Using Facebook Personal Pages For Business ? You Are Risking Your Right To Use Facebook!

Adam Milton-Barker | Nov 5, 2014 | Social Media & Applications | 2242 Many people are not aware of Facebook terms and conditions that relate to using personal profiles to represent businesses, basically, you can't do it! The general way of thinking of people that do this is "everyone does it" which is great if you never get caught, but trust me you will! Take into account this scenario. You have spent about three years building up your personal profile as a business page, you have a couple of thousand friends on the profile and through this profile your business is thriving, then one day you wake up and go to check your profile but it no longer exists, no warnings it is just gone. This is what will happen at least once in your life if you do not use Facebook properly, the only way to get your account back is by uploading your passport which must state the name that you registered the account under, obviously if your account is called Bobs Building Company, you will never get your Facebook page back which means all of your hard work is lost, all of your contacts will not be able to find you anymore and if you register another account Facebook will just shut it down. The ban bot will find you eventually. Facebook Registration and Account Security terms state: "Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:" "You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission." "You will not create more than one personal account." "If we disable your account, you will not create another one without our permission." "You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own commercial gain, and will use a Facebook Page for such purposes." "You will not use Facebook if you are under 13." "You will not use Facebook if you are a convicted sex offender." "You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date." "You will not share your password (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account." "You will not transfer your account (including any Page or application you administer) to anyone without first getting our written permission." "If you select a username or similar identifier for your account or Page, we reserve the right to remove or reclaim it if we believe it is appropriate (such as when a trademark owner complains about a username that does not closely relate to a user's actual name)." These rules do get broken everyday, but likewise, businesses are ruined everyday by having their store fronts taken away from them. There are steps you can take to convert your Facebook personal profile to a business one, but be warned, you will lose a lot of data but this is more preferable to losing everything. It is time for business owners to start helping their communities and setting good examples, we may not always agree with the rules that social networks impose on us but if we want to play in their garden, we have to play by their rules. Please see the related links for more information about the Terms and Conditions related to Facebook profiles and if you need help with anything please do not hesitate to get in contact, the reason I created TechBubble is to help guide businesses through the changing world around us, and I always like to help.