Following the mysterious take down of Pizza Hut India’s Facebook page, it seems like more big brands are suffering the same fate. As we write this (GMT +8), both Cadbury Bournville and FCUK India’s page are both down.
Our source, who requested to remain anonymous, informs us that there were actually more major Indian brands on Facebook pages, including Kingfisher and Fastrack which were actually disabled by Facebook. The brands apparently lost admin access and their vanity URL.
It looks to be the same reason that we heard before: These Facebook pages aren’t following Facebook’s guidelines. Most brands in India gain fans/likes (whatever you call it) by rolling out promotional contests via their Facebook pages. According to Facebook’s guideline, promotions on Facebook “must must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or an app on a Page Tab.”
But from what we have seen, contests are usually rolled out through “the wall,” which clearly violated Facebook’s guidelines. That was also the reason why the big and mighty Pizza Hut India page was taken down.
Folks in social media business circles are shaking their heads, hoping that these case studies can serve as warnings to other Facebook marketers who are still not following Facebook’s guidelines.
Is Facebook on the warpath to punish brands which are not following the guidelines? If you happened to be one of the pages which got kicked out by Facebook, feel free to head over to “My Facebook Page was Disabled,” to recover your page.
Update: Cadbury Bournville‘s Facebook page somehow turned into Google Buzz. See image below.
Google Buzz?
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