It’s become increasingly common for radio stations to utilize their Facebook pages for contesting. But the social networking site doesn’t make that easy. Facebook has an ominous list of rulesgoverning contests, sweepstakes and promotions that involve the popular site. Even station contest winners can’t be notified via Facebook, according to the company’s promotions guidelines.

This week, in a story suggested by a reader, we checked in with a handful of radio pros to get their take on how their stations use Facebook for contests and promotions, and the steps they take to comply with Facebook’s challenging rules.

At CBS Radio’s KNCI Sacramento, Calif., promotions and marketing director Nate Samelson says, “We never do Facebook-specific contests. Instead, we run contests on our station’s Web site and put direct links to those contests on our Facebook page. We have been told to direct as much traffic as we can to our station’s Web site, so linking to Web site contests from our Facebook is a great way to do that. Plus, the Facebook guidelines state that promotions run on Facebook must be run through a custom created app that is then posted on the station’s Facebook page, and we figure it’s a better use of resources to create a special page on our Web site to host a contest, and then link to it.”

At another CBS Radio station, KMPS Seattle, marketing director Erica Hall says they use Facebook for contesting “as much as possible. If we have extra concert tickets or, in some cases, a big item, we’ll incorporate Facebook. I’d say [it’s] at least two times a month minimum for big contesting, in addition to random call outs for Facebook fans who want a prize at least once a week. We’re still learning how to use new tabs and applications to make the interaction better and more ‘exclusive’ or immediate.”

At Entercom’s KNDD (107.7 The End) Seattle, APD Andrew Harms says, “We contest via Facebook on a semi-regular basis, approximately three to four times a month. We could increase the frequency of this significantly, but feel that if we flooded our page with contests it would do more harm than good. People don’t visit social network sites to win radio station prizes. They go there to gather info [and] engage with their friends. News, entertainment and compelling conversations are the types of content we focus on providing.”


Like most stations, KNCI, KMPS and KNDD are careful to comply with Facebook’s rulebook, as well as their own company policies governing contesting.

“It’s important to follow guidelines when running a contest, and the more contests you run on different platforms, the more sets of guidelines you have to keep track of,” Samelson says. “By sticking to on-air and station-specific Web contests, we only have one set of corporate mandated guidelines to keep track of.”

“Due to CBS legal, we are somewhat restricted, so the easiest and most effective way to manage a contest is to promote on-air to ‘like’ the Facebook page, and then random pick a name of one of our fans,” KMPS’ Hall says. “To draw it back to ‘listen to win,’ [we] call that name on-air and when they call back they win.

“One main restriction is not being able to ‘like’ a post or photo to enter for a specific prize,” says Hall. “That would allow you to narrow down who wants to be a part of that contest, instead of drawing from your entire pool of fans. So we’re limited to only asking people to ‘like’ our page to be entered.

“Another restriction is how we contact them,” Hall says of contest winners. “Facebook says you can’t contact them through a direct message. You can’t ‘tag’ them in a post announcing the winner unless you’re friends with them, so you’re somewhat limited to hoping they see their name in a post, OR announcing it on-air and turning the attention back to on-air.”

At KNDD, Harms says, the Facebook guidelines, “are similar to the standards that we run with all on-air contests, of which we are in full compliance.”

At Clear Channel’s Louisville, Ky., cluster, assistant online content director Jessica Lee Hill says the stations only involve Facebook for promotions that include prizes, which happens about once a month on average.

“We have to put a disclaimer on the bottom of all contests going out,” Hill says. “We did find it challenging when Facebook said we couldn’t do contests directly (with the prizes being given away) on the Facebook page, so we had to switch everything over on our contest page and improvise with a link from our Facebook.”

Lincoln Financial Media’s KYGO Denver, promotions director Paul Heling says, “While we love to promote KYGO contests on Facebook, we drive people back to our Web site to actually participate. There’s more control, and the people who sell our Web programs like the extra hits.”

At CBS’ WUSN (US99.5) Chicago, director of marketing and promotions Pam Hamil says, “We have not run any promotions through Facebook. However, we have promoted station contests on our Facebook page.”

Meanwhile, stations have found creative ways to tie in Facebook while still complying with its contest rules.

At KNCI, Samelson says, “Besides linking to Web site contests that we host in our VIP club on our Web site, we also post specific listening appointment times on our Facebook for on-air contests. Knowing that plenty of people check Facebook while they are at work, saying something like ‘Tim McGraw tickets coming up at 1:10 p.m.’ can be a good way to encourage someone who may not be listening to the station but is on Facebook to turn on our station.”

At KNDD, Harms says, “We’ll have our jocks hint to people that if they ‘like’ our page they’ll get access to exclusive contests/info etc. From there, we’ll do simple ‘listen for this during a certain time and be the seventh caller.’ We always try to steer it back to something we’re doing on-air.”

At Clear Channel/Louisville, Hill says, “We do ‘Like Us’ contests on Facebook. All other contesting must be on our Web site contest page with a link from Facebook.”

KMPS’s Hall found a way to draw some extra attention when the station first started using Facebook for contesting. “We launched it with an iPad contest, giving away one a day for a week,” she says. “We got 5,000 new fans in three days.”