A word of warning about creating Facebook pages

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I just want to give all of you a chance to save a lot of headaches and lost work by sharing what has happened to me. I am not trying to bash anyone's product, but there is a very popular one right now that teaches the exact thing that got me in trouble.
Here is what happened about 6 months ago. I bought Alphie the robot for my 4 year old grandson. He loved it and packed it with him everywhere he went. On many occasions, people asked me where i got it and would remark that they was going to have to get one for their child or grandchild. It didn't take long to realize that this things sells itself and I could promote it as an amazon affiliate.

Soon I got the brilliant ( i thought) idea of creating a Facebook fan page about it. Sure enough it did catch some attention and gained some fans pretty quickly. But....the party did not last long. Within days Facebook shut down the page and sent me a not so nice message about trademark infringement and possible legal action against me if I were to try anything like that again. They also threatened to take away my page creating privileges, which would be the least of my worries considering the possible Penalties for Trademark Infringement that can even end up leading to criminal charges.

Anyway, if anyone encourages you to go out and start creating facebook fan pages about (for example) a canon digital camera for the purpose of making a profit, be careful. The pages you build on facebook and other social sites probably won't last long. You hard work will be gone with the wind someday, and it could turn much uglier than that.
#main internet marketing discussion forum #canon #creating #facebook #pages #warning #word
  • Never count on web properties you have no control of.... and always stay away from trademarks.
  • ^^^ this

    Well said rob
  • Yes Rob is right, stay away from trademarks!
  • FB is definitely harsh on pages with trademarked names. If you go with something like "Toy Talking Robots," you'd be fine. A good thing to do is to create a page about your targeted audience, instead of a product name.

    For example, if you wanted to promote P90x (fitness DVD series), you could make a page called "Hardcore Training Fans" or something like that. That way you avoid infringing on the trademark, and you can promote not only P90X, but anything else related to fitness.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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    • Yeah excellent advice but will this still be effective with regards to SEO?
      • [1] reply
  • Officer Iron has the right idea.
  • What you have to remember about Facebook is that people go on there to socialize, so the majority of them will not search on facebook in the same way they would google.

    People on facebook are more likely to search for other people with their own interests, so if you want to create a facebook page to eventually market a product you need to come at it from a different angle. If you want to promote a certain kind of camera then set up a facebook page about photography. Then use Facebook ads to target people interested in photography to get the likes on your page.
  • Yes, trademark infringements can lead up to $150k in fines. Always brand your page names to yourself. eg popular toys with your name that also holds true for domain names. I think someone made a post on the forum on trademark warnings on domain names recently.
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    A word of warning about creating Facebook pages

    I just want to give all of you a chance to save a lot of headaches and lost work by sharing what has happened to me. I am not trying to bash anyone's product, but there is a very popular one right now that teaches the exact thing that got me in trouble. Here is what happened about 6 months ago. I bought Alphie the robot for my 4 year old grandson. He loved it and packed it with him everywhere he went. On many occasions, people asked me where i got it and would remark that they was going to have to get one for their child or grandchild. It didn't take long to realize that this things sells itself and I could promote it as an amazon affiliate.