How to Run a Facebook Giveaway Without Breaking the Rules

A well-run giveaway can bring your page genuine visibility: comments, new followers, people who only now discover you exist. A badly run one fills your page with prize hunters who vanish the next day or, worse, gets your account blocked and leaves you with tax headaches. The difference comes down to a few rules most business owners simply don't know.

The good news is that it isn't complicated. You only need to respect three things: Facebook's rules, the legal side in Romania, and a bit of common sense in the mechanics. Below I'll show you exactly what you can and can't do, how to avoid trouble with prize tax, and how to make sure the people who enter are actual potential customers, not just fans of free phones.

Facebook's rules: what you can and can't do

Facebook allows contests on pages, in groups, and at events, but it has a few clear rules that many people break without realizing.

You are allowed to ask people to:

• like or comment on a post
• follow your page
• send you a message on the page

What you're not allowed to do, per Facebook's official rules:

• require shares on personal profiles as a condition of entry
• require posting on a friend's timeline
• use a friend's identity as a form of entry

Tagging friends is a grey area Facebook discourages. It's safer to build your mechanic around comments and follows. And this is mandatory: state in your rules that the promotion is not sponsored or administered by Facebook. It's a simple requirement the platform imposes.

The legal side in Romania: the rules document matters

In Romania, a contest with prizes awarded by random draw is legally an advertising lottery. It's only permitted if entry is completely free: no one can be required to buy anything or pay to take part. The moment you require a purchase to enter, you step onto very different, far more regulated ground.

You need a written rules document (regulament), available to anyone who asks. It must state who organizes the contest, the period, who can participate, the exact mechanics, the prizes, how the draw happens, and how you announce the winner.

For raffles and draws, many organizers have the rules notarized as proof of fairness. It isn't always legally required, but it protects you if someone disputes the result. For a small Facebook giveaway, a clearly published rules document is the absolute minimum.

Prize tax: the 600 lei threshold

This is where most people slip up. In Romania, prizes have a tax-free threshold of 600 lei per prize from the same organizer. Anything above that is taxed at a rate of 10%, and it's the organizer who withholds and pays the tax to the state, not the winner.

What this means in practice:

• prize under 600 lei: no tax headaches
• prize over 600 lei: you withhold 10% on the amount above the threshold and declare it

That's why many businesses deliberately pick prizes valued under the threshold, a voucher, one of their own products, a service package, to avoid the paperwork. If you give a large prize, be ready to collect the winner's details for reporting and handle the accounting properly.

Choose the prize and mechanic for real customers

The most common mistake: an iPhone or a cash prize. It attracts crowds, but almost none of them are your customer. The next day they unfollow, and you're left with an artificially inflated page that the algorithm penalizes because no one interacts anymore.

A good prize is relevant to your business. Own a salon? A service package. A restaurant? Dinner for two. A shop? Your flagship product. Whoever enters for that prize is exactly the kind of person who might pay later.

For the mechanic, keep it simple: like the page plus one comment. The more you ask, the fewer people take part. And a question in the comment, like their favorite item on your menu, also gives you a little data about your audience.

A fair and transparent draw

Transparency is what turns a contest into an image win rather than a suspicion of rigging. People are skeptical, so show them everything is fair.

Practical steps:

• set a clear end date and stick to it
• use a random-draw tool that pulls the comments and picks a winner at random
• ideally, film or record the moment of the draw
• announce the winner publicly in a post, and also contact them by message

If the person doesn't respond within a reasonable window that you wrote into the rules, you're allowed to draw a backup. Mention this from the start. A contest where the winner is announced openly and verifiably builds trust for all your future campaigns.

What to do after the contest: the real win is here

A giveaway doesn't end at the draw. The moment you have the most attention is right then: a crowd of new people is following your page. If you have no next step, all that energy evaporates.

A few moves that matter:

• post consistently in the days after, so new followers see it's worth staying
• offer every participant a small consolation, a discount, to turn interest into a first order
• send traffic to your website, where people can book, order, or leave their details

This is where many businesses lose out: they bring people to Facebook but have nowhere to send them next. If you want a fast website that catches a campaign's wave and turns the curious into customers, at MPO Web Studio we build you a free demo first, so you see the result before paying anything. We work remotely, across the whole country. Message us on WhatsApp and we'll look at what you need together.