The Facebook Developer Conference f8 2014 was held in San Francisco on the April the 30th. During the conference, Facebook announced that any new applications created on Facebook Developers will be checked and that more permissions will be required, which will add up to the 3 basic ones:
- Public profile: public_profile
- E-mail: email
- List of friends who have also installed the application: user_friends
How would this impact the promotions and contests created in Cool Tabs which we want to publish in white label format, that is, in a new application? When we create a new white label promo and we ask users to like our fan page in order to be able to participate, we are asking Facebook for another permission, different from the 3 mentioned above. This is an access permission to the list of pages that a particular user has ‘Liked‘ (user_likes). This permission enables you to ask users to like your page (in case they still haven’t done so) as they click on the ‘Participate’ button. This means that we will need to create a new app on Facebook Developers and ask for the user_likes permission, thus going through the Facebook control process, which can take between 7 and 14 days (the option to request this permission to Facebook no longer be possible after the update of the August 7).
We sometimes can’t wait that long to launch our promo. This is why we are going to give you some alternatives so you don’t need to go through the Facebook control process.
Options to launch your promo straight away, with no previous checks
[button color=”black” link=”facebook-will-control-new-applications-publish-white-label-app-without-long-waiting-times/#miancla” target=””]1. Reuse an app you created some time before April the 30th, 2014[/button]
[button color=”black” link=”facebook-will-control-new-applications-publish-white-label-app-without-long-waiting-times/#miancla2″ target=””]2. Publish your Cool Promo White Label as a standard promo[/button]
[button color=”black” link=”facebook-will-control-new-applications-publish-white-label-app-without-long-waiting-times/#miancla3″ target=””]3. Create your white label application and skip the control process[/button]
1. Reuse an app you created some time before April the 30th, 2014: Since this is an old app, it won’t need to go through the Facebook control process for new applications. Firstly, you need to make sure that the application is not already in use in a different promo. If this was the case, you simply need to unpublish the old promo on your Cool Tabs admin panel, so you can reuse that old app for the new promotion.
2. Publish your Cool Promo White Label as a standard promo: The Cool Promo White Label application is used when we want to remove all references to Cool Tabs. We don’t really mind whether or not the application is ours, and we aren’t really interested in the details it can provide us with. If this is your case, you can publish your application as a standard one, so you don’t need to think about creating or reusing any applications.
3. Create your white label application and skip the control process: Just like the other options, this one can be quite useful if you are in a hurry to publish your newly-created campaign. There are two different options available for creating a new app on Facebook Developers without having to go through the Facebook control process, as this can take between 7 and 14 days:
- Option 1: You can create your new application on Facebook Developers without requesting the user_likes permissions mentioned above. However, you will have to enable the option “User has to become fan of the page in order to be able to participate” on the ‘Participation dates and configuration’ section of the Cool Tabs form. This way, any user (fan or non fan) who clicks on the ‘Participate’ button of your promotion will get a pop-up window indicating that s/he should like the page, but users can also click on ‘Continue’ and skip this step. The advantage here is that, out of inertia, most users who still haven’t liked your page, will ‘Like’ it. And even if they don’t do it, they will still need to fill in the participation form with whatever details you ask them to include. This means that they will provide their email addresses and so, you will be able to send out emailings to strengthen their engagement with the brand. We need to bear in mind that if a user doesn’t want to become a fan of our fan page, s/he might not be really engaged with our brand (at least in social media) and s/he will most probably unfollow our Facebook page once the promotion ends. This is why we highly recommend this option (in which becoming a fan is not mandatory to participate) in case you want to quickly publish your campaign, without any previous checks from Facebook.
- Option 2: You can create a new application on Facebook Developers without previously asking for the user_likes permission or enabling the option “User has to become fan of the page in order to be able to participate” on the Cool Tabs form. This option helps us have leads instead of fans and, eventually, we will end up keeping only those fans who are really willing to be so. There, the objective of the promotion won’t be to drive fans. Instead, and depending on our strategy, this option can be useful to achieve other objectives, such as winning user loyalty.
We have gone through the various options available for you to quickly publish your promo or contest in white label when you don’t want or you can’t afford to wait between 7 and 14 days for your app to be checked. However, if you have enough time and you wish to ask for the access permission to the list of user likes, you will then have to go through the Facebook Developers control process.
[UPDATE: On the 7th of August 2014 Facebook announced a new update stating that it can no longer ask a user to become fan of a page in order to participate in a promotion or competition ]
If you have any question or would like to discuss your case, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us for further information about the best option for you to publish in white label.
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