Social Media Tip: How to Get Past Being Blocked From an Organization's Facebook Page

Have you ever tried to exercise your right to free speech on the page of an elected official, news outlet, or other organization that purports to be there to hear from and serve the public -- only to be blocked for no clear reason?

Take a look at this example from Kevin Wilson, who wrote on the Post Register Facebook page:

James Kent has made a number of posts here asking about apparent omissions in the reporting done by the Post Register about the killing of Josh Olzak. I have followed those posts closely. They were probing questions encouraging the Post Register to press the IFPD for details about why they released the prime suspect after apprehending him the night of the attack. Mr. Kent's posts were civil, professional, and free of vulgarity. They in no way violated the Facebook Terms of Use.

Why then has the Post Register deleted those posts and blocked James Kent from posting on this page?

If your personal account gets blocked from an organizational page, it only takes a few minutes to establish a professional account like this one: 43rd State Blues. And Facebook allows you to have as many as you would like. You can simply set it up as a "cause or community."

You can call it "Counterpoints" or "Froggy Face," your real name, or whatever you would like. These accounts have the ability post and comment other pages, such as those of news outlets and elected officials.

This strategy will not allow you you comment on personal pages, unless the individual first tags your page in a post.

Creating your professional Facebook profile is easy, just log into Facebook and go to Facebook's create a page tool. Then decide which category your hobby, topic or organization fits into and follow the directions to create your Facebook profile.

Once you have the Facebook profile for your hobby or organization all set up, you'll need to spend a little time adding content to it. But if you are creating the profile simply for posting on other organizational pages, you will need very little content.

After being blocked from a specific organizational page, you can return to it as your professional profile and be commenting again in minutes.

Social media is intended to be exactly that ... social. Thus when all else fails, grab a posting partner so that when things don't go well your way, the partner can assist or take over. Some organizations even have teams of several like-minded posters, to follow threads and respond.

This takes the pressure off of any one person. There is strength in numbers.