Using Facebook to promote your business? Be careful!

January 12, 2011 News 26

Using Facebook to promote your business? Be careful!

One reason I just started a new facebook “fan” page for this website is because facebook has been disabling profiles of some photographers I know (as well as web sites) who have been using their personal facebook profiles as a means to promote their web site. I guess this is a “no-no” in facebook land and while it has taken me 1 1/2 years to get to over 2100 “friends” on facebook I could lose all of that at any moment because I do post links to this site from facebook.

If any of you reading this use a personal facebook page to promote your web site or photo business then be careful! Here are the rules direct from FB:

“Per our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Facebook profiles must represent an individual. Users aren’t permitted to maintain an account under the name of their organization, or use personal accounts to advertise or promote themselves professionally. If your profile was listed under a non-individual name, or was used primarily for professional promotion, this is probably why it was removed.”

I was 100% un-aware of this policy because let’s face it..who reads all of the legal mumbo jumbo before signing up for a facebook account? Just wanted to pass this along and to let everyone know that if you are following me on facebook then PLEASE head over to my new fan page for this site so I do not lose you 🙂 All you have to do is hit the “like” button when you get to the page. I will eventually stop posting web site updates to my personal facebook page and will only use the fan page so I can be sure to follow the rules of facebook 🙂

Thanks!

Steve

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25 Comments

  1. Well, I am not one to defend FB but they have reason. Business pages cannot do everything personal pages can. They don’t want business going around liking everyone to as a form of spam marketing for one thing.

  2. Well unless facebook changes their policy lets hope for something better…. I have read some articles about some new social networks that will be great for promoting ones self….. (ex. this new one coming out called mycube.com) who knows if it will be just another social network but at least its something…

  4. Wow. Then all of those actors, musicians and other artists who are hyping their product need to follow these rules too. It’s ridiculous.

  5. Not to be a party pooper here, but it’s the site’s ToS and if you violate it, you lose your privileges. How is that screwy towards the ‘little guy’ or ‘big brother’?

    Social media is a powerful tool if used correctly, don’t underestimate its impact.

    • I agree, rules are rules. I just know that not all of us read all of the rules when signing up. When I found out about it I started a “fan” page so will be fine. Just wanted to let others know. 🙂

  6. If that is true then how does nearly every retail chain out there have a facebook page? Every television commercial ends with “visit us on facebook”. Are they allowing big business to have a presence and screwing the little guy?

    How stupid

    By the way… I know everyone on the planet thinks that facebook is the greatest thing since sliced bread but they are about to go public and their business model is not much different than MySpace. Remember them. I’m not a financial adviser but it might be a great company to short!

    Hee! Hee!

    • Because those are business or “fan” pages. Those are OK. You just can not use a personal account that has “friends”. Any promotion of a business has to be done via a “fan” page which is now really just a page you click “like” on. They keep changing. I do know others that this has happened to recently so it’s real.

  8. I do no do social media. To much time consuming and not enough control over the medium. But I know of actrices for instance Halina Reijn who uses facebook as a medium to reach out to her fans or Carice van Houten and Sanne Vogel who twitter their thumbs into a cramp. Seems to be no problem for them, why should it be a problem for photographers? Or Jan van Buuren who manages a photosite on Facebook.

    http://www.facebook.com/people/Halina-Reijn/1592770411

    http://twitter.com/halinareijn

    http://twitter.com/caricevanhouten

    http://twitter.com/sannevogel

    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sanne-Vogel/130766246962130?v=wall&filter=1

    So if Facebook keeps changing the rules they will have to kick of these 0,1% of accounts that make Facebook a worthwhile effort. Because from the 500.000.000 people on Facebook 99.9% are about as interresting to follow as watching grass grow. The creative people’s accounts are the juice of Facebook so if they start to kill of their accounts, what will the rest of the users do…..in that case beybey Facebook.

  9. They’ll implement a fee system for business facebook sites next. They are doing it slowly to avoid any outcry.

  10. Let’s see, FB wants everyone to participate so they can generate hundreds of millions in ad revenue (or is it now billions?) yet won’t allow members to gain financially through self promotion?

    I thought all this social media stuff was supposed to be about sharing? I guess when it comes to money, sharing is not part of the equation.

  11. many times people have posted “steves sites, he can do what he wants” and I agree, well Facebook is someones site too, and they have there reasons, and there rules are clearly stated in English and not legalease.

    • Agreed. If we want to play, we gotta play by their rules. Problem is that FB keeps changing the rules. It started off being extremely user friendly. As its success increased, it has become more of a tool for FB to extract info from users, IMO. As for legalese, there’s plenty of it on FB. Rules change so often that I have a problem keeping track. And heck, I am one of those darn lawyers!

  12. Rob – your comment just shows how far removed you are from corporate realities. Do some research, take a look at how much sustained traffic, PR value, brand impressions, customer interaction & retention most major brands are getting through Facebook. Not to mention full databases for direct mail campaigns & customer preferences etc. CTR on Facebook ads are often through the roof.

    But hey, what’s a measly 500 million people you can potentially reach through one platform…

  14. What a load of FB crock! How many artists are on FB self promoting, not to mention charities, etc.
    I agree with Armanius. It is just another freedom that is being slowly taken away from us – chip, chip.

  15. How silly of FB. Good grief. Why make the distinction between an individual vs. business? When FB started, it was a great way to keep in touch and reconnect w/ people. With its success, FB is getting more and more intrusive in the way that it controls the user.

  16. Can’t believe that anyone would even consider Facebook for business promotion. But then again, there was a time when businesses used to run in droves to Second Life…

  17. I think I follow what you’re saying but let me get this straight…I have a fan page where I post articles from my blog. Then I’ll “share” the entry from my FB fan page to my personal feed so other friends can see it. Is that not okay to do? Or, are you saying, it’s not okay to take links straight from my blog and post them to my personal news feed? I just want to know so I don’t get caught. Thank you

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