Yesterday I wrote about things you might do that could get you banned from Facebook. The main reasons people seem to be getting banned is not that they are doing specific actions, but they are doing them too much.
So how much is too much?
That’s the rub. There doesn’t appear to be a permanent line in the sand. No ‘if you send X friend requests you’re okay, if you send X plus 1 you’re out’. The line appears to move.
Not only that, there doesn’t appear to be a set protocol Facebook follows to deal with offenders. Some people get warnings and others don’t.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom if you’re using Facebook for marketing. From talking to many people I have learned some rules of thumb that should keep you out of trouble with the Facebook police.
My first piece of advice is don’t do things on Facebook you wouldn’t do if you were networking in person. If you follow this one piece of advice for every social media site you use, this should keep you out of most types of trouble.
Too many friend requests
When it comes to “too many” it would appear that if you keep the number of friend requests you send out under 20, you should be okay. But remember, if you are sending a personal message with each invitation (and I hope you are) you’re going to have a hard time even hitting 20 in one session.
I suspect that what happens with a lot of people who get banned is they have some event or other promotion happening and suddenly they try to rapidly build their network and cross that invisible line.
You are much better off to be on Facebook three or four times per week and send five or ten quality invitations at a time than to try and do it all at once. As with any networking situation, it takes time to network and build relationships. One hundred friends who know, like and trust you is far better than 1000 who couldn’t pick you out of a lineup. Remember, there are no shortcuts.
Too many identical messages
Another key is personalization. If you write a standard message to send with your invitations and paste it in the message you’re going to get red flagged. That’s what a spammer would do. Go back to the in-person networking analogy. Yes, you may have a standard elevator speech, but I’m sure you don’t repeat it verbatim each time to speak to someone new. You ad lib a little, you alter your message to suit the individual or your mood.
Do the same on Facebook. Instead of pasting in the identical invitation to everyone, type in an individual message for each invitation you send. Yes it takes more time, but it will keep the Facebook police off your back. Plus, it will help you to remember that you’re trying to connect and build relationships with real live people. Put some effort into always treating everyone you meet online as an individual. Trust me, it will pay off over time.
This is also true of writing on other people’s walls. I always try to visit each new friend’s profile to learn more about them. Then I write on their wall. If you copy and paste the same message on every wall post you write, the Facebook police will get you.
But remember, Facebook is about building relationships. If you take a moment to read a new friend’s profile and write a wall post that makes a comment about them or their interests, not only will you avoid that invisible Facebook line, but you’ll be building a deeper relationship with your connections. Focus on quality, not just quantity.
Messages to Groups or Event Attendees
When you create a Facebook group, you can send messages to everyone in the group. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Never mind the Facebook police, think of the members. If you send too many messages you’re going to fill up their inbox and annoy them. Only send messages that add value. And don’t do it too often or they’ll leave the group.
My sources suggest sending messages to your group no more than once a week, and only if you have something of value to say.
For events (such as a teleseminar) you have it even easier. When you create an event in Facebook, make sure people who want to attend have to register off of Facebook. Post a link to your website where they can go to sign up for your email list. Then you can send them regular emails and avoid the whole Facebook issue altogether.
When it comes to groups and events, there’s another danger area – the original invitation. You can send invitations to 100 of your personal friends at a time. What many people do is create a message, paste it in and send it to the first 100 people, then send the identical message to the next 100 and so on.
Whoo whoo whoo … I hear the Facebook police. Make sure you change the message for each 100 people who get your event or group invitation. And if you have several hundred (or thousand) friends, don’t send all your invitations in one day. Spread it out over several days or a couple of weeks.
You join too many groups
This is one case where Facebook’s rules are written. You may only join a maximum of 200 groups. Really? Why would you want to join 200 groups? Unless you are on Facebook full time, how could you possibly have any real connection with anyone in 200 groups? I recently purged my group list to the ones I actually am interested in and have the time to participate in.
Remember earlier where I said not to do anything online you wouldn’t do in person? Well, would you join 200 live networking groups? I don’t think so.
Too many promotional links
I have one friend who does some network marketing on the side. She joined some Facebook groups for network marketers and wrote posts on the walls of these groups with her link included. She wrote four (identical) posts to four groups one week. The next week she wrote four posts (identical to each other but different from the previous week) to four other groups. As she was about to add the 4th wall post in the second week she got a warning from Facebook.
Note, she wasn’t writing on individual’s wall, just on group walls. Additionally, she was only writing in groups dedicated to network marketing. And she only wrote four posts. Four!
The lesson here is to be very careful about posting links anywhere other than your own profile, group, page or event. It doesn’t take much to get you red flagged.
Join me Monday when I post some additional ways you can protect your Facebook connections.
Andrea J. Stenberg
Did I miss anything here? Is there something else you or someone you know has done that got them banned from Facebook? Please leave a comment and share what you know.
Thanks for the info Andrea. I have seen some of this before, but not all of it.
I saw this link on twitter a few moments ago from myMuse and will retweet it out.
I’d like to see part 1 of this as well. So would you please be able to send me the link ?
Thanks in advance and have a wonderful day. It is superb here in Toronto….going up to a high of 19 degrees Celsius. I cannot remember the translation – but I think it is in the 70’s F.
May you experience many moments of joy today and every day.
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Great post. As someone who recently got the boot from Facebook (and have yet to be reinstated) your information is outstanding.
It’s amazing how quickly things can change on FB. The ironic thing is we never know the true reason for the change or the rules that are enforced at times and not enforced other times.
What has been great about the FB boot is someone started a group called, Let Kathleen Gage back on Facebook.
Talk about feeling supported in this. Wow! This is social networking at its best.
Kathleen Gage
Kathleen,
The fact that someone started that group so quickly is a testament to the fact that you were doing things right on Facebook. If you hadn’t built such strong relationships, people wouldn’t give a hoot that you got the boot.
Lets hope Facebook comes to their senses soon.
Andrea
I have heard it takes about two weeks to get back on Facebook. One week down and one to go.
Thanks for your kind words Andrea.
Kathleen
Andrea,
It looks like I was prevented from emailing my group a message – is there anyway to appeal this?
-Austin
hi yeahh …
actually thanks to FB for prevent us from spam …
but no thanks that, they give us restricted things like U said >,<“;
today FB is SU*K-er than yesterday
if too many restricted things like this, FB will become history ~,~
I prefer looking-for “new facebook” for my “online home” . I’m sorry to think that ” I hope there’s FB in hell “
I have a friend on facebook that posted a picture to her account stating that she had been banned from using the “like” button, because she used it too many times. While this ban only lasted for at the most 24 hours, it was still unsual. In this warning it also stated that she could be banned for doing this again. Is this even REAL!?
I got banned two years ago and still have no clue what happened. They don’t answer any questions. The last thing I recalled doing was sharing a recipe with a church group doing a trade recipe thing. I was told my profile might have been hacked but since there has never been any response from them I assume it is just a sign of the times, more bad character making money without giving a hoot.
What i don’t realize is actually how you’re not really much more well-liked than you may be now. You’re very intelligent. You realize thus considerably relating to this subject, produced me personally consider it from numerous varied angles. Its like women and men aren’t fascinated unless it’s one thing to do with Lady gaga! Your own stuffs excellent. Always maintain it up!
Facebook’s position feels reasonable. It seems like they’re using anti-spam algorithms to judge abusive behavior. Just like there’s no explicit formula to not get caught in an email spam filter, there’s no hard rule to avoid being flagged by Facebook’s abuse monitoring. If there were, people would start finding ways around it.
As the to the four posts’ getting banned, it seems again that Facebook is clear. They don’t look favorably on any commercial self promotion using their social features. Knowing the tech industry culture, I wouldn’t be surprised if the true unwritten rule is that discussion of network marketing is itself forbidden. Tech people don’t like marketers and spammers and will generally see their activities as prima fascie abusive.
I was disabled on facebook and I’m only on it about ten minutes a day. I work all the time. I think they think I’m a roleplayer or something. Now I can’t talk to old friends I barely was able to find in the first place!
I got a warning saying I sent a friend request to someone I didn’t know and if I do it again the will deactivate my account.Is this a rule?
I was given a 24 hour ban today for posting a link for a hacker and suggesting that My Friends block him, ohh the irony! They will ban hackers, but we aren’t allowed to call them out!!
I was happily settling a descusion on the name of a church by posting a picture of the said church when I was banned. No warning no nothing. If there is a limit on postings it should be published to members.
I deactivate my facebook tons of times now im blocked from facebook for 30 days what an irony never knew you could get blocked for deactivating account too many times
Did this happened to any of you before or does anyone know if its possible to get blocked from facebook for deactivating facebook too many times as many as a couple per day please let me know if this ever happened to anyone
Someone essentially assist to make seriously articles I’d state. That is the first time I frequented your website page and thus far? I amazed with the research you made to create this actual post incredible. Magnificent process!
I have been banned from facebook for using my lifelong nickname ( nigger or nig) in my true funny stories ,that I write weekly on my timeline. I only use these words when talking about what my friends call me .
does FB inform you by email if they ban you? I don’t know if I have been, but the web connection, just keeps cycling without bringing the website up. Everything else comes up, just not fb. strange…
Beth, as far as I know Facebook does not let you know by email. That is one of the frustrations for people who have been banned because they often don’t know why. In your case, I’d log out of your web browser entirely and try again.
Hi! Thank you for the quick reply. I have since figured out the problem. Several days before that; I had to do a system restore. Unbeknownst to me, was that when FireFox was sent back to an earlier date, it didn’t get the update to cover changes in FaceBook. So, I updated FF and it solved the problem. Thanx again!
Glad you got it sorted
Do you use FB yourself? When you send a “Friend Request” there is no way to send a personal message like LinkedIn allows you to do. If there was, I would use it. You always have the option of sending a message to the persons “other folder” which they cannot read. I have looked for my own “other folder” and cannot find it. Connection requests work great on LinkedIn and I have never had any problems on that platform. On FB, I got a warning that I was making “too many friend requests.” I stopped making them. A couple days later I was blocked for 7 days from making friend requests. After another week in which I only sent a few requests (25 in 2 weeks time) to people I know (albeit some I have not seen in many years) and in which 90% of those requested accepted my friend request, I have now been blocked for 14 days with a message that says next time I will be permanently blocked from making friend requests. It is clear from the sheer number of articles on the web, including one in Slate, that FB targets conservatives and Christians for these random and capricious blocks. There are no web complaints from other types of groups. You do not have to be a genius to figure this out.