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 an update on social media! It’s enough to frustrate even the experienced salesperson.

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

I’m sure you’ve noticed this change, which has altered the look and feel of the platform on desktop and mobile. Facebook claims that this new design will make the user experience simpler and faster and will focus on communities.

From what I’m reading on my feed, that hasn’t been the case so far! But like any change, we often need time to get used to the new terrain layout 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 as of October 1, 2020

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

“Effective 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 effects Adverse legal 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 number of reasons, one of which is that the social media giant doesn’t generally tell us about updates: there are too many of them, and most are pretty minor.

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

• They plan to remove or censor the content before the US election. 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 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 their 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 reason, these changes to the Terms of Service are facing a lot of scrutiny from users around the world.

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

What does the update 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 Facebook’s new content standards bring:

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

But there is a danger in putting too much emphasis on social media to get leads and neglecting other marketing tactics like paid advertising and email newsletters.

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

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

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

If Facebook decided you were infringing, 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 get adequate exposure on other platforms, like Google Ads.

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

4. Pay close attention to what you are posting. This is a good rule of thumb anyway. Double check your social media posts to make sure you’re not sharing anything that could be considered inappropriate or offensive.

I recommend avoiding political posts (or posts about anything else you wouldn’t discuss over dinner). That way, you’ll always avoid being censored or penalized for 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 their terms of service may simply mean a decrease in fake news and offensive content.

But we have to be prepared, be proactive and wait for this, and the next update, to stay ahead of the competition and keep getting leads!

For the success of your business,

Suzanne