Facebook - 2 Examples of Business w Engaging Posts
Here at WA, we frequently hear about people that get their posts or pages removed or banned from Facebook, Pintrest or other forms of social media. More often than not, the WA member does not feel like they spammed anyone. Jetrbby (Kaju) is a recent example.
This morning, before I read Jetrbby's latest bad experience with Facebook, I had spent some time on someone else's business page. It is a Facebook business page that I have visited multiple times.
Since I am in the process of launching my own Facebook business page, I thought it would be useful to compare the post on his business page that got him blocked to the Facebook business page posts that are not getting blocked.
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Example 1: Facebook page belonging to an art gallery/wine bar in Texas
Yet this morning as I was sipping on my morning tea, I found myself thinking about an art gallery in Texas. This artist specializes in university football themed artwork.
So, I Googled the business name. I glanced at the business web page. Then I decided to check out the business Facebook page. I've been to that business page multiple times before. It is one of my most favorite business pages around.
As usual, the artist that runs the gallery had shared pictures of some events that he attended. In one post, he was photographed donating one of his paintings to the Salvation Army for a fundraiser. In other post, he was photographed signing his art prints at another event.
He also shared a few photographs of himself painting plein air at the beach. Another pictures showed him painting at the mountains. Colorado is one of his favorite places to ski.
Never once did his Facebook business look like an internet ad. Most of his Facebook posts showed pictures of him with other people. Or pretty scenery.
After I logged off, I found myself wondering if maybe I should purchase some of this artist's artwork to re-sell in my shop. Had his Facebook business page's posts looked like advertisements, I would not have spent 2 minutes on there.
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Another Facebook business page that I like is for a horse race track. (This summer I discovered that attending live horse races was sooooo much fun.) Anyway, I like this tracks business page. The posts never feel like advertisements.
The race track shows pictures of beautiful horses. It shows pictures of the fans. The race track management shares weekly veterinarian reports - which demonstrates the managements desire to be transparent and to the horse's welfare. They share behind the scenes pictures of employees. They share pictures of early morning workouts that the general public does not get to see. I assume some people visit their page just to see themselves in the photos that were taken.
Again, if their Facebook business page posts would have basically been an advertisement for the horse racing or an advertisement about how the facility can be rented out for events; I would not have spent any time on the page.
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I think our challenge as affiliate marketers is to find ways to ENGAGE our audience on social media. We should try to share stories whether it is through words or pictures. Or, at least that is what I plan to do to engage my target audience.
Facebook may not be the best platform for everyone of us. Yet for those that can figure out how to engage people within their niche, Facebook can be a wonderful tool to stay connected.
Think about the Facebook business pages that you like to visit.
What are they posting that makes you want to visit their page?
Best wishes to you as you build your business. I hope that you have a great weekend.
- Sondra
Recent Comments
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Sincerely, I wish you good luck because in my opinion FB is really not a place that seems to me appropriate to develop a business serenely. There are too many unnecessary prohibitions and especially as I said to Kaju there is too much hatred and racism and manifestoes full of anger that are allowed to stay there while for many WA members who want to simply do their job everything has become complicated for them .What interests FB today is to make us pay for advertising and even there many people lose money because that advertising on FB is not so simple.
I wish you to get there and flourish on FB if that's what you want. Try to find good advice before you start, it will prevent you from wasting your time and money.
Have a nice day!
Ingrid
Hi Ingrid,
I sincerely appreciate your advise. I've never been too active on FB because I have heard of people discussing the things that you mention.
At the same time, I keep having local people ask me if my retail shop has a Facebook page. So, I am trying to make myself do it.
You bring up a great point Ingrid, that's why so many people who only want to do business on Facebook shy away from getting involved on their personal profiles.
You so astutely have defined the crux of the problem. It's a Catch-22. People who want to do business on Facebook want to avoid the "hate stuff" associated with personal profiles, therefore they only want to do business on a Business Page.
However, if they are new or restarting, under the current Facebook they cannot effectively do business on a Business Page, especially with a new MMO site. There will be little chance of gaining organic engagement without paying for ads.
This is the Facebook "Squeeze Play" - you gotta Pay to Play even if you are publishing excellent valuable content. And if you don't wanna Pay (or can afford to), you can either -
a) Post on your Personal profile where all the "Hate Stuff" lives
b) Post on your Business Page and get one of your posts blocked
c) Post on your Business Page. and Facebook will unpublish it
Sad but the reality of 2019.
I think you're right on finding ways to creatively engage your audience on social media, especially Facebook. If your FB page is new, its going to draw the attention of their bots also, especially if it's an MMO.
I've got an MMO FB page I created for the SAC, so I'm trying to figure out what works and what doesn't as well. Haven't gotten any banned or unpublished yet thankfully.
Thanks for your post,
Michael
Michael, that is encouraging to know that you've managed to keep your MMO FB page out of Facebook jail. So Far.
For now, I am planning to use Facebook for my local retail business and maybe a beauty blog. I'm not brave enough to try the MMO niche on it.
You're lucky Tim. Whether one gets blocked, banned, or unpublished in the MMO niche on a Business Page often has nothing to do with their content, it has to do with the Name of their Business Page, or a keyword they are using in their post title.
Other than "real spam", these are the only factors whether you end up in "Facebook jail" or not. You can write excellent valuable "non-spammy" content (as I did and millions of others have) and still end up in Facebook Jail.
If the FB algorithm doesn't like the word you are using, it flags your Page automatically and then unpublishes you.. Note that this has nothing to do with Spam, it has to go with keywords and Names.
I would say you are lucky that you don't have any keywords or Names in your Business Page name or Post Titles that trigger the "block" or "unpublish" directive by the Facebook algorithm.
Hi Sondra, I was referred over here by Kaju to have a look at your comments about Facebook because he knows I'm looking into the pros and cons of starting a business page on the platform.
In a typically well-crafted post, you indicate on providing a comparison of his site with two other sites that tickle your fancy, then ask us to think about pages we visit.
Unfortunately I cannot accommodate you there, since I don't peruse Facebook for interesting tidbits, as you seem to.
Three things strike me here:
1. You didn't compare Kaju's site specifically with these examples. We are left to infer your opinion is that Kaju's looked like an Internet ad.
2. We have to look at this as more of a meta-analysis situation rather than a case-study situation. What we have here are two cases you indicate as positives and Kaju's clearly negative experience. That's not enough data imo.
What's happening on a larger scale? I see a lot of new FBers on WA saying they are getting hit. I see long-time FBers saying it's working for them, but not uniformly so.
If FB is too hard to bust a new move.....?
3. The impression I'm forming is that Facebook requires a tremendous amount of effort to develop a following in the first place and now, * on top of that * we have to pay for ads anyway.
Cheers Marc.
Hi Marc,
Thanks for stopping by.
I prefer to let people make their on conclusions on what they think of Kaju's posts that caused him to end up in Facebook jail.
I've spent so much time on WA and making comments on WA reviews and other MMO online review posts via site comment feature that I am mentally saturated on anything to do with websites and affiliate marketing. So, I am not a good judge on whether his FB post looked like an ad or not. It simply did not speak to me at this point in time because it did not address a need that I personally have.
On the other hand, his WA post did catch my attention because I am looking into FB . I am having too many local people wanting to know what my retail shop's FB page is.
I am also working on a new website in the beauty niche - whose audience tends to prefer short stuff rather than 1,000 -2,000 word essays that Google wants.
For me, Kaju's experience has reinforced my belief that FB is not a good place to market WA or my neglected MMO website. I can't figure out what I would need to do to make a short MMO post on FB engaging.
Marc, I hope you have a wonderful week. As always, I enjoy your well thought out comments.
I think that's a very reasonable deduction about MMO/WA on Facebook. However, it is at odds with the Super Affiliate Challenge requirement to engage on Facebook, from what I understand, which is little.
As an aside related to long google posts, It is interesting how these authors of recipe sites have to tell some story about how they had a pork roast or something, before they reveal the recipe!
I actually found a plug-in that goes through recipe websites and strips out the recipe from the site, so one need not scroll through page after page of some story nobody cares that much about :)
A bit naughty of me, isn't it? But it does also illustrate the nonsense of these long essays!
I hope your beauty site works out well!
all the best Marc
Yes Marc, no doubt for the MMO niche, the Facebook recommendation is certainly at odds with the SAC Challenge. No doubt about that one.
Well, you are in the thick of it! And you pressed through and got some clarity and shared it with us -- many thanks!
Hi Sondra. I have used that method of sharing my niche on Facebook for over a year now and, although I've never been blocked, the amount of work I've had to do to obtain followers is painstakingly slow. Where as my Pinterest account is easy to use, fast and efficient. In just 9 months I have reached 9000 followers, and that number is now growing rapidly. At the rate it's moving now I expect to reach 30,000 by Christmas. At this stage I'm now getting 1000 visitors a month to my site. I fully intend to give FB the boot. Jim
Hi Jim, that is good info to know. I've spent several hours over the last couple of days working on my Pintrest account.
Congrats on reaching so many followers so quickly. I hope that I can pull that off.
Once again Jim, Thanks a Great Share!
I read your Pinterest post, and have always known that Pinterest is the better way. I even wrote posts about it.
But it helps for me to be reminded with all the Noise out there!
Hallelujah!! Thanks for saying this. People like to keep blaming Facebook for things because they are failing to see why their posts are removed.
To be honest, Facebook is not a great platform for the MMO niche because it has a rule against MLM and other get rich quick schemes. Sometimes, it thinks WA is one. I don't know if because some newbies spam their links or it's the name, but it gets picked up by the algorithm.
They also require all paid ads to be 'high quality'. People get upset their ad is rejected, and think Facebook is this evil corporation. It's not either one, and many people succeed on FB.
I looked at blogs I follow who are hugely successful. I look at FB pages and other things. I pay attention to their ads. I am looking to learn from them, because they are succeeding.
Btw, I work with racehorses :)
Well said.
I didn't realize that you worked with racehorses. I became totally addicted to the racing this year.
I've had an off track TB before. Now, I'm looking forward to the day I can get me a nice affordable claimer that can be competitive at the "smaller" races. Everyone was so nice.
It's pretty fun! I came because I love horses, I don't really care too much about horseracing except I always love ours to win, of course! But it's a blast! It's completely different than having a horse on the farm I used to ride when I was a kid. These animals are fit, taken care of to the extreme, given the best high energy feed and vitamins, and kept properly rested, while exercising daily, for races, right? They get HYPER. They are happy, feeling good, and want to run jump and play when they're supposed to be walking or focusing on going to the track to jog or gallop or do a quick workout, or whatever, and they can be a handful. But I love every day I go to work. ^_^;
I love how you explain the difference between the races horses and the average horses that people ride.
You must be very talented horse person. I'm not so sure that I could handle them when they are hyper excited.
I already have a trainer picked out for when I get my horse. Of all the trainers I watched, he does the best job of quietly and calmly handling some of the most excited, hyper ones. Of course, he also had my favorite horse, "Here Come Granny"
Ooh, you have it all figured out! I lucky don't excercise racehorses. I stay in the barn. I don't think I could handle them out there either. Most LOVE to run full out and trying to get them to pace themselves can be a stretch. If a horse doesn't like to run, though, they usually don't make it and are found another home!
People against horseracing always like to say we're forcing them to do what we want for entertainment. They're a thousand pounds. All the training in the world won't force them to do something they don't want to do if they really don't want to. They love running. Teaching them and training them only goes so far!
Plus, if a jockey falls off, the riderless horse will usually keep racing and even go all out. They sometimes win too! Though that doesn't count, obviously. So its great fun working with them!
If you are working in the barn, that sounds like a relaxing job. I think I could be happy cleaning stalls all day. Something relaxing about it.
When I need a little smile or laugh, I like to think about Bodexpress. He's the horse that bucked his rider off in the Preakness this year just outside the starting gate. He finished the race and then ran another lap.
Granted, if I was one of his connections, I wouldn't be so amused.
I hope you have a great week.
Cleaning stalls, bathing horses, cooling horses, or just walking those taking a day off, it's excellent fun!
Yeah, Bodexpress was on a ROLL this year! ^_^
It's simply the NAME and certain keywords.. It flags certain names and keywords in the MMO niche. it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the Content.
Write great valuable content but have the wrong keyword in the Name of Business Page, you are done on FB!
That's why FB is wrong for MMO.
You have to "Pay to Play" on Facebook if you have a new account.
Hi Sondra,
Thanks for sharing this blog, I agree with you, Facebook should be used to share what you do but not to sell your product or service on this platform.
I have my Facebook Page and it's working ok, I whish it could be bigger and better, after reading your blog, I took a couple of notes about what I should stop doing.
I use my Fb page to drive traffic to my website, and it's working good, I share my website content on it and I get likes and shares on Fb, this way I get some traffic to my website.
Alejandra,
I'm glad that FB is working well for you. With your niche, it seems like it would be very easy to share your website content on it. Just looking at pictures of your projects would be inspirational for people.
Best wishes.
Thanks for bringing me into the conversation I appreciate the callout Sondra, but sorry I have to disagree.
First of all, you didn't read those posts, so it isn't fair for you to judge them cause you really can't make a comment about the content within them.
My Posts that were Blocked were more Valuable, Helpful (and legitimate) than Many other posts that Never Get Blocked. And I also did not include ANY affiliate Links or URLs in the Post. Period. Yesterday I shared a simple helpful post, and my page was Unpublished.
The reason for the Block and the Unpublished page is Very Simple:
Facebook is flagging as "spam" perfectly valuable content shared on Business Pages to "squeeze" you into buying their ads. It's all about the "Great Squeeze Play" which is an insidious money grab. Facebook is playing a "2 Faced Game" to maximize their ad revenue.
This is all due to a change in FB's initiative toward greater personal interactions as a necessary response to the 2018 scandals that plagued them.
If you had a large following on Facebook before, you can still leverage that following and get organic engagement.
But if you are restarting on Facebook (like me) with a New Account and Business Page, or are someone opening their first FB account, it is highly unlikely you are going to see significant organic traffic through your Business Page.
It's a fact, that there are well-established businesses now with 100,000's Facebook fans who are getting practically zero traffic to their Business Page.
Whoever doubts me can read me posts and be their own judge -
IMO this sad chronological real-time reporting of the events I had to go though provide irrefutable proof of what I am saying here.
Kyle, Why Are We Still Focusing on Facebook? Facebook Got Me! Facebook First Blocked Me, Now UNPUBLISHED ME! So I say, Sayonara Facebook!
I am trotting on Greener Pasture Now!
Good Luck with Your Business Page!
Take Care,
Kaju
I understand your frustration Kaju. Sort of since I did not invest all of the time that you did. I've thought about the "issue" all day.
I think I can pull Facebook off with my shop and my real estate business.
However, I can't figure out how to do with my MMO niche website that promotes WA on Facebook. As you said, Linked In is probably a better platform. It is more business people talking to business people.
I hope that you have a great weekend.
Here''s another thing Sondra that I am beginning to realize: Facebook's latest algorithm is "flagging" certain words in the MMO niche that is in your Business Page title, and also "keywords" it doesn't like in your post titles.
That's likely what happened to me and many others. I believe since "affiliate" is in my Business Page title, and affiliate marketing has a "bad "name" due to all the scammers, FB automatically flags my site, no matter how good the content is.
Hope you had a Great Weekend:)
Kaju
Actually after reading your last comment I think we are now mainly in agreement Sondra:
For new users, Facebook now doesn't work for MMO sites to promote WA. I would love it to work, but after seeing everything lately, I just don't see it.
I could start a new Business Page with a different name, but my current name is where my Branding happens to be. So that would defeat the purpose.
So its now "Sayonarra Facebook" for my MMO site.
Hello LinkedIn!
Hey Sondra! Great post! And oh so true! Very useful, thank you! I hope all is well with you. I've been away for a while but preparing a " come back"... 😊
Nathalie,
It's great to see you. I too have been away but with fall approaching I should be making my comeback also.
I look forward to seeing you blog posts again.
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Thanks Sondra for the share.
Carol.