The directors of Facebook are constantly updating their lists of policies, conditions and guidelines, and unless you frequently familiarize yourself with them you may end up on the wrong side of their rules.
You can find these documents throughout the website, as almost everything you do on Facebook has its own policies for you to abide by. The truth is, often times, persons don’t take the time to sit and read through them as they tend to be long and the few who do, find it hard to understand them. Then, there are the select few that honestly do not know that these guidelines exist, and as such, often find themselves committing offenses resulting in abuse warnings and even banned profiles and business pages.
As expected, there is a specific policy that covers using Facebook for Business and though the guidelines are clearly stated here, there are still companies that continue to post images which are deemed illegal, contests that shouldn’t be done on Facebook and conducting themselves with behavior deemed inappropriate for the Facebook community. This is strongly advised against, as such behavior can result in your company’s page being permanently removed from the website, which will in turn reflect badly on your company. So to help avoid this from happening, let’s review a few of the rules commonly broken by Facebook business pages.
Handling promotions on Facebook:
Facebook Page Guidelines – Article III- section E. This clause states that all promotions must be done within the Facebook Apps page (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/games/canvas/) as either a Canvas page or a Page App.
The Facebook App Page is a third party application employed by Facebook to manage and operate all of their in-site promotions. Using the page not only makes the promotional activity easier to manage but yields better results. So try to avoid the popular violation of telling your fans to like a picture to be entered in your competition. Do it the right way.
Never notify a contest winner via Facebook:
Facebook Page Guidelines – Article III – section E clause v clearly states that you should never use Facebook as the chosen mode of contact between you and your contest winners. This includes, though not limited to, private messages (chat), messages, profile posts and status announcements.
Yes, I know you may be asking why you can’t notify the winners on Facebook since the completion, itself, was on Facebook. But, that’s just the way it goes. It is recommended that you notify the winner(s) via email or phone call. Then and only then is it acceptable to congratulate the winner Facebook so as to inform the other contestants who won.
Clearly state who is collecting contact information from fans and how it will be used:
The Statement of Rights and Responsibilities – Article 5 – Section 7 clearly states that if you need to collect information from your fans on the Facebook platform that you clearly state to them that it is your company who is collecting their information and not Facebook. You must also clearly tell them who will have access to their information and how it will be used.
These are only a few of the many policies on Facebook that are often being broken. Don’t allow ignorance to get you caught up the list of Facebook rule breakers. Take the time out to review the various policies and ensure that you are always in the right. Here are a few more policy links to get you well on your way to a violation free business page:
https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards