Location: Starbucks, Cebu – Reading Time 3mins
UPDATE: So, I went live with this post literally about 8 hours ago, and as I wake up and start to enjoy my breakfast looking at the ocean here in Boracay, I figure I’ll check out the old Fan Page to see if it’s still gone. And would you believe it – its BACK! They re-enabled the Profile and the Fan Page. Was it because of the rant n’ rave post that you will now probably not even bother reading – probably not. Do I care? Nope. Guess it was just my lucky day… All links on the site have been switched back to the original Fan Page now.
Okay, so I’d like to welcome you to the first ever Virtual Business Lifestyle Rant ‘n Rave blog post…! Enjoy…
Just over a week ago the popular social networking website, Facebook, brought it on themselves to disable my business networking profile, and along with it (as it was attached to the profile) the original VBL Fan Page, which at the time had been up and running for about 7 weeks and had 715 members. Which, I believe is pretty good going. We now have new fan page – please click here to join us, again, immediately.
We were all, including you loyal readers/viewers out there, doing a great job of spreading the word and increasing the VBL’s following on the biggest social networking website online today, and then it was literally ripped away from us all, without even a ‘real’ explanation. My question is – WHY?
Why was my account disabled…? I ask because I have no idea. Facebook don’t tell you why. They simply stop you from signing in, giving you an email address to send an ‘appeal’ to (which I did straightaway, obviously), and then after you have crafted the email and sent it to them, you get a bog-standard bunch of BS auto-reply back from them saying they will look into it. And then… Nothing.
Here’s the thing – if it wasn’t for people like me – and you – the Facebook users of the world, and the bloggers that want to create fan pages to promote their brands and websites, they wouldn’t be as big and as successful as they are today, would they!?!
If it wasn’t for us, the principles of the company wouldn’t be making all the money they are through ‘targeted advertising’ and they most certainly wouldn’t be getting all the press they need to get in order to eventually sell off the majority of their shares in the company and make MILLIONS of dollars.
Am I crying over spilt milk – yes, a little. As a growing blog, the fan page that we were working on was great because it gives you the opportunity to blast a quick message to the fans of your page with a click of a button (much like an AWeber account). We did not abuse this – maybe sending one message a week, at most. So, the question still remains, why should our fan page be thrown out of the window…?
Here’s the biggest thing for me – it’s a social NETWORKING website. Why would you disable a profile if it hadn’t posted any obscene material…? If it was just being used to NETWORK with other like-minded individuals and create conversation (the whole point behind social networking!!!) how much harm could it cause…? And why would you stop the flow of conversation by getting rid of it?
I guess we’ll never know. Rant over!
Now please head over to the new Facebook Fan Page for the Virtual Business Lifestyle and join us – again! Thanks.
I’d love to hear your comments on this topic, especially as I know a lot of readers of the blog are bloggers themselves, some of whom actually have Facebook fan pages themselves. You can also spread the rant via also spread the rant via Twitter by “Being Sweet and Retweet!”. Thanks again, everyone!
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I am new to facebook. Having joined because I wanted a fan page to promote my blog. I thought I’d set it up wrong when I found myself with a personal account too. No wonder they have so many members, they are the same people!
I understand your frustration. It’s not even that easy to use!
Hi Matt! Great to see you on the blog again… Yep, it is a little fiddly at first, but you soon get used to it… I must say, again, the Fan Page was the more important function to me, rather than the profile…
I think I know the reason, because the same thing happened to me. I watched your video on Anywhere Office this morning and you mentioned that you have a facebook account for personal use and one for business use. I thought to myself “Dang, I wish I had that, too bad Facebook deleted me when I did.” I think we have the same issue.
I live in a “secular” Muslim country and work for a Christian company in the US that sells a lot of product that frankly would be offensive or hard to understand for myriad reasons to my local friends. I wanted to use facebook to continue to connect with my local friends but also to engage with customers through my new job selling Christian DVDs online and ideally through a facebook fan page.
So I set up a second account that would be used for work-related networking because frankly I didn’t want to compromise my family’s safety.
Now, I have to note though that I’d been using facebook personally for about 3 years at that point and the photo albums were an invaluable documentation of my wedding, my first son’s birth and first year, my first few years overseas, plus all of those friends that took so long to find.
Within weeks of setting up my alternate FB account, my original one was deleted!?! I basically had to completely start over on facebook. I had to refriend all of those old acquaintances I could remember, but even today I bumped into a former student and a really cool guy who probably thinks I un-friended him because he was my friend before this whole fiasco.
Don’t expect facebook to reply, don’t expect them to care. They didn’t for me and I lost some pretty cool stuff; concise albums of my first son, albums of my travels abroad, notes on books I’d been reading over that time and a ton of friends.
Hi Jake – Welcome to the blog, buddy, and thank you for such an in-depth story on your experience. For more, as I mentioned elsewhere on the page, it wasnt really about the profile all that much, but rather the actual Fan Page itself, because it was helping to build a fan base for this blog – my primary focus on signing up. Oh well – you never know… It might come back on sometime soon! Here’s hoping.
Chris, relieved for you to hear that all was not lost with your Fb Fan page.
I, too have had a few “issues” w/ Fb – having no customer service department to speak of is a bit bizarre.
Overall, it has been a great way to connect with old friends and to get the word out on various business ventures… so the fun has outweighed the frustration in my case.
Glad you friended me through Escape Artist – what you are doing here is very cool, indeed.
Hi Valynne! Thanks for the comment and welcome to the blog.
Glad you appreciated the contact and I hope that your personal Facebook woes will be over soon, too – if they aren’t already! Looking forward to seeing lots of feedback from you in the process.
PS. Checked out your blog, like I do with all my visitors – love all the photos. Keep up the good work there!
I have an excellent Facebook strategy:
Assume Facebook will delete everything for no reason whenever they want.
With this strategy, if my pages get deleted, well, I didn’t have anything critical on them anyway.
This is a real strategy, I’m not making fun here. I’ve seen so many people get hosed, I just can’t take the risk.
Not a bad tip, actually, Dave. Seriously speaking. All the ‘juicy stuff’ for this blog is on the blog, and the soon to be revamped VBL Newsletter, too.
Thanks, man.