Facebook Rulebreakers Part 1 – Facebook Cover Images

ALL CHANGE! Facebook have now removed the 20% text rule for cover images. Knowing how frequently Facebook make changes (!?!) I’m leaving this post here in anticipation of the rule changing again!

There are two areas where businesses continually flout Facebook rules – we’re talking about Facebook cover images and competitions. Today we’re going to look at cover images and I’ll be blogging later in the week about competitions, so do pop back!

Your cover image is the big image which appears at the top of your Page – the one that your profile pic sits on top of. A recent rule change states that images may not contain more than 20% text. So if your image is covered in text telling your customers all about you, then you need to change it and fast! If Facebook catch you, they’ll close you down with no warning, which could be devastating for your business if this is the only way you communicate with you customers.

If you only have a little text on your cover image, you can check if it’s under 20% right here:

[purehtml id=1]

Just pop in your Page URL where it asks for your fanpage ID in the bottom left corner and then count how many squares you can see text in. If it’s more than 5, then you’re breaching current rules and you need to make some changes. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that simple as text in product shots doesn’t count in the 20%, so take a few minutes to check out the latest image guidelines.

Facebook do close Pages down regularly for not following the rules they agreed to when they first joined – let’s face it, who actually reads those T&C’s?

Please share this post on your Facebook Page to let other business owners know, and if this rule was news to you, let me know by leaving a comment.