Is Your Facebook Brand Page Being Marked as Spam? http://tier10lab.com/2013/08/15/how-facebook-brand-pages-marked-as-spam/ By Ally Reis August 15, 2013

A recent survey conducted by Komfo, the social media marketing suite provider, studied 9,000 Facebook brand pages and found that 7% of all posts published are considered spam by users. These posts, whether purposefully spam or not, lead to a significant decrease in reach for brands.

While the exact algorithm with which Facebook defines pages as spam is kept under wraps for the sake of preventing real spam from beating the system, it can be seen that Facebook is constantly observing users’ interactions with posts in order to develop a pattern of normal or abnormal behaviors. In this way, each brand page is given a spam score, or a marker of how spam-like their posts are appearing to users.

Your spam score can be increased in the following three ways:

• When a user marks a post on your page as spam • When a user hides a post from your page • When a user unlikes your page through a post

When these things occur, it means that the posts representing your brand are coming across as spam, and therefore are less likely to get as much exposure in the future. This negative response applies not only to the posts marked as spam, but to the entire brand page as well, therefore hindering the success of other marketing attempts. Your page could even be shut down if the spam score rises too high.

To prevent this from happening to your brand page, it is possible to manage your Facebook posts in a way so as to avoid being perceived a spam. Use the new Facebook Insights to see if any of your posts were hidden, marked as spam or caused someone to unlike your page. It’s incredibly important to be aware of what you’re posting and how your audience reacts.

Besides merely paying attention to your posts, it’s also key to avoid publishing too many marketing posts. Facebook is a site centered around conversations, so any posts that are too heavily advertising based will be perceived negatively. Instead, sell your brand thoughtfully, with spaced out marketing posts focused on neutral, non-offensive topics so as to avoid receiving a higher spam score.

It’s also good to post or initiate conversations on your page about unrelated topics that will engage users, but like marketing posts, these too should be used sparingly so as to keep people focused on your brand message. Also important is a general managing of how frequently you post on your page. While it’s helpful to stay current and keep users updated, too many posts in a given amount of time has been shown to severely decrease the number of followers.

Overall, brands need to be mindful of what and how they post on Facebook because users can easily hide, unlike and declare your pages as spam as soon as they perceive it to be. While it’s easy for a user to make these decisions, it’s just as simple for brands to maintain an awareness of their posting habits in order to prevent their spam score from rising high enough to impact their effectiveness.

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