The pressure is on for many businesses who utilize the Facebook Fan Page for their business or community organization. With the impeding deadline of March 30th for an automatic conversion, groups are working hard to design an attractive Cover Photo. What will or will not capture the brand is the first thought of many making the final decisions. While keeping the best brand image is of importance, ensuring your cover photo doesn’t get you into trouble should be first.

Trouble? Yes, trouble. Although you may be more wise than to put up racy photos implying oral sex (the debacle that occurred with the University of North Florida‘s student newspaper Spinnaker last year), you may not know what else could get you into trouble besides copyright infringement. The social media world is so vast and it is definitely hard to keep up with every new item which could directly affect your business. What would seem like a harmless way to promote your business for free, could cost you.

This became particularly clear when it came time to design several Above Promotions Company Facebook Cover Photos.

What we wanted to do was this…

What we ended up doing was this…

Yes, a small change of removing the web address, but it made the difference in knowing the Facebook Fan page would be in violation of their policy or not.

Policy? What policy? You may be thinking. Under the Facebook Page Guidelines located at https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php, within Section III, Page Features, paragraph B states the following:

B. Cover

All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines.

Covers may not include:

i. price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it on socialmusic.com”;

ii. contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section;

iii. references to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features; or

iv. calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

Reading these terms, which are subject to change at any time, helped us to realize adding the web address would be wrong, but it also became clear there are many businesses large and small in violation of the Facebook Pages Terms as well as the Facebook Advertising Guidelines.

Do we believe every business will be caught on the wrong side of these terms, no. Would it be fun to be subjected to the penalty?

“We reserve the right to reject or remove Pages for any reason. These terms are subject to change at any time.”

No.

Thankfully many businesses haven’t transitioned to the new timely for their Facebook Page just yet. If you have done so and you see your cover photo is in violation, please update it. Also, be sure to visit the Advertising Guidelines as well, especially if you’re someone conducting promotional give-a-aways online.

If you believe this post may be helpful to a few people, please share it with them. Being educated about the platforms you use is key to the success or failure for your business.

Have a trouble-free weekend!

Comment below or contact us for help with your brand in social media. Photo courtesy of efffective.com.