You’ve probably seen at least one or two come through to your Facebook page over the last year; those concerning messages, comments or even reviews on Facebook (and sometimes Instagram, too), often containing threats that suggest your page will be deleted or banned.
At first, you may be worried and then on closer inspection, you spot the occasional typo or a sentence that doesn’t quite make sense. Then you check the sender’s name and information. The author may have an unusual name, sometimes with numbers or special characters, or it may appear to be a legitimate message from Facebook. If you notice a combination of the above or there’s simply something that doesn’t feel quite right with the message… the likelihood is it’s spam.
Is Facebook spam common?
Yes. Facebook spam is a widespread issue, with millions of fake accounts and automated bots flooding Facebook pages with unsolicited content. This includes everything from irrelevant comments and messages to malicious links and fake reviews.
According to Facebook's Community Standards Enforcement Report, the platform takes action against billions of spam posts each quarter.
Despite these efforts, unfortunately, spam continues to infiltrate business pages across the world, disrupting genuine interactions between businesses and users. It also doesn’t seem to be slowing down, either.
What can you do about Facebook spam?
- Report, block, hide and delete comments and messages
Every time you see a spammy comment, message or review: report it. Encourage your friends and family to do so from their accounts too, as Facebook will likely action it more quickly. Then, delete the message or hide the comment and block the user. - Make sure your page moderation filter is turned on.
This prevents any comments with obscenities from appearing on your page.
Top tip: create a list of words you do not want to appear in comments, and then within the filter, add in this specific. However, be mindful not to include any words that may fall naturally within a genuine comment or relate to your business, as Facebook will filter these too. - Act quickly
If you spot a comment or message, act quickly by reporting it as spam, deleting the comments and then blocking the user. Don’t let spam sit ignored as Facebook may not resolve it without your action and it could encourage even more bots to leave spam. - Regularly review your page’s security settings
Facebook regularly updates its security measures and settings for pages and often quietly. We’d suggest frequently reviewing them and turning on any new security and moderation features as they become available. You can keep on top of the latest Facebook news via their website here, and we suggest periodically checking your page settings.
Unfortunately, other than the steps above, there’s currently no way to prevent Facebook spam from occurring in the first instance, and it seems Facebook is struggling to combat the surge in spam itself.
We would love to see Meta introduce more advanced filtering and moderation options for keywords, special characters and even emojis, as well as prevent account creation by bots in the first place… As for whether this will happen and when, unfortunately, that’s in the hands of Meta.
In the meantime, through our social marketing service, we routinely follow each of the suggestions above, ensuring every Facebook page has moderation settings turned on and our list of blocked inappropriate keywords added to the filter. Through our listening and monitoring tools, we are notified of any new comments and, as such, take the actions above – reporting, deleting and blocking users.
If you’re struggling with spam on Facebook and Instagram, you aren’t alone.
If you’d like to discuss any particular concerns or need help managing your inbox and social media content, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.
