Things NOT to do on fb....a Business Page Guide to Avoid Restriction

Facebook has many rules and guidelines and breach of these can lead to all sorts of problems with your business page.  With a massive increase in the number of pages getting restricted or closed i thought a little guide might be useful. 

There are some simple things to avoid:

• Do not post the same link repeatedly across different groups or pages - it is very tempting to post a link to your page or an item in several places where you know you can advertise these.  This is the number 1 cause of getting your business page restricted.  Do not post the same link more than 4 or 5 times in quick succession. 

• Do not tag other people in posts or photographs without their express permission.

• Do not ask people to tag other pages without permission or to tag themselves in photographs if they are not in the photograph.

• Do not use a personal profile (a friend request one) for business purposes - doing this will result in the profile being closed with no warning.

• Do not buy fb likes from any source

There are also additional specific things you need to do if you are running competitions and promotions:

• Do not run a contest/giveaway without making sure you meet fb promotions guidelines:

The following is copied direct from fb guidelines (full guide linked at the bottom of this post)

E.    Promotions

1. If you use Facebook to communicate or administer a promotion (ex: a contest or sweepstakes), you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion, including:

a.   The official rules;

b.   Offer terms and eligibility requirements (ex: age and residency restrictions); and

c.   Compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered (ex: registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals)

2. Promotions on Facebook must include the following:

a.   A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant.

b.   Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

3. Promotions may be administered on Pages or within apps on Facebook. Personal Timelines must not be used to administer promotions (ex: “share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend's Timeline to get additional entries” is not permitted).

4. We will not assist you in the administration of your promotion, and you agree that if you use our service to administer your promotion, you do so at your own risk.

Some of the more complicated aspects of running a business page include requirements under the advertising guidelines

• All content posted to your fb page can be considered as advertising and therefore needs to meet the advertising guidelines. The main issue being breached by pages is this one:

The following is copied direct from fb advertising guidelines (full guide linked at the bottom of this post)

At Facebook, we believe that ads should contribute to and be consistent with the overall user experience. The best ads are those that are tailored to individuals based on how they and their friends interact and affiliate with the brands, artists, and businesses they care about.

So this statement means that your page can be restricted for consistently posting content that does not engage your likers, or by posting non relevant material (I personally believe this may include posting links to other pages but i am not 100% sure of that)

If you are unlucky enough to be placed in FB jail.......(have account restricted) these are the main reasons:

Information about Page Limits & Warnings

Again copied direct from fb guidelines (full guide linked at the bottom of this post)

The following are reasons your business page may be restricted or removed: 

Facebook's spam detection systems will automatically place limits on your Page if they register suspicious or deceptive activity that violates our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

For example, your Page may get unpublished for promoting spam, or the Like button may get disabled for deceptively acquiring likes. These limits apply to activity coming from your Page, not for posts other people make on your Page.If you believe your Page received limits by mistake, please let us know by going to your Page's admin panel and clicking Appeal under the limit's description.

Spam

Spam can involve contacting people with unwanted content or requests. This includes sending bulk messages, excessively posting links or images to people's Timelines and sending friend requests to people you don't know personally. Spamming is a violation of Facebook's community standards.

It's a violation of the Facebook Terms to repeatedly send the same message or make the same post because this could be considered spam or harassment. We also ask that you respect our members by not contacting them for commercial purposes without their consent. 

If you are not sure about the meaning of anything included in this post please feel free to ask and i will do my best to explain it :)

Further information can be found by reading:

Facebook Principles

Statement of Rights and Responsibilities

Facebook Advertising Guidelines

Facebook Pages Terms

Facebook Community Standards

Another useful Guide is this one explaining how facebook advertising works.

How to Reduce the Impact of 'False' Likes on Facebook Pages

In my last post are-you-liking-road-to-disaster? I discussed some of the potential problems business pages who have used various methods to inflate their like figures may soon be facing.  It is clear that some action will need to be taken right now to prepare for the current and future changes that facebook are introducing.

So if you have been using methods to attract people to your page who are not actually interested in it what can you do to improve the situation? First of all there are lots of things you can do, so don't panic and read on :)

INTERACTION

First of all you need to know the key to changing things around on your page is interaction - you need to work on getting the people who can see your posts to actually engage with you.  Anyone who has a page where no-one engages with posts will tell you it is not easy to get people to engage with you.....but actually it is not as difficult as you might think.

The number 1 way to increase interaction on your page is simply to ask questions.  I recently advised a seller to ask people on her page for their opinion about her knitted goods - ask them for colour suggestions, ask if they would like to see a cat or a dog next, ask if something looks ok even.  People LOVE to give their opinion so just give them the chance to give it :) The seller i advised to do this found it started to work straight away!

DEVELOP THE INTEREST IN YOUR PAGE

Ok so lets imagine you have 1000 people who have liked your page, but they are not really all that interested in your products - thats ok, they are still an audience.  If you have a lot of people who have liked your page already you can help to get them interested in what you have to say.  How? - back to INTERACTION - ask them questions about something they are interested in - even just ask what they are interested in - the chances are you will get a few responses at least and that gives you something to build upon.

DON'T PANIC ABOUT LOOSING LIKES

If you do loose likes just don't worry about it, there is no point in having people 'like' your page if they don't actually like it.....With each unlike you get you are developing a more targeted audience - it actually helps with your overall stats to have less non active likes as fb will interpret this as your page being more interesting and that you are working with a more targeted audience.  This is what fb want to see.

STOP CHASING LIKES

As i said before, its good to see your business page growing, and it is difficult sometimes to stop focusing on that 'magic number'.  Certainly look at ways to increase the number of likes you have in a slow and natural way - attracting new people who do have an interest in your products is a good thing.  Chasing a high like figure however is equal to just cramming random people into a shop - it doesn't make a good experience for any of the people who have been crammed in and the most natural thing for them to do is try and get out as soon as possible......Focus instead on the people who are there already, make your 'shop' a pleasant place to be and they will stay, and even maybe tell their friends how good it is :)

Remember the old saying.......

Focus on quality and not quantity and you will be improving the situation for everyone, including yourself!


Next time i will be discussing how to improve the chances of getting orders and sales from your facebook page :) to make sure you don't miss out ask to get added to our blog subscription list or join us on our facebook page  :)