No doubt you’ve heard that it’s against the Terms of Service to use your Facebook Profile in a commercial way.
But EVERYONE does it…
Yes, we do. Even I do (on a small scale from time to time). You do too? Don’t worry, we’ll just keep that between us.
As a refresher, remember Facebook specifically has 3 different ‘entities’ in which we can engage others.
- Profiles, in which we connect with our ‘friends’. This is a double opt in system. You request to be my friend and I accept. Profiles are for personal use.
- Groups, in which we become ‘members’. somewhat double opt in as well – you request to be a member and an Admin of that group approves your membership. Members can communicate with each other without opening up that ‘friend’ gateway. Groups are for discussions around a topic, interest, or location. Groups are not for commercial content either.
- Pages, in which we become ‘fan’ by liking the Page. Pages are the only entity within Facebook that specifically allow commercial content. Pages are wide open permission wise. I can view everything on your Page without your permission just like it was a website.
Understanding these three concepts makes it easy to see what ‘entity’ you are dealing with. Is there a Like Button? A Friend Button? or a Join Button? Now you know what entity that is. Does that make sense?
I’ve written about bad Groups before. I’ve written about bad Pages too. Just because it’s a Facebook Page you still have to follow the rules. Especially rules regarding certain things in your cover photo.
You can’t have items like calls to action (example: hey! please like our page!). You can’t have phone numbers, and you can’t have a URL to your website. The way Facebook explains it – these are things for your “About Tab” and shouldn’t be on your cover photo.
As a fan of all things MIKE I was dismayed to find this Page and it’s blatant disregard for cover image rules. How can you tell it’s a Page? It has a LIKE button – right? Unfortunately it also has a twitter url, a phone number and the url of their website.
Bad Mike, Bad…
But my heart really sank when I found out who runs the Page. Here’s their Profile.
Yeah, I said Profile. That thing that’s supposed to have no commercial content. This is even worse than their Page!
Needless to say, I’m not going to LIKE their Page, not going to FRIEND their Profile. I may report both though.
I don’t know who Mike is, I have no idea what they do, but both their Profile and Page are perfect examples of what NOT to do.
As a MIKE myself, on behalf of all the semi rule abiding Mike’s in the world (we been known to break a few now and then) – I apologize for this Mike’s behavior.
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He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, bought a cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and now,a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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