Most brands and agencies are coming up to speed with the intricacies of building social media campaigns on the Facebook platform, but few have considered the importance of Policy with a capital "P". Indeed, few even know what it is. The reason for this is because Facebook, despite their perceived might, do not presently have the manpower to police the millions of applications and Pages that run on their Platform every day - and as such, few have experienced the rap on the knuckles when something they've deployed has broken the rules.

The fact is there are rules; and important ones. They are rules which Facebook are investing time and energy to bring under control, through both automatic and manual means. So it's crucial that brands, especially those who like good press, should understand them and instruct their agencies to consider it early in the concept stage.

Recent reports in the press highlight popular Facebook apps with tens of millions of users being suddenly taken down and the tsunami of negativity from displaced fans that follow. Nobody really pays attention to why, but look on with morbid amusement at Facebook's apathetic shoulder-shrugging at the matter. What brands need to realise is that they too are at risk at having their social media campaigns brought to the knees and all of their newly acquired fans scattered to the wind. Facebook have unleashed a host of automated tools to scan the network and detect such breaches, and so the time to consider this is now.

So that's the scaremongering out of the way, but the important thing to note here is that Policy is something that should embraced rather than "managed". We need to look to the reasons why these policies exist, and what you will find is that to follow them means producing better products that are more likely to be adopted and shared.

What are the rules then? Let's take the most commonly abused one. "Do not use the Facebook Platform tools for the purposes of a promotion, competition or prize giveaway." The first question that usually arises with this one is: "I've seen tons of competitions on Facebook, are they all breaking the rules?". The answer is found in the definition of the term Platform. Platform refers to anything that has been built by Facebook itself and not a third party. This is the Wall, the Like/Share/Recommend plugins, Status, Photo albums etc. An application which is built in support of a competition or promotion may have a Facebook logo on the top left and ads down the right, but they are actually hosted off the Platform, on a separate database and a separate domain name altogether.

Let's say your promotion on Facebook required that users upload a picture of their pet in order to win prizes. Simply put, the right way to do this would be to develop an application with your own gallery, hosting and database from where you could select your winner. The wrong way to do it would be to call users to upload their pictures to the actual Facebook Wall and manually choose a winner based on perhaps how many Likes the pet receives. Tesco, the largest supermarket in the UK, is an example of an influential brand who has quite sensationally fallen foul of this basic guideline. Their page is here: http://www.facebook.com/TescoPets and if you don't see it, it means it was already taken down.

So if we recognise that Policy is something we should start taking more seriously, the first thing we should do is ask why these rules are there in the first place. Where Tesco got it wrong is that Facebook are clearly asking us not to coerce or bribe people to post content. Facebook is a social network; it is a place where people share pieces of themselves with the people they care about. Conversely, friends and family of these people use Facebook to observe and appreciate them in an organic and natural social setting. So if people are posting content that is intended for little else than to win a prize, then the content itself loses its human value and brings Facebook that little bit closer to the "old" internet which became choked with meaningless garbage.

So Policy is there not to ruin everyone's fun, or make life difficult for brands who just want to acquire fans and eventually paying customers - it's there to ensure that this new Platform we all use and enjoy for either personal or commercial benefit is kept secure, valuable and in good nick.

If you want advice on Facebook Policy or have deployed a campaign that you suspect may be breaking the rules, talk to us or another Facebook Preferred Consultant who would be more than happy to help you maintain integrity in your applications, Pages and promotions.