Facebook has been trying to crack down on text within images for some time. They made a big deal out of it when they first rolled out Timeline but it was still possible to get by without getting noticed. Today, it's a lot harder.

While I've never been able to fully make sense of the rule, it's their site so we have to play their game. The way the rule works is that text in an image cannot cover more than 20% of the total space or you won't be able to run ads on it. You might be able to run it for a little while but they eventually catch it.

They continue to push the letter of the law further. If you have too much text in your cover photo, all of your ads get rejected automatically. They've now started including thumbnail images from links in the rule. The post above was rejected for this reason. The sad part is that there were other images on the page that I would have preferred to use, but Facebook didn't register them as a thumbnail option.

Be aware of the rule if you're running sponsored posts on Facebook. This isn't the type of rule that you'd ever want to try to break. Even with a direct line to a high level Facebook employee, it still took a couple of days to get a client unblocked who had been breaking the rule before we took over the account. I couldn't image how it is for those who have to try to plea with them if they didn't have a connection.

It might not make much sense, but again I'll stress - their site, their rules.

Facebook has been trying to crack down on text within images for some time. They made a big deal out of it when they first rolled out Timeline but it was still possible to get by without getting noticed. Today, it's a lot harder.

While I've never been able to fully make sense of the rule, it's their site so we have to play their game. The way the rule works is that text in an image cannot cover more than 20% of the total space or you won't be able to run ads on it. You might be able to run it for a little while but they eventually catch it.

They continue to push the letter of the law further. If you have too much text in your cover photo, all of your ads get rejected automatically. They've now started including thumbnail images from links in the rule. The post above was rejected for this reason. The sad part is that there were other images on the page that I would have preferred to use, but Facebook didn't register them as a thumbnail option.

Be aware of the rule if you're running sponsored posts on Facebook. This isn't the type of rule that you'd ever want to try to break. Even with a direct line to a high level Facebook employee, it still took a couple of days to get a client unblocked who had been breaking the rule before we took over the account. I couldn't image how it is for those who have to try to plea with them if they didn't have a connection.

It might not make much sense, but again I'll stress - their site, their rules.

If you run a Facebook page, you may or may not have noticed big changes in the numbers between August and December, 2012. For those who do not run many ads, the numbers were lower than expected. For those who run ads often, the numbers were likely higher than expected. This discrepancy led many to believe that Facebook was going to a “pay to play” model and despite reassurances by Facebook that this wasn’t true, the numbers told a different story.

Facebook discovered “a few weeks ago” that the insights reporting feature for pages was getting bad data. They were not counting views from the upgraded Android and iOS apps due to streamlining, while desktop views on sponsored posts were getting counted twice. They finally admitted to it today. The fix will be in place on Monday.

This is a minor bug that has caused major headaches to marketers. Those who are heavy on ads were seeing more impressions than they expected. If the results from these ads were poor, it’s hard to justify paying to present something to thousands of people if only a handful reacted. Conversely, those who use Facebook more organically or use the ads sparingly were made to believe that their efforts weren’t working. People adjusted strategies. Company owners and marketers complained. It was a mess.

While it looks like that (hopefully) going forward the right data will be displayed, it’s still a black eye for a company that is trying to position itself as a useful advertising platform. Google analytics have been around forever and haven’t seen the same level of bugs that Facebook insights have seen in a much shorter period. This is bad as Google Adwords budgets are the very dollars that Facebook is targeting. They want a chunk and they’re not doing a good job at proving that they’re worth it.

Perhaps most importantly, why are we finding out about this so late? If the data is inaccurate and being used by advertisers to measure success and failure, they should have divulged it the moment they discovered the problem. Instead, they kept it hidden until they fixed it. That’s not a good move for a public company that relies on user and advertiser trust.

What else is broken that we aren’t being told about yet?

If you run a Facebook page, you may or may not have noticed big changes in the numbers between August and December, 2012. For those who do not run many ads, the numbers were lower than expected. For those who run ads often, the numbers were likely higher than expected. This discrepancy led many to believe that Facebook was going to a “pay to play” model and despite reassurances by Facebook that this wasn’t true, the numbers told a different story.

Facebook discovered “a few weeks ago” that the insights reporting feature for pages was getting bad data. They were not counting views from the upgraded Android and iOS apps due to streamlining, while desktop views on sponsored posts were getting counted twice. They finally admitted to it today. The fix will be in place on Monday.

This is a minor bug that has caused major headaches to marketers. Those who are heavy on ads were seeing more impressions than they expected. If the results from these ads were poor, it’s hard to justify paying to present something to thousands of people if only a handful reacted. Conversely, those who use Facebook more organically or use the ads sparingly were made to believe that their efforts weren’t working. People adjusted strategies. Company owners and marketers complained. It was a mess.

While it looks like that (hopefully) going forward the right data will be displayed, it’s still a black eye for a company that is trying to position itself as a useful advertising platform. Google analytics have been around forever and haven’t seen the same level of bugs that Facebook insights have seen in a much shorter period. This is bad as Google Adwords budgets are the very dollars that Facebook is targeting. They want a chunk and they’re not doing a good job at proving that they’re worth it.

Perhaps most importantly, why are we finding out about this so late? If the data is inaccurate and being used by advertisers to measure success and failure, they should have divulged it the moment they discovered the problem. Instead, they kept it hidden until they fixed it. That’s not a good move for a public company that relies on user and advertiser trust.

What else is broken that we aren’t being told about yet?

There are plenty of articles, blog posts, videos, and testimonials out there demonstrating that businesses are having tremendous success using Facebook and other social media sites to communicate successfully with their customers. Those aren’t the stories that you ever hear about, though. Instead, many are terrified of a major Facebook misstep such as what recently happened to Applebee’s. Those are the stories that are told, the ones that gurus discuss and warn about in blog posts to keep pageviews going to their websites.

Just as the real world news has always had an attitude of, “if it bleeds, it leads”, news in the social media world likes to highlight the negatives. It’s no wonder that many dealers would rather see Facebook burn rather than get on and participate.

The worst part about the Applebee’s story was that they were in the right. It wasn’t a case of a bad customer experience or hidden camera video of animal abuse. It was an idiotic employee who went after Reddit karma by posting a bad tip she received. She posted an image of a credit card receipt with her less-than-sattisfactory tip that contained the customer’s signature. It went viral. She got fired. The ignorant and empowered users of Reddit and other sites came to her defense. It didn’t go well for Applebee’s on Facebook as the situation tumbled out of control.

These things happen. It stings. In a world of smartphone cameras and unprecedented exposure capacity given to anyone willing to take it, there is no way to completely safeguard against negative backlashes on social media. It can happen whether you’re on there or not. Applebee’s didn’t handle the situation properly. What’s worse is knowing that there may not have been a “proper” way of handling it. They could have done nothing which may have been better, but we’ll never know. Hindsight on social media is not 20/20. Had they not replied at all, not fired the employee, rehired the employee, taken a stronger stance, redirected out of Facebook onto their website, or any combination of possible actions, the situation could have turned out better or it could have been worse.

The bottom line is this – wishing that Facebook and social media in general never existed is not an option. Avoiding social media is an option, just not a very good one. Apple can pull it off. 99.997% of the other businesses in the world cannot. It’s best to go in knowing there’s a risk, knowing any action may be a mistake, and realizing that most of the major challenges and landmines that happen on social media are isolated. Don’t get scared by Applebee’s challenges. Be more worried about what would happen if you’re not in the conversation at all. People will be talking about you whether you’re there or not.

There are plenty of articles, blog posts, videos, and testimonials out there demonstrating that businesses are having tremendous success using Facebook and other social media sites to communicate successfully with their customers. Those aren’t the stories that you ever hear about, though. Instead, many are terrified of a major Facebook misstep such as what recently happened to Applebee’s. Those are the stories that are told, the ones that gurus discuss and warn about in blog posts to keep pageviews going to their websites.

Just as the real world news has always had an attitude of, “if it bleeds, it leads”, news in the social media world likes to highlight the negatives. It’s no wonder that many dealers would rather see Facebook burn rather than get on and participate.

The worst part about the Applebee’s story was that they were in the right. It wasn’t a case of a bad customer experience or hidden camera video of animal abuse. It was an idiotic employee who went after Reddit karma by posting a bad tip she received. She posted an image of a credit card receipt with her less-than-sattisfactory tip that contained the customer’s signature. It went viral. She got fired. The ignorant and empowered users of Reddit and other sites came to her defense. It didn’t go well for Applebee’s on Facebook as the situation tumbled out of control.

These things happen. It stings. In a world of smartphone cameras and unprecedented exposure capacity given to anyone willing to take it, there is no way to completely safeguard against negative backlashes on social media. It can happen whether you’re on there or not. Applebee’s didn’t handle the situation properly. What’s worse is knowing that there may not have been a “proper” way of handling it. They could have done nothing which may have been better, but we’ll never know. Hindsight on social media is not 20/20. Had they not replied at all, not fired the employee, rehired the employee, taken a stronger stance, redirected out of Facebook onto their website, or any combination of possible actions, the situation could have turned out better or it could have been worse.

The bottom line is this – wishing that Facebook and social media in general never existed is not an option. Avoiding social media is an option, just not a very good one. Apple can pull it off. 99.997% of the other businesses in the world cannot. It’s best to go in knowing there’s a risk, knowing any action may be a mistake, and realizing that most of the major challenges and landmines that happen on social media are isolated. Don’t get scared by Applebee’s challenges. Be more worried about what would happen if you’re not in the conversation at all. People will be talking about you whether you’re there or not.

Social media icons and signs that say “Like us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter” aren’t nearly as common in brick and mortar stores today as they were a couple of years ago. Many companies who tried to make it work (or are still trying) found that the presence of signs didn’t do much to improve their following.

Today, it can be different. Many people use their mobile devices to stay active on social media, much more than they did a couple of years ago, but even with this the old school follow/like signs still won’t work. They can, but not if you don’t give them a reason. Thankfully, this is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to increase your following. To do it, you have to make it worth their while.

One car dealership I’ve worked with has found strong success by using the concept in their service department. They’ve gone so far as to give three reasons for people to follow them on Facebook (they aren’t as hip on Twitter yet but I’m trying to get them interested). There’s a sign at the pay counter that says, “Get a 5% discount just for liking our Facebook page.”

In the “small print” under the offer, they write, “We post 4 or 5 times a week and we won’t annoy you with bad jokes or links to our blog. Instead, we post Facebook-only service specials and only the best of the best cars for sale from time to time.”

It works like a charm. Their numbers are constantly rising. Then, the take it a step further with the third incentive in even smaller print below the second line. “If you like us already and still want the 5% discount, just post that you’re here and that you ‘like getting my service done at [dealership name] because _______.”

Signage is the least used effective way to get fans, followers, engagement, and endorsements. These are people who are already doing business with you and if they like the way they’re treated, you should encourage them to let their friends know. It doesn’t have to be a discount. It does have to include a reason. I know one non-dealer that has stuffed animals, the small ones you see at the carnival, stacked on the wall with a sign that says, “Get your kid (or yourself) a stuffed elephant or moose by becoming our Facebook fan.”

Be creative. Be fun. Make a promise about how your social media profile brings value to your followers and then deliver on that promise by making your pages and profiles awesome.

People won’t like or follow you without a reason.

Social media icons and signs that say “Like us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter” aren’t nearly as common in brick and mortar stores today as they were a couple of years ago. Many companies who tried to make it work (or are still trying) found that the presence of signs didn’t do much to improve their following.

Today, it can be different. Many people use their mobile devices to stay active on social media, much more than they did a couple of years ago, but even with this the old school follow/like signs still won’t work. They can, but not if you don’t give them a reason. Thankfully, this is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to increase your following. To do it, you have to make it worth their while.

One car dealership I’ve worked with has found strong success by using the concept in their service department. They’ve gone so far as to give three reasons for people to follow them on Facebook (they aren’t as hip on Twitter yet but I’m trying to get them interested). There’s a sign at the pay counter that says, “Get a 5% discount just for liking our Facebook page.”

In the “small print” under the offer, they write, “We post 4 or 5 times a week and we won’t annoy you with bad jokes or links to our blog. Instead, we post Facebook-only service specials and only the best of the best cars for sale from time to time.”

It works like a charm. Their numbers are constantly rising. Then, the take it a step further with the third incentive in even smaller print below the second line. “If you like us already and still want the 5% discount, just post that you’re here and that you ‘like getting my service done at [dealership name] because _______.”

Signage is the least used effective way to get fans, followers, engagement, and endorsements. These are people who are already doing business with you and if they like the way they’re treated, you should encourage them to let their friends know. It doesn’t have to be a discount. It does have to include a reason. I know one non-dealer that has stuffed animals, the small ones you see at the carnival, stacked on the wall with a sign that says, “Get your kid (or yourself) a stuffed elephant or moose by becoming our Facebook fan.”

Be creative. Be fun. Make a promise about how your social media profile brings value to your followers and then deliver on that promise by making your pages and profiles awesome.

People won’t like or follow you without a reason.

Call it human nature to mislead in order to promote a product. Call it deceitful selling. Call it ignorance. Call it whatever you want to call it, but the concept that has been being spread around the automotive industry that you don’t need content on your homepage is absolutely incorrect. In fact, the homepage is the most important page on your website from an SEO perspective. Building a website with a homepage that has no HTML text or links is like making a hamburger without a beef patty (even though ground turkey is acceptable and ground bison is actually superior in my opinion, but I’ll save that discussion for my food blog).

More than the sitemap, more than your navigation bar, the homepage content is the true gateway through which you can highlight the most important pages on your website for the search engines. On most websites on the internet  and nearly 100% of car dealer websites, the homepage is granted the highest level of authority by the search engines. The links within the content are given the most “juice”. Pages that are linked within the HTML of the homepage within context are considered to be the most important pages.

To have contextual internal linking within the context of your homepage content, you have to have homepage content. It’s that easy. Is it possible for a website to rank without content on the homepage? Of course. It’s also possible to eat a hamburger with buns, lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, and mustard. Just as must people who order a hamburger expect meat of some sort inside, the search engines expect their “hamburger”, the homepage of your website, to contain meat.

Does HTML content detract from lead generation? No. Your customers aren’t that naive. This isn’t the first website they’ve ever visited that has words on it. Many won’t even scroll down to see the content and will find what they really want to see (inventory, specials, or department pages) in a second or two.

It came to our attention at NADA that at least one website vendor is preaching the concept that the homepage content clutter factor of content is not beneficial for SEO. It may be more. If you hear that idea spoken, don’t buy it. Instead, ask them, “Where’s the beef?” Even a vegan burger has a soy patty. Your website needs homepage content just the same.