Thinking of leveraging Facebook to help power your business’ contest? Make sure you know their guidelines. I’ve highlighted a few top-line considerations:

• If the rules or materials require mentioning Facebook, you must first gain written approval.
• The promotions can not be a sweepstakes that conditions entry upon the purchase of a product, completion of a lengthy task, or other form of consideration.
• You can’t condition entry to the promotion upon taking any action on Facebook, including updating a status, posting on a profile or Page, or uploading a photo.
• You can condition entry to the promotion upon becoming a fan of a Page.
• If administering the a promotion through Facebook, Users may only enter the promotion on the canvas page of an application or in an application box in a tab on a Facebook Page.
• Don’t instruct people (in the rules or elsewhere) to sign up for a Facebook account before they enter the promotion.

Facebook defines a “sweepstakes” as a promotion that includes a prize and a winner selected on the basis of chance while “contests” or “competitions” are promotions that include a prize where the winner was determined on the basis of judging a skill.

What I found interesting is that in addition to banning promotions which promote gambling, tobacco, firearms and prescription drugs, Facebook also bans promoting gasoline. I’m not convinced this is because the company is “Green.”

+ Twitter Contest information.

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