Meta Changes for Business Pages

Meta seems to always be making changes that negatively impact businesses and we as business owners have to constantly keep up with those changes and adapt to them, or make steps on our own end to continue protecting OUR business and OUR work.

I do my best to keep my business and my clients protected and with all the scammers out there, it’s a daily chore 🫩.

As we all know, anything we post online can be seen by anyone anywhere and I have my own procedures in place for keeping everything I do as private or as safe as possible but I can only control what I do, not what you do.

We also know anything we share on platforms like Facebook and Instagram are essentially in their hands and while there are laws that protect us with what they can do with that information, ultimately they own their platforms and we as users cannot fully control how secure our stuff is.

The only online environment I truly own and have full control over as a business owner is my website, email and everything I do within them.

Meta is really trying to push business pages into paying for things like boosting posts to get them seen, even by our followers. They push the posts out to a very small handful so it's difficult for even our followers who want to see our posts to actually see them in their feed without going directly to our profiles.

Recently they made a change that allows business pages to only post a link (like to my website) twice a month and require a paid meta account to post more. Changes like this roll out gradually so my accounts aren't affected yet but it's coming.

Meta is now trying to make an update to their terms of use for business accounts (personal ones won't be affected they say, but if it's not happening yet it will I'm sure).

The new terms authorize Meta (or entities acting on its behalf) to use crawlers, spiders, and scrapers to access, index, and pull updates from domains, web pages, and URLs associated with our products or services, as well as links shared through our use of Meta products. Meaning it doesn't stop at what I post on their platforms, but also my own website and blog etc.

Just to be clear, this is already being done by other platforms like Google and search engines etc so we expect this (safe) type of behind the scenes activity already but what Meta plans to do sounds not so appropriate or legal by seeking broad permissions to access and use content from publishers’ websites for its own commercial purposes - specifically using the information for it's AI services and training, shifting data ownership to meta and placing legal liability on customers if there are mistakes made on their end.

This new TOS was to be effective October 30th, but has since been suspended to November 20th due to many complaints about it.

What does this mean for my pages? Well, a lot of photographers are jumping ship and leaving Meta altogether, but as a small business where a lot of my clients come from social media, I don't think that would be my best option so I'm doing what I can to protect what I own and what I post to any platform.

I already have all of my privacy settings as updated as possible to restrict unauthorized collection or use of what I share, and I will continue to leave out client details like names etc. In addition to my watermark, I will be exporting all images that will be online with invisible data that cannot be removed by 3rd parties. I will still use my pages, but I will direct inquiries and communication to email or my website.

I am already in the process of adding embedded data and other tools to my website to block meta related crawlers and scrapers etc so they cannot steal my images or data. I don't care if they claim in their terms of service I'm giving them permission, I'm NOT and never will so what they want to do will always be stealing and forcing businesses into a corner with their corrupt intentions. No matter how they word it, they cannot in most places legally take and claim images and data as their own to do what they want with.

I know a lot of us find services through social media, so this is potentially really harmful to both businesses and consumers and you may start to see a decline in businesses using meta platforms, and I too will be putting more time and energy into what I can control and the areas I do own so that these corporations can't back me in a corner for their own needs.

I have another idea for a safer space for photographers and clients to find one that I'm working on and I'll share in the near future.

Google is a business owner's best friend, and much safer in my opinion for finding legitimate businesses you're searching for so I highly recommend using that tool in place of meta platforms. I'll be updating my website SEO to stay relevant to google and you can help by leaving a review if you've worked with me, google loves kind words from real people with real experiences! I'm also going to focus on my email list as well so if you want to keep in the loop and get member only perks, sign up in seconds on www.littleandsweetphotography.ca! Don't worry, I will never spam your inbox!

My contract already asks about permission for online sharing, but it is generalized to all methods I use and will be broken down into specific platforms. Some clients already specify no social media, but website portfolio is ok or baby only, no older siblings/parents so everyone will have that option regardless.

It's frustrating as a small business owner and consumer having to constantly be on guard for potential dangers out there, but these platforms that so many of us depend on to find clients are really making it difficult to want to use them and I think there should never be a question of user privacy and safety and this should never be up to the discretion of the platform. My clients only give ME permission to share some of their images, that doesn't extend to the place I share them to.

I'm off work for another few weeks so I guess no better time than now to jack up my website and email list so that I have safer ways to communicate with you if this goes through with Meta in the coming weeks!