Social networking site Facebook has taken down the official India pages of fashion house French Connection UK (FCUK) and chocolate giant Cadbury’s Bournville for violating the codes governing hosting of such pages halting the social media promotion blitz that these brands have been riding on.
Facebook issues ‘promotion guidelines’ which every brand must follow while publishing offers and contests on their fan pages. The guidelines are issued to “govern your communication about or administration of any contest, competition, sweepstakes or other similar offering (each, a “promotion”) using Facebook.”
According to the guidelines, if a brand wants to release promotions or run contests, they should do it by building an external application or tab. This is to specifically state that “the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.” The company was not available for comment on the specific reasons why it took down the promo pages.
“The Cadbury Bournville Facebook fan page went offline today. Cadbury is currently working with Facebook and agency partners to ascertain the reason and reactivate the fan page at the earliest,” a Cadbury spokesperson said. A fake Google Buzz page now appears on the Cadbury Bournville page. FCUK declined to comment on the issue. A week ago, dining chain Pizza Hut India’s Facebook page was taken down as well.
“Facebook periodically revises its promotions guidelines. However, when the policy was updated in the beginning of 2011, the administrator of Pizza Hut Delivery India did not receive a notification of the change. In a routine scan, Facebook referred to an old promotional offer that was still on our wall and temporarily disabled it until the historic content was deleted. Our administrator has been in touch with Facebook to ensure that we remain in compliance with the revised guidelines,” said Ashok Bajpai, general manager, Pizza Hut Delivery.
Most brands encourage the use of ‘Like’ button as a voting mechanism. On the other hand, leaving a comment on a post is considered an entry to the contest. This is considered a violation of the guideline. Some brands need users to tag pictures of their friends to win gift vouchers, which violates privacy norms.
Adhvith Dhuddu, founder and CEO of Alive Now, a Bangalore-based social media management firm, says Facebook had done this a couple of years ago to certain brands in the US. “I would say that is a smart strategy by Facebook. They will yank the pages of the top brands for a while and have it back up in a while to make social media agencies and brand managers vigilant.
Facebook can dictate rules and they target only these big brands because they are ones that matter. It amounts to a lot of bad publicity and the brand would have spent a good deal of money re-acquiring the fans,” he said. If brands were using Facebook to promote certain offers, it would lose out on that as well. “You create a digital asset and all of a sudden, it is gone,” Dhuddu added. Other brands that advertise on Facebook are Hard Rock Cafe, Levis, Pepsi, etc.
Face-Off
• According to Facebook guidelines, if
a brand wants to release promotions or run contests, it should do it by building an external application
• This is to specifically state that the
promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook
Facebook issues ‘promotion guidelines’ which every brand must follow while publishing offers and contests on their fan pages. The guidelines are issued to “govern your communication about or administration of any contest, competition, sweepstakes or other similar offering (each, a “promotion”) using Facebook.”
According to the guidelines, if a brand wants to release promotions or run contests, they should do it by building an external application or tab. This is to specifically state that “the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.” The company was not available for comment on the specific reasons why it took down the promo pages.
“The Cadbury Bournville Facebook fan page went offline today. Cadbury is currently working with Facebook and agency partners to ascertain the reason and reactivate the fan page at the earliest,” a Cadbury spokesperson said. A fake Google Buzz page now appears on the Cadbury Bournville page. FCUK declined to comment on the issue. A week ago, dining chain Pizza Hut India’s Facebook page was taken down as well.
“Facebook periodically revises its promotions guidelines. However, when the policy was updated in the beginning of 2011, the administrator of Pizza Hut Delivery India did not receive a notification of the change. In a routine scan, Facebook referred to an old promotional offer that was still on our wall and temporarily disabled it until the historic content was deleted. Our administrator has been in touch with Facebook to ensure that we remain in compliance with the revised guidelines,” said Ashok Bajpai, general manager, Pizza Hut Delivery.
Most brands encourage the use of ‘Like’ button as a voting mechanism. On the other hand, leaving a comment on a post is considered an entry to the contest. This is considered a violation of the guideline. Some brands need users to tag pictures of their friends to win gift vouchers, which violates privacy norms.
Adhvith Dhuddu, founder and CEO of Alive Now, a Bangalore-based social media management firm, says Facebook had done this a couple of years ago to certain brands in the US. “I would say that is a smart strategy by Facebook. They will yank the pages of the top brands for a while and have it back up in a while to make social media agencies and brand managers vigilant.
Facebook can dictate rules and they target only these big brands because they are ones that matter. It amounts to a lot of bad publicity and the brand would have spent a good deal of money re-acquiring the fans,” he said. If brands were using Facebook to promote certain offers, it would lose out on that as well. “You create a digital asset and all of a sudden, it is gone,” Dhuddu added. Other brands that advertise on Facebook are Hard Rock Cafe, Levis, Pepsi, etc.
Face-Off
• According to Facebook guidelines, if
a brand wants to release promotions or run contests, it should do it by building an external application
• This is to specifically state that the
promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment