If you are using Facebook to promote your business, you need to be careful not to break the written and unwritten rules around networking on the site. If you break these rules you can get your account frozen.
It's not that certain activities are banned outright, it's just doing them too much that causes you problems. The key with Facebook is not to do anything online you wouldn't do in person. Follow this one piece of advice and you should be able to avoid the Facebook police.
However, here are a few specific danger areas and how to avoid them.
Sending 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 at one time under 20, you should be okay. But 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 ten personalized invitations than to try and do it all at once. As with any networking situation, it takes time to network and build relationships and there are no shortcuts.
Sending too many identical messages
Another key to avoiding trouble is personalization. If you write a standard message to send with your invitations and paste it in each message you're going to get red flagged. That's what a spammer would do. Think about in-person networking. 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. 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 in-box and annoy them. Only send messages that add value. And don't do it too often or they'll leave the group.
I would 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 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
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.
Follow these simple guidelines and you will not only avoid getting your account frozen by Facebook, but you'll build a more powerful and responsive list of connections who truly care about you and what you do.
