October 2020: new Facebook content standards

How will changes to Facebook’s terms of service affect your business?

To say that 2020 has been a year of change would be an understatement! While we never know what the future will bring, one thing I can say for sure is that social media will continue to change and evolve.

And it seems like not a week goes by without a social media update! It’s enough to frustrate even the marketer.

One of the new Facebook guidelines in 2020 was FB5, also known as the “New Facebook”.

I am sure you have noticed this change, which has altered the appearance of the platform on desktop computers and mobile devices. Facebook claims that this new design will make the user experience simpler and faster and will focus on communities.

From what I am reading on my feed, so far that has not been the case! But as with any change, we often need time to get used to the new terrain design before we can reap the benefits of the change.

What has been your experience so far with the new design? Love it or hate it? Let me know below!

TOC update effective October 1, 2020

And another major change is coming: Facebook just announced an update to its Terms of Service, effective October 1. Many users saw the following pop-up message this week:

“Starting October 1, 2020, section 3.2 of our Terms of Service will be updated to include: ‘We may also remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate the adverse legal conditions or regulatory impacts on Facebook ‘”.

You may be reading this and thinking … so what? They update their Terms of Service all the time.

But these new Facebook content standards are drawing attention for a few reasons, one of which is that the social media giant generally doesn’t tell us about updates – there are too many, and most are quite minor.

Here are a couple of theories I’ve seen as to why this message is being shared:

• They plan to remove or censor content before the US elections. They have been accused in the past of censoring certain political messages.

• The social media platform recently threatened to block Australian publishers and individuals from sharing news, after lawmakers proposed a rule that could require the social media platform to compensate media organizations for the use of their stories. That could cost them a lot of money, so they want to be prepared.

• This new rule is an editorial policy to reflect your attempt to become a “real” media company, not just a social media platform. Before news becomes a central focus of the site, they are implementing editorial guidelines.

Whatever the reasoning, these changes to the Terms of Service face great scrutiny from users around the world.

It will be very interesting to see what the new Facebook content standards mean for businesses of all sizes around the world.

What does the upgrade mean for small business owners?

Of course, we still won’t know for sure what impact these new Facebook guidelines will have in 2020. But I have a couple of suggestions to make sure you’re prepared for whatever the new Facebook content standards bring:

1. As small business owners, we rely heavily on social media for our potential customers, whether it’s selling in a social media marketplace or through a business page.

But there is a danger of putting too much emphasis on social media for potential customers and neglecting other marketing tactics like paid advertising and email newsletters.

And of course, it is crucial that you keep your website optimized, both for the customer experience (eg, site speed, attractive images) and for the search engines (eg, targeting keywords. correct in your text, make sure all your pages have relevant content (title tags).

2. And speaking of websites, I see that many entrepreneurs rely solely on Facebook to generate sales for their businesses. This is a precarious way to run a business! No matter where you generate the most leads from, it is imperative to have a website that serves as the fundamental foundation for your business.

By relying on social media for the entire operation of your business, you run an extreme risk of everything shutting down due to inadvertently doing something against the terms of that platform.

If Facebook decided you committed a violation, boom! Your profile, page and / or group could be closed in an instant.

3. How will the new terms of service affect advertising? This is a great question. But if you’re spending budget and effort on paid social media ads for your small business, make sure you have adequate exposure on other platforms like Google Ads.

That way, you’ll be ready in case your social media-driven paid traffic suddenly drops or drops completely.

4. Pay close attention to what you are posting. Anyway, this is a good rule of thumb. Check your social media posts to make sure you don’t share anything that could be deemed inappropriate or offensive.

I recommend avoiding political posts (or posts on any other topic that you wouldn’t discuss at a dinner party). That way, you will always avoid being censored or penalized by sharing something that could be classified as offensive under these new Facebook content standards.

I’m not saying this change is going to drastically affect your small business. These changes to your terms of service may simply mean a decrease in fake news and offensive content.

But we have to be prepared, be proactive and look forward to this, and the next update, to stay ahead of the competition and keep those leads coming in!

For the success of your business,

Susan