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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