Facebook regularly bans users for all sorts of reasons, the main ones are spamming or lying – so take care that you don’t.

I educate people via workshops, presentations, blogging and online webucation about social marketing and one thing I can be heard to say every time I talk about social media sites is this: Be authentic, be real and be seen to be a real person not just a business! Social sites are social and are meant to be about conversations and relationships – marketing has to be secondary to this.

Building and branding yourself, yes you, as a trusted expert is far more important than advertising your business in ways that will not only get you banned, but ignored and blocked by other users.

Here is a list of the ways you can get yourself banned from FB:

Don’t use your real name (or at least a name that you are known by all over the web): of course I was not born Annie Infinite however it is the name I use all over the web and it is on my business cards and I am known as Annie Infinite off and online. I had a great experience with FB over this as someone convinced me to try going back to my unused married name and I did and immediately regretted it. I told FB the story and they were kind enough to reinstate my real name of Annie Infinite for me after some checking on the web (they googled me), this kindness has endeared the FB team to me forever.

Friend too many people: yes you can have 5000 friends but please don’t try to get them all at once. Be discerning and make real friends, real connections with people just as you would in real life.

Post too many messages on your wall: this is even more important if you are marketing you can be banned for “excessive evangelism.”

Join too many groups: this can look awefully suspicious and even more so if you are posting lots of messages or links to your sites, or fan pages on the group walls.

You use the same message too many times: I know someone personally who thought they could get away with spamming via private messages they sent the same message out to their whole friend base in groups of 20 people (you are only allowed to message 20 friends at once). She was banned within 15 minutes!

Set your dog, cat or business up with a personal profile: you must be human – animals and businesses cannot have a personal profile, yes you might get away with it for a while, but you will be found and you will be banned. The FB algorithms are getting better every day..

You are too young: if Fb find out that you are under 18, either via your information, your actions or your language – banned!

Write offensive material: this is terminal almost instantly! No second chances.

Steal information off FB: again instantly terminal! pulling content via script, stealing content and reusing it elsewhere (unless you are the author), they will find you.

Spam people: with your app, your links, your business page, via poking, message etc…: basically excessive use of any of these will result in being banned.

As I always advocate, be real, be a person your marketing will come from being a trusted source of information, a real caring person, and truthful!

The Zen Bull

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