If you are a real estate agent, photographer, restaurant manager, business owner, etc., you may market your goods or services on your personal Facebook page. To my great surprise, I found out this actually violates the Terms of Service on Facebook and you could lose everything because of it.
Being a Realtor, our personal lives and professional careers often intermingle with each other. We post our new listings, open houses, new sales, congratulations to new homeowners, etc. In reality, this is illegal according to Facebook regulations. Specifically, Section 4-4 says you cannot use your personal profile for your own commercial gain. This can be interpreted many ways, but there are cases where profiles have been completely deleted without notification because violations of these terms (and they couldn't get any of it back). So, I'd rather be safe than sorry. Here is Facebook's FAQ answer to the direct question of why someone's account was deleted:
Per our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Facebook profiles must represent an individual. Users aren’t permitted to maintain an account under the name of their organization, or use personal accounts to advertise or promote themselves professionally. If your profile was listed under a non-individual name, or was used primarily for professional promotion, this is probably why it was removed.”
To avoid your profile being deleted, I would advise starting a business or fan page to disseminate information about your business or to promote yourself. This would avoid the issue. You can also keep your personal and professional "profiles" separate, which could be a bonus. Post about your child's piano recital on your personal page to share with your close friends; then post your open house on Sunday to your business/fan page.
JK
P.S. I'm not an attorney, so this is not legal advice...just trying to save some of you some heartache. If you have questions, please contact your attorney.
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