Cheated in Facebook competition

Pter

Pter wrote: »

AFAIK (and i wouldnt really know as i cant see people who have my pages or my personal profile blocked), but they can see me, i just cant see them or interact with them.

If you take it from the point of view of you getting harrassed with messages etc by someone you don't like, if you block them, you still want to be able to check they arent talking about you. So the blocking will stop their ability to tag/message you, but it wont stop you checking up on them (unless they block you in return).

And you are right, in their insights, the like will be counted, but as i said, if they arent relying on FB insights (and i dont either, as they can be flawed by way of competition spamming, vote buying and fake profiles) they it may be the numbers wont match those on FB. (again, i reiterate im not accusing you of these things - just saying this is why all admins dont use FB for counting up comp entries).

Bear with me- trying to get my head around this. I just tried blocking the page in question and it seems you're right, I can still see all their posts and my likes and comments remain, but they can't respond to me. So for the scenario you're describing to be correct there would have to have been a number of people who liked the post, but blocked the page...and the page would have had to judge the votes from the public post not the insights...but they've repeatedly told me they judged it from their insights? :o

Baggly

Deleted User wrote: »

Bear with me- trying to get my head around this. I just tried blocking the page in question and it seems you're right, I can still see all their posts and my likes and comments remain, but they can't respond to me. So for the scenario you're describing to be correct there would have to have been a number of people who liked the post, but blocked the page...and the page would have had to judge the votes from the public post not the insights...but they've repeatedly told me they judged it from their insights? :o

Id refer to mahama's post above as well, as i have a feeling she has described what has happened, to answer your question here, if i were communicating with a competition entree, i wouldnt call out the apps and companies we use for metrics; id use 'insights' as a catch all term. That's just me though. I dont think id be in my job for long more if i started handing out our specific suppliers/systems/methods of work.

And yes, if i, as your hypothethical FB friend, saw your post on their page, with me having blocked them 2 years ago because their cake mix is sh!te, then id still see the post you put up, be able to like it, and thereby would be hidden from the page organisers, but visible to you.

CeilingFly

Deleted User wrote: »

I never said the votes weren't very close throughout the voting period, nor did I ever call the competition a scam. I also never accused them of picking a winner out of "favouritism", although the winners of the heats were decided each week by the promoters not by votes so not really sure how that rules it out either.

You seem to have missed the post where I said I maintained a lead for at least another 30 minutes before I logged off and stopped checking (needed a lie down lol!)

I have screenshots from 14.00, I have screenshots from 14.01 both showing I had 1.1k vs 1k total votes. Even a friend of the winner posted his own screenshots showing the same thing from 14.00?

I appreciate you want to consider both points of view but it seems like you're reaching a bit?

didnlt accuse you of saying scam - other posters who are always quick to jump at somethign without checking facts.

As other more experienced (than me) FB page managers are saying, there's more than what shows, so maybe time to accept that as an international company with a specialist social media agency working for them and that the winner came through heats just like you and that it was neck and neck all though the voting, that they called it correct using the official facebook data.

mahamageehad

mahamageehad wrote: »

OP, if you were cheated, I feel for you but without a screenshot from their insights I can't definitively say they're wrong.

The promoters are likely using full metrics rather than on-post metrics. For example, one of my pages now has a post with 270 reactions on it - 251 likes, 15 loves, 3 hahas and 1 wow. However, extended metrics give me 333 reactions on the post - 309 likes, 19 loves, 4 hahas. That figure is what shows up in the insights panel, the 333 rather than the 270, but if you go to the page you'll just see 270. Also, if they're basing it on Insights, it's likely that they'll be using the total of all reactions rather than just likes and loves.

So it sucks, but it could be legit. In general, this kind of trouble is why I usually advise against FB comps for brands, and if they do go ahead it needs to follow Facebook's guidelines strictly as well as having approved terms and conditions from the legal team.

Where does the discrepancy between the on-post metrics and extended metrics come from? The organisers specifically stated that people had to like or love the entry to vote, so any other reaction type shouldn't count (but my post never had any other reaction type, and afaik the other one had max 2-3).

From their T&Cs:
- The entries (photographs) of the five weekly winners will be uploaded on the <company> Facebook page on Tuesday the 8th of August and will face a public vote to determine the overall <name of competition> competition winner.
- The photograph with the most ‘likes’ by 8th August will win the overall prize...

When they posted the photos they said likes & loves counted as votes. I can't read these terms to mean that anything other than the on-post likes and loves should be counted.

Edit: just noticed there's an error in their T&Cs with the dates, the photos were posted on the 1st August, and competition ended on the 8th. Their error not mine! :P

Baggly

Just curious as well - i understand there was a heat system in place which was week by week - surely the cakes from week 1 would have the biggest advantage in gathering likes compared to the later weeks? If i was running a competition like this, i would recognise this flaw, and have it that only likes gathered after the heats counted towards the total.

So could it be possible that the guy who won had more likes, after the likes from the heats were discounted, in the run up to the decision?

Baggly

Deleted User wrote: »

Where does the discrepancy between the on-post metrics and extended metrics come from? The organisers specifically stated that people had to like or love the entry to vote, so any other reaction type shouldn't count (but my post never had any other reaction type, and afaik the other one had max 2-3).

Privacy settings of individual users.

Some of the settings that users have in place (from the good old days of FB) arent even available to pick anymore, but if they picked them when they first set up their account, set them to max max max privacy and never changed them since, they will still be in effect.

Pter

Pter wrote: »

Id refer to mahama's post above as well, as i have a feeling she has described what has happened, to answer your question here, if i were communicating with a competition entree, i wouldnt call out the apps and companies we use for metrics; id use 'insights' as a catch all term. That's just me though. I dont think id be in my job for long more if i started handing out our specific suppliers/systems/methods of work.

And yes, if i, as your hypothethical FB friend, saw your post on their page, with me having blocked them 2 years ago because their cake mix is sh!te, then id still see the post you put up, be able to like it, and thereby would be hidden from the page organisers, but visible to you.

I think I understand what you're trying to explain now, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to think there would be a significant number of people who voted for me but had blocked the page so that they couldn't see the vote?

CeilingFly wrote: »

didnlt accuse you of saying scam - other posters who are always quick to jump at somethign without checking facts.

As other more experienced (than me) FB page managers are saying, there's more than what shows, so maybe time to accept that as an international company with a specialist social media agency working for them and that the winner came through heats just like you and that it was neck and neck all though the voting, that they called it correct using the official facebook data.

If they did it correctly I'd like to see the evidence from them, I think that would help clear the matter up and they've had plenty of opportunity at this stage to produce it.

Pter wrote: »

Just curious as well - i understand there was a heat system in place which was week by week - surely the cakes from week 1 would have the biggest advantage in gathering likes compared to the later weeks? If i was running a competition like this, i would recognise this flaw, and have it that only likes gathered after the heats counted towards the total.

So could it be possible that the guy who won had more likes, after the likes from the heats were discounted, in the run up to the decision?

The entries from each week were re-posted by the promoter in a separate album when voting took place, so none of the entries could get a 'head start' on likes.

Pter

Pter wrote: »

Privacy settings of individual users.

Some of the settings that users have in place (from the good old days of FB) arent even available to pick anymore, but if they picked them when they first set up their account, set them to max max max privacy and never changed them since, they will still be in effect.

Yes but I'm convinced if these people exist and voted on the posts that their likes would be counted in the number of likes on the post but their names/profiles would not be visible?

Furthermore, if a like could be made so private that nobody can see it except in insights, would that really count in a 'public vote'?

.......

This post has been deleted.

mahamageehad

Deleted User wrote: »

Where does the discrepancy between the on-post metrics and extended metrics come from? The organisers specifically stated that people had to like or love the entry to vote, so any other reaction type shouldn't count (but my post never had any other reaction type, and afaik the other one had max 2-3).

From their T&Cs:
- The entries (photographs) of the five weekly winners will be uploaded on the <company> Facebook page on Tuesday the 8th of August and will face a public vote to determine the overall <name of competition> competition winner.
- The photograph with the most ‘likes’ by 8th August will win the overall prize...

When they posted the photos they said likes & loves counted as votes. I can't read these terms to mean that anything other than the on-post likes and loves should be counted.

Yeah, the difference between like+love or all reactions in this case was tiny - 3 on his post. I just wanted to point out that in insights all reactions are referred to as likes. So there would have been a manual labour on their part to go to the posts and do the math.

The other point may be harder to wrap your head around if you're not a facebook admin, and to be honest I've had seasoned social media managers look at me in confusion on this one.

So, let's say they post the 5 pictures. (Figures below are made up for illustration purposes.)
You're Pic A and the winner is Pic B. Pic A has 1000 likes, 17 comments and 35 shares. Let's say you have your ma on Facebook, and she's one of the sharers. Your aunt sees her shared post on "likes" that. So do 8 of your cousins. Those 9 likes counts in terms of Facebook metrics. So the admins will now see 1009 likes, but users on the page will only see 1000. Now Pic B has 956 likes, but 100 likes on shares. Admins would see 1056 likes, but users would see 956.

Now, viewers of the page would assume Pic A won, but actually in Insights Pic B did.

Pter wrote: »

Just curious as well - i understand there was a heat system in place which was week by week - surely the cakes from week 1 would have the biggest advantage in gathering likes compared to the later weeks? If i was running a competition like this, i would recognise this flaw, and have it that only likes gathered after the heats counted towards the total.

So could it be possible that the guy who won had more likes, after the likes from the heats were discounted, in the run up to the decision?

I'm not familiar with how the comp was ran, but I'd guess having a dedicated album with just the 5 finalist winners mitigated that risk?

mahamageehad

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes but I'm convinced if these people exist and voted on the posts that their likes would be counted in the number of likes on the post but their names/profiles would not be visible?

Furthermore, if a like could be made so private that nobody can see it except in insights, would that really count in a 'public vote'?

On the private like thing, it's maybe possible that users see Facebook User instead of a name, but as an admin I've never seen this.

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

It's a public vote if it's open to the public. I agree with you re the T&Cs, hence my earlier comment about how I normally advise against these comps, and if they do go ahead the T&Cs need to be available online. Actual T&Cs, not just the mechanics of entering.

Baggly

Deleted User wrote:

Furthermore, if a like could be made so private that nobody can see it except in insights, would that really count in a 'public vote'?

Insights of the page AND, depending on the privacy settings of each person, their friends. It's possible to have your settings show things to your social group and not to the wider public.

The reason a 'public means public' approach doesn't actually work in real life on FB is because everyone's settings on FB are different. So if I post on the same page it will show to a completely different set of people.

You can blame the page here op but I think they engaged in good faith in this competition and since there was no purchase there is no obligation for them.

You and I may have one definition of public vote, but it's their definition that counts, and without seeing their insights, it seems they are counting even the votes that are hidden from you as a viewer.

mahamageehad

mahamageehad wrote: »

Yeah, the difference between like+love or all reactions in this case was tiny - 3 on his post. I just wanted to point out that in insights all reactions are referred to as likes. So there would have been a manual labour on their part to go to the posts and do the math.

The other point may be harder to wrap your head around if you're not a facebook admin, and to be honest I've had seasoned social media managers look at me in confusion on this one.

So, let's say they post the 5 pictures. (Figures below are made up for illustration purposes.)
You're Pic A and the winner is Pic B. Pic A has 1000 likes, 17 comments and 35 shares. Let's say you have your ma on Facebook, and she's one of the sharers. Your aunt sees her shared post on "likes" that. So do 8 of your cousins. Those 9 likes counts in terms of Facebook metrics. So the admins will now see 1009 likes, but users on the page will only see 1000. Now Pic B has 956 likes, but 100 likes on shares. Admins would see 1056 likes, but users would see 956.

Now, viewers of the page would assume Pic A won, but actually in Insights Pic B did.


I'm not familiar with how the comp was ran, but I'd guess having a dedicated album with just the 5 finalist winners mitigated that risk?

Are you sure insights don't show separate breakdowns for each reaction type? My friend showed me his insights for a page he manages and there were definitely separate numbers beside each reaction type when he clicked on the insights for each post.

I believe you that Facebook can show the total number of engagements including likes on shares but it was clearly stated that the photograph with the most likes would win, and I'm sure everyone who took part and followed the competition would take that to mean the likes on the posts, not those calculated from elsewhere, would count. Any other way to run a public facebook vote doesn't make sense because no one other than the page owner would know how many votes anyone has at any time- if someone with 50 likes on the post on the competition page but 1500 likes on the post they shared to their timeline was declared the winner I'm sure there would be (even more) uproar!

Pter

Pter wrote: »

Insights of the page AND, depending on the privacy settings of each person, their friends. It's possible to have your settings show things to your social group and not to the wider public.

The reason a 'public means public' approach doesn't actually work in real life on FB is because everyone's settings on FB are different. So if I post on the same page it will show to a completely different set of people.

You can blame the page here op but I think they engaged in good faith in this competition and since there was no purchase there is no obligation for them.

You and I may have one definition of public vote, but it's their definition that counts, and without seeing their insights, it seems they are counting even the votes that are hidden from you as a viewer.

Not just hidden from me but hidden from everyone following the competition? There's screenshots posted by a friend of the winner also showing the same vote counts with me in the lead. That doesn't seem like a fair or logical way to run a public competition...?

Baggly

I don't know what to tell you without the facts from the company itself. I can only say what I'm seeing from this side of the competition.

The point mahama makes is a good one, if there isn't a full and comprehensive list of terms and conditions and not a loose list of entry rules, it's very hard to say terms and conditions were broken.

The 2 entry mechanics you pointed out aren't good enough imo, but there is no point pointing that out after the fact. They, loose as they are, were what was used.

Also I dispute 'hidden from everyone'. Hidden from the majority maybe, but it's not unrealistic that in a competition that got 1000s of votes, that 50 people had their privacy settings turned up really high.

Pter

Pter wrote: »

I don't know what to tell you without the facts from the company itself. I can only say what I'm seeing from this side of the competition.

The point mahama makes is a good one, if there isn't a full and comprehensive list of terms and conditions and not a loose list of entry rules, it's very hard to say terms and conditions were broken.

The 2 entry mechanics you pointed out aren't good enough imo, but there is no point pointing that out after the fact. They, loose as they are, were what was used.

Surely you can agree with me that to the vast majority of Facebook users if you told them a competition was to be decided by who had the most likes, they would assume the number of likes publicly visible on the post would be used to decide the winner, not the hidden metrics that no one else can see or monitor? Anything else should have been clearly stated in the T&Cs, because if I had known the votes would be counted any other way then I definitely wouldn't have taken part because it's so ridiculous.

Pter

Pter wrote: »

Also I dispute 'hidden from everyone'. Hidden from the majority maybe, but it's not unrealistic that in a competition that got 1000s of votes, that 50 people had their privacy settings turned up really high.

In response to this - a friend of the winner also posted screenshots from the end of the competition. It looks like they were taken by the winner themself. These screenshots also show the same vote totals, so if there were a small but significant number of their friends that had max privacy settings and whose likes weren't visible to anyone other than their friends (although I dispute that the total number of likes visible to the public would not reflect these likes), surely they would be counted as part of the totals visible to the winner/his friends and would be visible in the screenshots he posted?

MOH

Gottobefast wrote: »

A troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
Just as bad as trolling is "Feeding the Trolls". Please do not reply to comments that are blatantly from a troll. Do not to abuse them or call these posters trolls. It is up to the moderators to judge this, so simply report the posts or private message any moderator of after hours.

Think you might have posted in the wrong thread?

Baggly

Define a public vote (sorry that should be a vote that is visible to the public). If someone I have blocked can't see my like is that public? If I have privacy settings set to anything but everyone can see everything then is that public?

It would be great for Facebook admins if we could force people to change privacy settings as a term of the competition but I don't think that will ever happen.

Gatling

Oddly seems the winner received a lot of praise From people on the page ,
Bar a few moans most seem happy for the winner,
I wouldn't be at all surprised if your told their decision is final ,

Toto Wolfcastle

Gatling wrote: »

Oddly seems the winner received a lot of praise From people on the page ,
Bar a few moans most seem happy for the winner,
I wouldn't be at all surprised if your told their decision is final ,

The winner was a very enthusiastic participant, posting throughout the campaign about how excited he was about each new bake, saying that he was hoping to get through each week and congratulating each winner. I'd imagine that won him a lot of fans who felt his effort deserved the win.

Gatling

Gatling wrote: »

Oddly seems the winner received a lot of praise From people on the page ,
Bar a few moans most seem happy for the winner,
I wouldn't be at all surprised if your told their decision is final ,

It's not unsurprising that the winner's friends are happy for them? I've already been told that lol, as I've said I'm not actually seeking for them to overturn the decision and announce me as the winner because I know I can't do that. I just want a proper explanation and an apology.

mahamageehad

Deleted User wrote: »

Not just hidden from me but hidden from everyone following the competition? There's screenshots posted by a friend of the winner also showing the same vote counts with me in the lead. That doesn't seem like a fair or logical way to run a public competition...?

Deleted User wrote: »

Are you sure insights don't show separate breakdowns for each reaction type? My friend showed me his insights for a page he manages and there were definitely separate numbers beside each reaction type when he clicked on the insights for each post.

I believe you that Facebook can show the total number of engagements including likes on shares but it was clearly stated that the photograph with the most likes would win, and I'm sure everyone who took part and followed the competition would take that to mean the likes on the posts, not those calculated from elsewhere, would count. Any other way to run a public facebook vote doesn't make sense because no one other than the page owner would know how many votes anyone has at any time- if someone with 50 likes on the post on the competition page but 1500 likes on the post they shared to their timeline was declared the winner I'm sure there would be (even more) uproar!

Yeah, you need to be very careful with your terminology here. There is breakouts for each reaction type on the individual post analytics, that's not the same thing as Insights.

Here is the post level analytics:



Here is the Insights data:


So in the end, it comes down to the definition used by the agency.
I, for one, would report that that post had 333 reactions, not the 276 publicly visible. Most social media managers would. At the end of the day, 333 unique reactions took place on that post, whether each user can see all of them is irrelevant. Whether that should be allowed in a competition, well that should be dealt with in the terms and conditions. I just wanted to point out that there is a scenario here where you aren't actually being cheated. I have no affiliation with this comp or page or anything.

mahamageehad

mahamageehad wrote: »

Yeah, you need to be very careful with your terminology here. There is breakouts for each reaction type on the individual post analytics, that's not the same thing as Insights.

Here is the post level analytics:



Here is the Insights data:


So in the end, it comes down to the definition used by the agency.
I, for one, would report that that post had 333 reactions, not the 276 publicly visible. Most social media managers would. At the end of the day, 333 unique reactions took place on that post, whether each user can see all of them is irrelevant. Whether that should be allowed in a competition, well that should be dealt with in the terms and conditions. I just wanted to point out that there is a scenario here where you aren't actually being cheated. I have no affiliation with this comp or page or anything.

Thanks for your reply and for posting examples. I can see where they could get a different number from, but I'd definitely argue that anyone who entered the competition assumed only votes on the post itself counted (in fact most of the time people specifically state 'don't like this share, only votes on the post count' when sharing competition entries). It definitely should have been stated in the T&Cs if the vote was to be decided by likes not on the post itself.

Out of interest do you know if the insights only count 'unique' events? Ie if I like the original post and one of the shares, is my like counted once or twice in insights?

mahamageehad

Deleted User wrote: »

In response to this - a friend of the winner also posted screenshots from the end of the competition. It looks like they were taken by the winner themself. These screenshots also show the same vote totals, so if there were a small but significant number of their friends that had max privacy settings and whose likes weren't visible to anyone other than their friends (although I dispute that the total number of likes visible to the public would not reflect these likes), surely they would be counted as part of the totals visible to the winner/his friends and would be visible in the screenshots he posted?

SCREENSHOT REMOVED
So, in this case, just saying this was my entry and I shared this post, you don't think likes on it should count? That would be a very normal way for people to gather votes. Did you not share the post on your page? Just curious!

mahamageehad

Deleted User wrote: »

Thanks for your reply and for posting examples. I can see where they could get a different number from, but I'd definitely argue that anyone who entered the competition assumed only votes on the post itself counted (in fact most of the time people specifically state 'don't like this share, only votes on the post count' when sharing competition entries). It definitely should have been stated in the T&Cs if the vote was to be decided by likes not on the post itself.

Out of interest do you know if the insights only count 'unique' events? Ie if I like the original post and one of the shares, is my like counted once or twice in insights?

As stated, there were no T&Cs for this comp though, just entry mechanics.
Hmm, as far as I know, and tribal knowledge in the office is confirming, it counts unique entries only. So, if I like the post, and I like a share of the post, it'll be counted as 1 share. I've never tested that though. I'll see if I can set up a test quickly.

gizmo81

I always thought the point of these was to like the post on the company page (driving you to that page) not on a friends page.

kathleen37

I would argue that Insights are irrelevant in a competition run on the premise of total number public "Like" s.

T&C's are there for a reason. If Insights were to be used - that is where it should have been stated.

I think the promo company has definitely dropped the ball here. This isn't about taking anything away from the poor fella that was called the winner - if this was me - I would be looking at the company to award the prize to the two "winners"...

OP - have you spoken to anyone from the company(not promo company) yet? I would suggest going on their website and getting a mail address.

mahamageehad

mahamageehad wrote: »

So, in this case, just saying this was my entry and I shared this post, you don't think likes on it should count? That would be a very normal way for people to gather votes. Did you not share the post on your page? Just curious!

Yes I shared it a few times and always instructed people to click the photo to go to the original post and like it there, because I was under the impression that only votes on the post itself would count?

Also I had been trying to avoid directly naming the company or any participants in this thread...!

kathleen37

kathleen37 wrote: »

I would argue that Insights are irrelevant in a competition run on the premise of total number public "Like" s.

T&C's are there for a reason. If Insights were to be used - that is where it should have been stated.

I think the promo company has definitely dropped the ball here. This isn't about taking anything away from the poor fella that was called the winner - if this was me - I would be looking at the company to award the prize to the two "winners"...

OP - have you spoken to anyone from the company(not promo company) yet? I would suggest going on their website and getting a mail address.

Thanks, that's what I'd have thought too, as an average Facebook user lol!

Yeah I've been in contact with the PR company who were very unhelpful, they sent me an equally unhelpful letter from the company itself yesterday so I've sent a reply to the actual company earlier today.