This was bound to happen eventually. When Facebook launched fan pages, a lot of users jumped at the opportunity to create fan pages for large brands. Whether television shows or clothing brands, it was technically against the terms of service and now users are having their pages taken down and the brands are having the pages transferred to internal accounts. Two people have provided examples of their pages being taken down in the past day and one of those individuals had their account disabled by Facebook.
Sam Huleatt created a page for Ralph Lauren and then received the letter which I’ve included below. Since creating the page Sam obtained 589 new fans but didn’t send out any notification blasts to the user. Facebook was notified and terminated Sam’s account. Ralph Lauren on the other hand played it smart and decided to reward Sam with a $200 gift certificate. This is really smart of Ralph Lauren and something that I suggest other companies mimic. Don’t punish the users, simply contact them and they will most likely be happy to turn over the Facebook Page.
At a recent event in D.C., Andy Carvin of NPR told a similar story in which the people at NPR were trying to figure out how to go about having a Facebook page created by a random user transfered over to people internal to NPR. The result was that Andy simply contacted the user and the person gladly handed it over after people at NPR after failing to receive a response from a separate inquiry by the user on the official NPR website.
Peter Corbett created a page for Under Armour and wrote a post about it on his blog stating,
If you’re a brand manager for any of the above, just drop me a line and I’ll coordinate with Facebook to hand you over control of the page. This exercise was not built in order to squat on these pages permanently and it would be silly to delete them at the end of this as the fan base would be disbanded by that action doing more harm than good in my opinion.
The end result? Under Amour sent Peter a bag of free Under Armour gear. These are all examples of companies that get it. Unfortunately for Sam, his account has since been terminated. My guess is that Sam’s account will soon be reinstated but the people who are making an effort to set up branded pages for another company are typically fans and not squatters. Reach out to your fans and you will have a fan for life!
Facebook on the other hand may want to reconsider their policy of automatically banning users who created branded pages that are not their own brand. A simple warning would probably be sufficient. While this policy isn’t a best practice for repeat offenders, it definitely makes sense for somebody who only set up a couple of branded pages.
Letter from Ralph Lauren
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I've been trying to contact the BBC to transfer my fan page over but they're about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
Comment by Nathan — May 16, 2008 @ 8:17 am
Now, a similar thing happened with me.I created an Opera Mini fanpage long back, I used to send regular updates. Even, I tried to contact someone from Opera Mini to transfer the admin privilege. But, in vein…Today morning, when I logged onto my Facebook account, I foung it being deleted…http://www.watblog.com/2008/06/13/facebook-cont…..The name Fanpage creates a confusion, that pages by fan or not…
Comment by Rupesh — June 13, 2008 @ 12:41 am
Now, a similar thing happened with me.
I created an Opera Mini fanpage long back, I used to send regular updates. Even, I tried to contact someone from Opera Mini to transfer the admin privilege. But, in vein…
Today morning, when I logged onto my Facebook account, I foung it being deleted…
http://www.watblog.com/2008/06/13/facebook-controversy-opera-mini-fanpage-deleted-aftereffect-of-opera-browser-95-release/
The name Fanpage creates a confusion, that pages by fan or not…
Comment by Rupesh — June 13, 2008 @ 5:41 am
Completely ridiculous that companies would attack users like this. Talk about totally misunderstanding social media.
It's almost as bad as Mattel suing artists for making "trailer trash barbie"; sure it's not Mattel's image they are going for but, you can't fight the consumer for buying your product and using it as they please!
See my related blog post, pinged back to Nick: http://mattwilsonenterprises.wordpress.com/2008/0...
Comment by ZaggedEdge — June 17, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
This particular Facebook feature is an utter mess. What about all the pages set up for artists/entities/etc that have died/ceased to exist. There may be nobody to transfer them to. The official answer is not to create them, which makes the whole "pages" concept very incomplete.Facebook should either allow anyone to create a fan page unless/until an official one exists or axe the whole concept until they have thought it through properly.
Comment by Kremmen — July 11, 2008 @ 10:09 pm
This particular Facebook feature is an utter mess. What about all the pages set up for artists/entities/etc that have died/ceased to exist. There may be nobody to transfer them to. The official answer is not to create them, which makes the whole "pages" concept very incomplete.
Facebook should either allow anyone to create a fan page unless/until an official one exists or axe the whole concept until they have thought it through properly.
Comment by Kremmen — July 11, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
Nick, what are the legal implications of creating a branded page that isn't yours? Something like coolspotters.com has "fan pages" and companies don't seem to want to claim ownership of them.Shoot me an email at mwilson1 AT alum DOT bryant DOT edu and let me know what you think.Matt
Comment by ZaggedEdge — August 6, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
Nick, what are the legal implications of creating a branded page that isn't yours?
Something like coolspotters.com has "fan pages" and companies don't seem to want to claim ownership of them.
Shoot me an email at mwilson1 AT alum DOT bryant DOT edu and let me know what you think.
Matt
Comment by ZaggedEdge — August 6, 2008 @ 7:40 pm
Well thanks for this particular information. I do hope that it will become a great source for all those who do it. Anyhow keep posting
Comment by Sticker Printing — January 17, 2011 @ 2:29 am
Well to be honest, I did create lots of fan pages but I hadn't this issue up to today, thanks God!
Comment by blinds — September 4, 2011 @ 12:57 pm