Even though it doesn’t come into force until January 15, it is always good to be prepared for any change in Facebook Guidelines. Facebook are cracking down on too much text in your Promoted Post and Page Post Ad Images. This is to prevent newsfeeds being littered with posts that look more like banner advertising than engaging and useful information, which is what they were intended.
Although Promoted Posts and Page Post Ads are a fantastic tool to grab more attention and engagement on Facebook, these new marketing tools have also aroused concern over impacting the user experience, which has always been a Facebook no-no.
Since the introduction of the Timeline format early this year, there have been restrictions on the amount of text you can use in your Timeline Cover Image. Your text can take up no more than 20%, and it must not contain any website addresses or price or purchase information eg Get 20% Off at www.toysrus.com.
But now, given the rise in the use of News Feed Ads, where users pay to broadcast their ads with Promoted Posts or place Page Post Ads through Power Editor, Facebook are now applying the same 20% rule to these images too.
How you measure exactly 20% is unclear, but you need to ensure that the text you use from now on in your images for Promoted Posts and Page Post Ads is minimal, otherwise Facebook will not approve or pause them.
This will impact many of the quote style images that have become so prevalent, like this one:
Instead you should be using ones like this, which are much more in line with the engaging nature of capturing faces and feelings to get a message across, just like Facebook:
If you want a more sales oriented image, ask a question only and then include a link in text of the post that leads people to the answer to the question. Something like this should get you good results (with reduced text size):
Keeping one step ahead of Facebook changes is difficult, but if you can start complying now, it means you don’t have to worry about getting your promotions stopped. Got more questions about this change or using Promoted Posts, check out my recent free video series here.
35 replies on “Facebook Guidelines Change For Promoted Post Images”
Thanks for the update. Still trying to get to the 400 likes so I can use some of these features.
I have tried running a couple of engagement ads for likes, but they have performed very poorly. The fist one I ran worked great, made me think this was a great way to get enough likes to reach 400. It almost makes me feel like it was set-up that way so I would want to run more ads. I really am not happy with the last 2 ads I have run. I know I am doing everything correctly and also did split test for the ads one with a persons face and one with just an image. Targeted my city and age group and interests. First one ran great, next 2 cost me over $100 to get 10 new page likes. Frustrating to get to the 400 mark.
Hi Lana,
Thanks for sharing your journey on Facebook. I see many Realtors struggling to use Facebook with success, but the platform is a perfect channel. Looking at your Page, I think you need less “engagement-style” posts and some more information targeted at buyers in your area. That would give visitors a much clearer idea about what you Page stands for and also drive up your Likes. Contests are also a great way to boost your Likes and aren’t as hard as you think to set up and run.
Have a great Christmas!
Victoria
Dear Lana,
You might want to try running sponsored ads alongside your normal ads on Facebook. The combination has produced a huge amount of Likes for my clients. Taking the sponsored ads away dramatically reduced the number of Likes and reach.
$100 dollars can get you a few hundred Likes if the ads are done well – but you need to monitor the whole time the ads are running and “pause” them when you feel the return is not good enough.
Good luck!
Naheed
Hi Lana,
During creation of your ads you need to focus on each setting and try to target specific people in your niche rather than just focusing a broad base and also try to select mobile users which is best way now a days to increase your reach and likes as well, also you need to check multiple ads with different options so you can filter which options are working for you and you can pause the others.
Best of luck,
Ijaz
Thanks for the facebook updates. I will need to work on getting more sales now.
Thanks Victoria for the wonderful post, I liked your example of images as well.
I hope that Facebook will not be strict with this, advertisers would love to have easier life.
In general, promoted images can easily get viral if you choose the interesting image, but the succeeding with the call to action is really difficult.
I would add to lana that if you have your own website and promoting your Facebook page there as well, you will get a lot of extra free Likes of people who already engaged of your website and willing to follow/like you on Facebook.
Great point, I agree!
Thanks for the great article Victoria. What is the best image size and format (square or rectangle) for Facebook posts?
Hi David,
404×404 works best 🙂
Fantastic. Thanks Victoria!
merry christmas and thank you for the enlightening information.
Thank You. All of your Tips and Advice, keeping us up to date with changes are a huge help.
Thanks, Karen!
That’s what I love about you Victoria! You always keep us one step ahead of the game! How can we lose with tips like this.
Merry Christmas and thanks for starting our ‘New Year’ right! I’ll start using the new tactics/guidelines now…practice makes perfect 🙂
Thanks for your support as always, Susan! Hope you had a great Christmas 🙂
Hi. Just got here from a post by Mari Smith. LOVE YOUR BLOG! Thanks for sharing this valuable information. I would like to ask you… do you know any effective way to report pages that are violating some Facebook’s terms and conditions doing trivias to give away prizes or asking people to like a post to give them tickets to a show? Is not really an abusive material but certainly is a practice against the rules. Is not fair for all the other pages… Thanks in advance!
Thanks Sally, great to have you here 🙂 Unfortunately, there are not many effective ways to establish a dialogue or give feedback to Facebook!
I’m so glad I’ve discovered your site (via Facebook). I love the way you make it all sound uncomplicated in a “go with the flow” type of attitude, I need that. Thanks for your advice! ~Jaime
Thanks for the info Victoria! So, does this new rule apply only to Promoted posts & Ads (which you pay for)? What if I post a non-promoted image that happens to have a lot of text (like the quote images that are the rage right now)? Wonder if it’s ok, as long as it’s not too “salesy”.
Trying to keep up with Facebooks’ rules is a full-time job!
Hi Carrie, these rules don’t apply to regular posts that you don’t pay to promote. Hope that helps!
Lies. It’s just that their algorithm has trouble with posts without captions.
Please explain?
Social media is currently the fastest growing method for marketing, especially for directly engaging with potential customers. With engaging content, pictures, and the sharing of the company’s videos and blogs, social media will keep our client’s brand or product in front of consumers who are ready to buy both now and later. Remember, social media is about just that: being social. I’ve been using socialbakers, hootsuite and socialkik to increase my followers and fans.
Thanks for the update. It still seems that the only way to garauntee control of you message is to work on getting OFF of facebook and more to an email list. We had good success with promoted posts. But, it seems now, that FB algorithms are penalizing us.. we have some clients below their number of LIKES/SHARES that they had before paying to promote. It’s like they want to keep you paying once you dip your toe in the to promoted post waters. Starting to get turned off by Facebbook
[…] Starting January 15, Promoted Post images can’t be more than 20 percent text […]
What you are thinking about social marketing? I’ve been using socialbakers, hootsuite and socialkik to increase my followers and fans.
Nice article you have here. Facebook now become the top social media on the internet and became the most popular and widely visited website among any other social networking website on the internet.According to Alexa.com facebook has become the largest social network on the web. Facebook opportunities has become virtually limitless.
holy moly!!! it just keeps getting more complicated!!
Keeps us on our toes, Kat!
I’m really tired of Google and Facebook making more and more advertising rules. It’s my money I should be able to advertise within the law. You pretty much can’t do ANYTHING that will get attention, including using a single words in all caps. 🙂
It’s interesting to me that the rules apply only to cover photos and images you intend to promote with an ad or as a promoted post. That seems a little backwards to me.
However, to help us make sure our clients’ cover photos are in compliance, we came up with a drag-and-drop tool to estimate whether or not you have 20% text in your image. It’s available here: http://scalablesocialmedia.com/facebook-cover-image-guide/
Iana go to hikethoselikes on facebook you will get your 400 🙂
[…] The Marveo blog suggests that, to elicit response, the type of image post below, a ‘real’ photo which has a question taking up less than 20 percent of area and then uses a call to action suck as “20% off Men’s Shorts this week [link]” in the accompanying text, would work well and conform to the guidelines. […]
Are you able to edit the text portion of the post after you launch the promoted post just like you can do with other image posts?
Aha !!
That’s why we suddenly received a succession of refusals.
Thanks