When I’ve been sifting through my Facebook News Feed recently, I’ve had a lot of reasons to cringe.  I’ve been fairly outspoken about how many brands are attempting to “game” Edgerank and in doing so, are selling themselves short of strategic data-mining. Lately, though, I’ve been noticing that many businesses, for the sake of being engaging and interesting, are launching Facebook contests without realizing they are breaking the Terms and Conditions of the service.  Here are three Facebook mistakes brands make that could get their Page removed from Facebook:

Facebook Mistake: Like, Caption, or Share This to Win

According to the Facebook Pages Terms, contests need to be administered through Apps on Facebook.com or on a Canvas Page or Page App.  What this means, in plain English, is that you can’t use the native Facebook functions to hold your contest.  You cannot ask your fans to “like,” “share,” or “comment” on an update or photo or any other piece of content as a means of entering a contest or promotion.  Nor can you award a winner by saying that the submission with the most “likes” will win.  Further, all Pages must disclose that the promotion is not associated or in conjunction with Facebook, and you must have a privacy policy in place for the contest.  There are some other rules, as well, but these are the most often abused.

The bottom line is that many third-party apps are available for minimal investment.  There is no reason to risk losing your entire brand page (and a whole lot of credibility) by trying to work around the rules.

Facebook Mistake: Promotions in a Cover Photo

While most major brands know that you can’t include any promotions (like a sale or a discount or free shipping) in their Facebook cover photos, I see a lot of small and medium-sized businesses making this mistake.  Cover photos are most effective when they give your fans, or prospective fans, insight into your business.  It’s a great place to show off the feeling behind your business.  We recommend changing your cover photo regularly, perhaps every eight weeks, to align with the current business focus, but do so in a creative way that isn’t related to marketing.

Also of note, you cannot include the URL to a website in your cover photo, nor can you include a call to action, such as “Like this page to…”

Facebook Mistake: Using Long URLs in Status Updates

Many companies post the long URL to their website landing pages, which looks sloppy.  Using a link shortener, like bit.ly, allows brands to get real time click-through metrics, which can be valuable.  However, you do not need to use a link at all on Facebook anymore.  In the example to the right, you’ll see that we have created this link to a recent blog post, but the URL isn’t visible in the update.  To do this, simply paste the URL in the update, then delete it once the image preview has populated. You’ll still be able to track the click-through rates via your normal analytics platform, but it looks clean, professional, and like your social team is on top of the new functionality.

Annalise Kaylor is our Director of Social Media.

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Annalise Kaylor

Director, Social Media at Intrapromote

Annalise is a high-flying member of the Intrapromote team. No, really. She's currently working on getting her pilot's license (which upped her coolness factor immediately with us). Annalise is our Director of Social Media and joined our team in late 2011. Her approach to Social Media is simple and caters to big brands as much as smaller businesses looking to improve their social engagement. Annalise enjoys football and the photos of her baked goods make all of us hungry on a regular basis. Her immediate goal? To challenge Crystal and earn the "Most Green IPer" award (which isn't a real award yet, but the battle that will ensue could convince us to make it happen).

@annabelleblue

Dir. of Social Media for @intrapromote. Social Media Speaker. Clean water advocate. In my spare time, I fly planes & bake artisanal bread.

@MoniqueTheGeek Excellent! You're going to truly enjoy #PubCon. Looking forward to seeing you again! - 4 hours ago

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Latest posts by Annalise Kaylor (see all)

• Facebook Engagement is Killing Your Strategy - April 23, 2013
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