Why is my Facebook page not published?

When creating a Facebook page for your business, it is important to leave it private until you are ready to unveil it. Facebook classifies pages in this state as unpublished. You need to publish your page when you are ready to open it to the public, instantly making the page live for any Facebook users to view. There are two ways to make your unpublished Facebook page visible to the public: through the Permissions settings or directly on the page itself.

1. Click "Edit Page" at the top of your Facebook business page.

2. Click "Manage Permissions" from the drop-down menu.

3. Click the box next to "Unpublish Page" in the Page Visibility section to remove the check mark from the box.

4. Click "Save Changes." Your page instantly becomes visible to the public.

Once upon a time, Facebook Pages were only unpublished for violations of the terms of service. Now, amidst a ton of other Facebook-related chaos, the social media giant is un-publishing Business Pages that are inactive for too long. Here’s what you need to know.

What does it Mean for a Facebook Page to be Un-Published?

To be clear, “un-published” is not the same as “deleted.” If your Page becomes un-published, it’s not gone forever, but you’ll have to appeal to Facebook’s notoriously unresponsive support team.

During the period in which your Page is un-published, it won’t be visible to the public. That means people can’t find it at all, either by searching Facebook or even entering the URL of your Page into their browser.

While you may not think of Facebook as a necessity for your business, the numbers don’t lie. Facebook is an invaluable branding and marketing tool that can provide incredible return on investment.

Why would this Happen?

Truthfully, we don’t completely know. The Facebook Pages Terms does not list inactivity as a violation. It focuses solely on explicit offenses, such as impersonating other brands/people and publishing inappropriate content.

Searching the Facebook Help Community (which is like a forum in which users can ask questions that may be answered by other users or Facebook officials) doesn’t reveal much. People have asked why Facebook has threatened to un-publish their inactive Pages, but haven’t received legitimate answers. Some speculate and say Facebook is just trying to tidy up their community, and considers inactive Pages to be clutter.

That’s probably the reason, but the truth is, it doesn’t really matter. Facebook is an essential marketing tool, and us small businesses are at the social media giant’s mercy. Unfortunately, we have to jump through hoops to keep our companies visible to the public.

How to Keep your Page Visible

Just Post!

Based on our experience handling Facebook Pages, the threat of un-publishing comes after about three months of inactivity. To prevent your Page from being taken down, just post!

Since your audience hasn’t heard from you in a while, center your post on your return to Facebook. Something like, “Hey, we know you haven’t heard from us in a while since business has been booming, but we’re back on Facebook and ready to engage with you all!” should do the trick.

It will prevent your Page from being un-published, and remind your audience that you still exist!

Update Page Settings

Alternatively, you can update some of the settings of your Page. This may include connecting your Instagram account to your Page, or even just allowing people to send it private messages. It’s a simple fix, but we still recommend posting and engaging with your audience.

Delegate the Responsibility

You’re a business owner. You have a lot on your plate, and Facebook might not be a top priority. We get it.

For that, we recommend assigning the responsibility of Facebook management to someone else. Whether it’s a third-party agency who creates full-fledged Facebook marketing and advertising strategies or just an employee who posts once a week to keep your followers updated, it’s worth it.

Remember, you don’t want your Facebook Page to become un-published because re-publishing it can be time consuming and frustrating. Just stay active, engage your audience and enjoy the benefits of social media marketing!

Recently I had a friend who contacted me to look into her Facebook page. This was the issue, her page was not showing up publicly at all. Many people run into this issue before, and there are a few reasons why your page might not be showing up.

When I went to research the issue and trying to understand a little bit more about what exactly happens to her page I came to realize that she could have had her page reported which then would have resulted in her page being deleted due to a potential violation and Facebook policy. But what we still don’t understand is which policy exactly she violated.

The trouble with this is that Facebook usually doesn’t send you an email letting you know that your page has been deleted due to a policy violation.

So how do you find out if your Facebook business page violated policy? The first step is to fill out this form here.

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/164405897002583?show_form=pages_bug

Even if you fill out this page in hopes that you’re going to have your profile reinstated, it could potentially give you a reason why your page was on published, and therefore will not be re-published.

So what’s someone to do when their page has been deleted?

Start over?

Never use Facebook again?

These options are not ideal. Especially if your Facebook business page was one of the primary traffic sources for your website. So if this issue has not happened to you yet, there’s time for you to begin diversifying your audience traffic.

Start reaching out to other social media platforms and another query type of platforms that will allow you to drive traffic from those sources in addition to your Facebook business page.

Let people know that you are available on other platforms aside from Facebook. You can do this with a simple post. Other options for avoiding having your Facebook page deleted is to really be involved in understanding what Facebook business page policies are.

These policies change quite frequently. Things it might have been OKC two years ago are more than likely not OK today.

You can look at all of the videos these policies change quite frequently. Things it might have been OK two years ago are more than likely not OK today. You can look at all of the policies by clicking here.

https://www.facebook.com/policies/pages_groups_events/

But the issue goes further than that. Facebook is removing fan pages, business pages, and other types of pages that create a chaotic experience and are doing so without the consent of users.

It can take 48 hours to get a response from Facebook, and that’s even if it’s just a generic here’s how we can help.

After 72 more hours of waiting you may be able to finally learn why your page had been taken down without warning. Sometimes it can be a simple copyright issue that you weren’t even aware of.

You need to be extremely wary when building your online marketing platform on someone else’s digital land. Facebook is not your digital land.

You are given that page by courtesy of Facebook. Even if you pay for ads you still don’t on your Facebook page, Facebook does.

So be careful of how you utilize your digital presence and always be sure to diversify.

Why is my Facebook page showing unpublished?

How do I get my Facebook page published again?

How long does a Facebook page take to publish?

How long can a Facebook page Stay unpublished?