Thanks +HubSpot for the recap! If you are using Google+ for your business or brand there are a couple items in the Google+ Policies & Principles (http://www.google.com/+/policy/content.html) you need to be aware of. Hubspot also highlights some great tips on getting banned on other social networks like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram. It's a must read if you use social networking for a professional reason.

Bold items below are Hubspot's, text description that follows are my commentary…

1) Creating fake pages. And by 'fake' they mean hijacking the name of a brand, product, service, etc. of something owned by another. As more vanity URLs roll out, there will be (professional guess here) a bigger crackdown on fake pages.

2) Running contests. Oh, I hear the collective sigh on this one all the time. Workaround? You can run a contest on your own site and just talk about it on Google+. So long as the actual mechanics of entering a contest aren't conducted IN Google+ you should be okay.

3) Aggressive Circling. For a spamming deterrent most likely. If you go to circle too many people (for me it shows up as more than 200 people at once, but your results may vary) you will receive an error. This is nothing new, Twitter has had stop gates in place like this for years.

4) Altering or adding +1 buttons where they don't belong. Google has been doing a really great job at finding and disabling the 'black hat' tactics shadier people try – including putting a +1 button on unrelated content. You think you are +1ing a cute kitten picture when in fact the code has been changed and you are +1ing a cruddy link-baiting site. So, don't do it.

5) Keyword stuffing. Save the stuffing for Thanksgiving or 2002. It just does not work on the Internet and it doesn't work inside Google's own house of Google+.

6) Marketing regulated products. I live in New Jersey, home to "finance and pharma". Both heavily regulated industries and have extremely limited to non-existant social media abilities. Trust me, it's greatly limited my backyard client prospects…. (any non finance or pharma leads greatly appreciated).

7) Letting your page go dormant. Use it or lose it. Twitter also has a similar policy. I've 'squatted' a few names on Twitter for clients and lost them. Pay close attention to this one especially if you have managed to snag yourself a vanity URL. This seems to only apply to a Google+ page and assets, not your Google account / Gmail in general.

#blog  

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Have you unwittingly broken any of these social media rules?

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40 Ways to Get Banned From the Top 5 Social Networks
Learn about the policies on the most popular social networks marketers should understand.

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