How to Stay on Facebook's Good Side

SAN FRANCISCO (TheStreet) -- Here's a new-era dance we have to learn: dodging the forces that might get your business chucked from Facebook.

Facebook now has 300 million active users. Twitter, which keeps its facts close to the chest, has acknowledged a report on the blog TechCrunch that projects the number of Twitter users will rise to 1 billion by 2013.

Businesses are moving into this space fast, investing money to take on established media companies like Walt Disney(DIS), Time Warner(TWX) and CBS(CBS). Check out the well-done Facebook page of the e-mail marketing firm MailChimp or the Twitter feed of media analyst Rob Enderle.

However, even for sophisticated social marketers -- including me -- it's easy to run afoul of the rules these companies use to maintain their sites. You got it: I managed get my company's Web site, Blumsday.com, banned from Facebook.

How to avoid being banished: Don't break Facebook's rules, whatever they might be.

We are not techno hacks around here. Our award-winning blog is read by most major media outlets. We uphold the highest journalistic standards and we respond to all serious queries about our material.

Still, Facebook stopped letting me link my company's Web site to my personal Facebook page. And nobody can tell me why.

At the time, we were running a series on the diminishing economic upside of the Web. Call me nutty, but the fact that Google(GOOG) can only make four lousy bucks a year from each potential Web customer is worth pointing out. But for reasons that still remain unclear, these posts were deemed offensive by Facebook users. They complained. We tripped some switch. And poof, Blumsday.com became Web persona non grata on Facebook.

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