
But isn't it all a touch ridiculous?

I think the main points of the new promotions guidelines are pretty simple.
The first rule of Failbook is don't talk about Failbook.
The second rule of Failbook is don't talk about Failbook.
No, really though, don't run your promotions and giveaways on failbook.
Don't allow any entries to any giveaways for doing anything on failbook. Not fanning, not commenting, not posting, nothing.
Don't mention Failbook in your promotions or giveaways- in other words, see rules one and two.

I think I'm just going to roll my eyes and remember that I use Failbook to connect with my parents and great aunts and uncles, and not get too uptight about it. How 'bout you? Is this going to be a big impact on the way you do things?

3 comments:

Julie said...

I'm so behind...So are they going to arrest me now? I didn't know about this and have a GiveAway using the "old" methods of entry...And you seriously can't do a GiveAway on FB to reward your Fans? That's crazy...Guess I need to read them and weep...

Love your post by the way! Super clever and funny.

Pamela said...

just another reason i haven't clicked the 'become a fan of effbook' button.
meh.

The Eco Chic said...

I didn't even know about this until the other day...thanks to you...but all future giveaways will not include failbook! I'm not gonna waste my time deleting all the old crap though! Honestly...if they want to make me a target...go for it!