Do You Need Terms For A Social Media Giveaway?

Yes - if your business is running a social media giveaway in New Zealand, you should have clear competition terms before you post it.

The slightly more nuanced part is that your terms need to match the type of promotion you're running. A random prize draw is different from a judged competition, and a free giveaway is different from a promotion that requires entrants to buy something first.

Good social media giveaway terms and conditions in NZ don't need to be long or scary. They just need to tell people how the promotion works, protect your business if something goes wrong, and help you avoid misleading conduct, privacy and platform-rule problems.

Do You Need Terms And Conditions For A Social Media Giveaway?

Yes, you should use written terms and conditions for almost every business giveaway, even if the prize is small.

Your terms are the rules of the promotion. They help you show that you ran the giveaway fairly and consistently, and they give you something to point to if someone complains about eligibility, timing, prize delivery or how the winner was chosen.

For example, say you run a Wellington skincare brand and offer a $250 product bundle on Instagram. You ask people to follow your page and comment with their favourite product. If you don't say when entries close, whether staff can enter, how the winner is picked, or what happens if the winner doesn't reply, you can end up making decisions on the fly. That's where complaints often start.

Written competition terms and conditions in New Zealand are especially useful because your giveaway can touch several legal areas at once, including:

• The Fair Trading Act 1986, which deals with misleading or deceptive conduct and false claims in trade.
• The Privacy Act 2020, if you collect names, handles, email addresses, phone numbers, delivery addresses or other personal information.
• The Gambling Act 2003, if the promotion involves chance and people need to pay or buy something to enter.
• The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007, if you use entries to send marketing emails or texts.
• The platform rules for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or any other channel you use.

This doesn't mean your giveaway has to become complicated. It just means you want the rules sorted before the post goes live, not after people have already entered.

Is Your Giveaway A Game Of Skill Or A Game Of Chance?

It depends on how the winner is chosen, and this is one of the first things your terms should make clear.

A game of skill is judged against a skill-based criterion. For example, you might ask entrants to submit their best styling tip, funniest caption or most creative photo, then choose the winner based on originality, creativity or relevance to your brand.

A game of chance is where the winner is chosen randomly. For example, everyone who comments on your post goes into a random draw.

This distinction matters because chance-based promotions can raise extra issues, especially where entrants need to buy something to enter. Under the Gambling Act 2003, a promotion connected to buying goods or services, where prizes are allocated by chance, can fall into the category of a sales promotion scheme. These can be lawful, but the structure matters. You should be careful with promotions involving paid entry, purchase requirements, high-value prizes or unusual prize types.

Example: Skill Versus Chance

Mina runs a cafe in Christchurch and wants to promote a new brunch menu.

• If Mina says, "Comment with your favourite brunch idea and we'll choose the most creative answer," that's likely to be a skill-based competition.
• If Mina says, "Comment to go in the draw to win brunch for two," that's a chance-based prize draw.
• If Mina says, "Buy any coffee this week to go in the draw," that needs closer checking because entry is linked to a purchase and the winner is chosen by chance.

Your terms shouldn't say one thing while you do another. If you say the winner will be judged, actually judge the entries. If you say the winner will be drawn randomly, use a fair random selection process and keep a record of it.

What Should Your Social Media Giveaway Terms Include?

Your terms should include all the information someone needs to understand how to enter, how the winner will be chosen and what conditions apply.

For most social media giveaways, your terms should cover:

• Promoter details: Your business name, NZBN if you have one, and a contact email.
• Eligibility: Age limits, location limits, whether staff, contractors, suppliers or their immediate families can enter, and whether entrants need a public social media profile.
• Entry period: The opening date, closing date and exact time, including whether you're using NZST or NZDT.
• How to enter: The exact steps, such as follow the account, comment on the post, submit a photo or complete a form.
• Entry limits: Whether people can enter once, multiple times, once per post or once per person.
• Winner selection: Whether it's judged or random, who judges it, what criteria apply, and when the draw or judging will happen.
• Prize details: What the prize is, its approximate value, any expiry date, exclusions and whether it can be exchanged for cash.
• Winner notification: How and when the winner will be contacted, and how long they have to respond.
• Unclaimed prizes: What happens if the winner can't be contacted, doesn't meet the eligibility rules or fails to respond.
• Verification: Your right to check identity, age, location or compliance with the entry rules.
• User content: Whether you can repost, share or use entries, and any permissions you need from entrants.
• Platform disclaimer: A statement that the promotion isn't sponsored, endorsed, administered by or associated with the relevant social media platform.
• Privacy: What personal information you collect, why you collect it, who you may disclose it to and where people can find your privacy policy.
• Changes or cancellation: What you can do if the promotion is affected by fraud, technical issues, platform outages or events outside your control.

Templates can be a useful starting point, but they often miss the details that make your promotion different. Your terms work best when they match your actual prize, entry method, platform and winner selection process.

Can You Ask People To Like, Comment, Tag Or Share To Enter?

Yes, you can often ask people to like, comment or follow to enter, but you need to check the platform rules and avoid anything misleading or spammy.

Instagram giveaway rules in NZ aren't just about New Zealand law. You also need to follow Instagram's promotion rules, as well as any rules for Facebook, TikTok or another platform you use.

Platform rules can change, so it's worth checking them before each campaign. As a general guide, you should be careful about:

• Encouraging people to tag themselves or others in photos where they don't actually appear.
• Suggesting the platform sponsors, endorses or administers your giveaway when it does not.
• Running the giveaway from a personal profile if the platform requires promotions to be run through business pages or specific features.
• Asking entrants to spam comments, tag large numbers of people or share content in ways the platform restricts.
• Failing to include a complete release of the platform, where the platform requires that wording.

A simple and safer entry mechanic might be: follow our page, like this post and comment with your favourite flavour.

A riskier mechanic might be: tag 20 friends, share to every group you're in and tell people the platform has partnered with us. The second version is more likely to annoy users, attract platform issues and create misleading impressions.

You also need to be honest about odds and selection. If entries from TikTok and Instagram will be pooled together, say that. If each platform has a separate winner, say that too.

What Prize Details Do You Need To Spell Out?

You should describe the prize clearly enough that entrants know what they can actually win.

Vague prize descriptions are a common source of frustration. If you say "win a weekend away", entrants may assume flights, accommodation, transfers, meals and spending money are included. If you only mean one night's accommodation in a particular location, say that clearly.

Your prize terms should cover:

• The exact goods, services, vouchers or experience included.
• The approximate retail value, if you want to state a value.
• Any expiry date or booking window.
• Any blackout dates or availability limits.
• Whether delivery within New Zealand is included.
• Whether travel, insurance, meals, spending money or extras are excluded.
• Whether the prize is transferable.
• Whether the prize can be exchanged for cash or credit.
• Any age, health, safety or booking requirements.

If the prize is supplied by a third party, make that clear. For example, if another brand provides a product bundle or a hotel provides the accommodation, your terms should explain who is responsible for supplying the prize and any conditions attached to it.

The Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 can also matter where goods or services are supplied to a consumer in trade. Even if the entrant didn't pay for the prize, you should avoid giving away products or services that are unsafe, expired, materially different from what was promised or not fit for the purpose you promoted.

How Does Privacy Law Apply To Giveaway Entries?

The Privacy Act 2020 applies if you collect personal information through your giveaway.

Personal information can include names, email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, social media handles, photos, videos, answers to questions and direct messages. You don't need to collect highly sensitive information for privacy law to matter.

Before you collect information, be clear about:

• What information you're collecting.
• Why you're collecting it.
• Whether entry is optional or required for the promotion.
• Who will see or handle the information, including couriers, prize suppliers or marketing platforms.
• Whether you'll use the information for marketing after the giveaway.
• How entrants can access or correct their information.

If an entrant asks to access their personal information, the Privacy Act generally requires you to respond as soon as reasonably practicable and no later than 20 working days. There are exceptions, but you should have a process for handling privacy requests rather than leaving them in an inbox.

Marketing consent is another big one. If you want to add entrants to your email or SMS marketing list, don't hide that in tiny wording. Under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007, commercial electronic messages generally need consent, clear sender identification and a working unsubscribe facility.

A clean approach is to separate the entry from the marketing opt-in. For example, your entry form might include one tick box for agreeing to the competition terms, and a separate optional tick box for receiving marketing emails. That helps you show consent was clear and specific.

Be careful with public winner announcements too. It's usually fine to say you'll publish the winner's social media handle or first name, but tell entrants this in the terms. If you plan to share a winner's photo, video, testimonial or full name, get clear permission.

What Conduct Could Be Misleading Under The Fair Trading Act?

Your giveaway can breach the Fair Trading Act 1986 if the way you promote or run it misleads people.

The Fair Trading Act applies to conduct in trade, which includes promotional campaigns run by your business. The issue isn't only whether you intended to mislead people. The practical question is whether your post, terms, comments, ads or follow-up messages could give consumers the wrong impression.

Common risk areas include:

• Advertising a prize that isn't actually available.
• Changing the closing date after people have entered, especially if it advantages your business.
• Picking a winner by preference when you promised a random draw.
• Failing to disclose major conditions, such as an expiry date, location limit or purchase requirement.
• Using fake urgency, fake winners or inflated prize values.
• Saying "everyone wins" when there are limits, exclusions or only minor discounts.
• Letting people believe the platform or a celebrity is backing the promotion when they're not.
• Running an influencer giveaway without making paid or gifted relationships clear.

If you make claims about the prize or your product as part of the promotion, those claims need to be truthful and backed up. For example, if you say the prize includes your "best-selling" product or a product worth $500, make sure you can support that statement.

The safest approach is to make your post and your terms line up. If the post says one thing and the fine print says another, people may still be misled.

How Do You Publish And Use Your Terms Before Posting?

You should finalise your terms before the giveaway goes live, then make them easy for entrants to find.

For a small Instagram or Facebook giveaway, you might put the key rules in the caption and keep the full terms on your website or a landing page. For a larger campaign, paid ads, influencer campaign or multi-platform giveaway, it's usually better to have a dedicated competition terms page.

A practical process looks like this:

1. Decide the promotion structure: Is it skill-based or chance-based? Is entry free, purchase-based or linked to another action?
2. Confirm the prize: Lock in what is included, who supplies it, any expiry dates and any exclusions.
3. Check platform rules: Make sure your entry mechanics and disclaimer suit the platform.
4. Prepare the terms: Cover eligibility, entry, selection, prize, privacy, platform release and unclaimed prize rules.
5. Review your post copy: Make sure the caption, ad creative and influencer instructions match the terms.
6. Publish the terms: Put them somewhere entrants can access before they enter.
7. Keep records: Save the final terms, screenshots of posts, entries, the draw or judging process, and winner communications.

If your giveaway uses influencers, give them clear written instructions. Ask them to disclose paid or gifted relationships, use approved wording and avoid making claims you can't back up.

If your promotion involves purchase requirements, alcohol, health products, financial products, children, high-value prizes or a large amount of personal information, get tailored advice before posting. Those details can change the risk profile quite quickly.

Key Takeaways

• Use written terms for your social media giveaway before you post, even if the prize is modest.
• Be clear about whether the winner is chosen by skill or chance, and run the promotion the way your terms say you will.
• Spell out eligibility, entry steps, closing times, prize details, winner notification and unclaimed prize rules.
• Include platform disclaimers and check the current rules for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or any other platform you use.
• Handle entrant information carefully under the Privacy Act 2020, especially if you want to use it for marketing.
• Keep your promotional claims honest and consistent with the Fair Trading Act 1986.

If you'd like help with your giveaway terms, privacy wording, platform disclaimers or promotional campaign rules, you can reach us at 0800 002 184 or team@sprintlaw.co.nz for a free, no-obligations chat.