Successfully building new businesses in this century requires the use of social media networking. In fact, today most advertising and marketing agencies include social media marketing packages in their standard line of services offered. In addition to creating or expanding websites, generating search engine optimization (SEO) text and interactive tools, promoters will also suggest lead generation services. These inclusive packages are designed to grow business through successful advertising on social media sites.
It may not be the end of the world if you business doesn’t have Facebook, it’ll hurt a lot. However, there are also a few ways to eliminate business presence on these sites. In particular, Facebook establishes trends and security features to protect members from unwanted attention. Individual or corporate users can get banned from Facebook for performing any of the following actions:
- Seeking out or ‘friending’ strangers. This is probably the most common error that new businesses make. In an effort to build an online presence quickly, the site administrators will attempt to form a relationship with any potential customer who ‘likes,’ ‘shares,’ or comments on their page.
- Posting too many identical messages. A fairly simple algorithm can seek out multiple postings with identical content. Facebook considers the duplicate messages to be spam, and can choose to delete all messages, send a warning message to the administrator, or suspend the account altogether.
- Sending multiple friend requests simultaneously. The connotation here is similar to sending friend requests to individuals that do not have many mutual friends in common. Although this could be a fairly harmless practice, Facebook may consider the sudden interest in making new friends an unfriendly business practice.
- Posting copyrighted material. This should be an automatic taboo for any reputable marketing or advertising agency. However, posting copyrighted images or text without proper permission or citations is a common occurrence. Possibly because the items are so readily available, or because the administrator was simply unaware of the true ownership, this infraction has caused growing businesses to be blocked from Facebook activity.
- Sending excessive promotional links. This rule is unfortunately the result of copious business practices by some less than ethical entrepreneurs looking to make money quickly. The idea is to automatically post promotional links at pre-scheduled intervals. This is free or very low cost and can reach potentially hundreds or even thousands of customers every hour.
- Post Any Sort of Nudity. Even artistic nudity. Facebook will ban you so fast. Like this French museum recently learned.
Perhaps only one or two prospects will actually become customers, but since the input effort is so low, businesses take the chance and post excessively. Even some genuine lead generation services have crossed the line with promotional links. The goal is to balance the true need of the customer and the business. While it is important to reach potential customers in all time zones, this can be accomplished through specifically targeted messages being carefully planned and scheduled.
Keep Up to Date!
No reputable business intends to get ousted from a social media networking site and decrease their public image and potential sales. However, social media marketing packages that offer a strong presence on Facebook could mistakenly violate any of these rules and accidentally have client accounts suspended. It’s important to stay up to date with all of the new rules and regulations governing your Facebook account. With so much to keep up with, leave it to the pros and contact us to handle all of your social media management needs.
