To combat trolls, fake profiles and foreign interference, Facebook launched an authorization process in April for political ads in the United States. This started out as verifying political ads, Facebook has quietly expanded the scope to include topics it deems of national importance. While some may be hot-button issues to the right and left such as abortion or gun control, Facebook now deems the economy, education and a host of other topics of national importance.
Our agency has faced this issue firsthand. As we were setting up campaigns addressing childhood hunger and economic growth in Utah, Facebook disapproved and turned off these completely innocuous messages. This issue highlights the importance of a brand having an agency that understands the implications of Facebook’s new policy.
Moving forward, our suggestion is to proactively manage your brand accounts in compliance with Facebook’s new verification process. It will save time–and budget–when a campaign needs to launch right away. We also recommend looking at how Facebook and its properties fit into your overall content strategy, on both paid and organic posts. This recent change, along with the removal of significant amounts of data targeting parameters, has moved Facebook to a top of funnel channel in many instances, requiring strategists and planners to rethink where Facebook belongs.