Rule 1: BE POPULAR, BUT NOT THAT POPULAR
Even though Facebook is all about having friends and connections don’t have
too many. The average is 120 and the limit is thought to be 5000; that’s
when Facebook gets suspicious that no-one can be that popular and may
look into your account.
Rule 2: KEEP IT REAL
If
you use an alias and have a kitten as your profile photograph you’re
asking for trouble. Facebook wants authentic not fake information, as
fans of Cosplay (people who enjoy dressing up as fictional characters)
found to their cost in the US recently. Pages were deleted because they
were using the names of TV, movie or comic book characters.
The
network has also been known to take down a page allegedly belonging to a
cow, and one from a legitimate UK MP because it didn’t think it was
real...
Rule3: BE ACTIVE, BUT NOT TOO ACTIVE
Facebook
is all about posting, yes? Yes... but don’t go overboard. Facebook
doesn’t like it if you have too much to say as ex-founding Apple
employee, entrepreneur and author Guy Kawaski discovered when his
account was temporarily disabled because of “excessive evangelism”.
Rule 4: IF YOU DON’T OWN IT, DON’T POST IT
Social
media gurus say curtailing the free sharing of content is flying in the
face of what social media is all about, but it can also be flying in
the face of that thing called the law. Copyright still applies even in
the virtual world.
“Facebook pages continually reproduce content
they have no legal right to, then if Facebook takes them down, the
business owners blame Facebook for being unreasonable,” Jamie White
explains. “But they need to understand that Facebook has an obligation
not to authorise the infringement of copyright law.”
And the
network won’t necessarily tell you what you’ve posted that is in breach,
as The Cool Hunter’s Bill Tikos found out when his Facebook page was
disabled without warning recently, losing him 10,000 clicks to his style
website per day.
Rule 4: FACEBOOK DOESN’T ALWAYS HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR
You
may think it is funny... Facebook may not. Even social media guru and
speaker Doug Antkowiak in the US fell afoul of Facebook rules when he
posted a cartoon of two people having sex and posting status updates on
their smartphones. The caption read: “Looks like this is the new
definition of cyber sex.” Looks as though it was contravening the
network’s condition that you don’t post nudity or anything of a
pornographic nature too.
“I thought it was pretty funny,” Antkowiak said but it wasn’t so hilarious when Facebook slapped him on the wrists.
Rule 5: COMPETITION RULES, RULE
Many
businesses use competitions and promotions to build or reward their
social network communities but most of them are breaking Facebook
regulations or, worse, state law. “Facebook is clear that you cannot run
a competition or promotion unless you use a third party app,” says
White.
“They don’t want you to use any of the functions of
Facebook – likes, shares and so on to do so.” Meanwhile, each state has
very clear laws around how competitions must be run.
Rule 6: FOLLOW CAREFULLY...
The
limit for the number of groups you can follow is set at 200, any more
than that and it raises a red flag over whether you are a spamming or
just plain lonely, especially if you are furiously writing posts on all
200...
Rule 7: BUSINESS PROFILE PIX
If
you’re running a business page make sure your cover photo isn’t an
advertisement, a call to action, a coupon, has your contact details or
includes an offer. Facebook sees your page as a place to say what your
brand stands for, not to sell more stuff. If you’ve got it wrong, don’t
feel foolish, when their new business pages were launched even brands
like Volvo and Armani were confused...
Rule 8: POST NICELY
You
might think not posting content that is “hate speech, threatening, or
pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or
gratuitous violence” would be a given but, sadly, not. A man was jailed
recently in the UK for offensive jokes about missing five-year-old April
Jones, while brands in Australia have been told by regulatory bodies
they are responsible for any offensive content written by fans. Where
you are an individual or a business, keep it clean...
Sourced from news.com.au
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