What would you do if your Facebook account became Deactivated?

What would you do if you woke up one morning and your Facebook account had been deactivated?
 
Stranger things have happened.. and with a free service like Facebook, it could be weeks before you got in touch with someone there to have it "fixed".
 
I love Facebook for storing photos, using the like button as a means of bookmarking my favorite articles/sites, connecting with friends, and of course.. marketing.
 
It's hard not to feel vulnerable when the information and connections (I've worked years to establish) and have on my profile and pages does not belong to me. I know this is a contentious issue, but I'd be happy to pay for my business page to have more control.
 
Last night while on Facebook I was logged out several times and asked to log back in. Each time I logged back in I got a message from Facebook indicating that there had been malicious activity on my account. This happened at least a dozen times. And the fear set in.....
 
What if my account became deactivated by Facebook? What if I lost my business page? All those connections. The hours of work. The information. It kept me awake and on the agenda this morning was to be proactive and do whatever I could to protect my accounts.
 
The first step was to download my Facebook information.
 
Go to Account, Account Settings, Download your profile information  You will get a message like this: Click okay and you will be notified by email when your information is ready for download. Unfortunately, this is only your profile information and not your brand pages. (gulp...)
 

Second, I bookmarked the site for Facebook Help should the unthinkable ever happen.
 
 

And really, that was all I could do. I recommend you do the same.
 
Remember folks, do not click any links on Facebook unless you are 100% certain of the source. Also to help keep your account safe: Never paste suspicious-looking links or text into your internet address bar. They could be spam!

For answers to your social media questions or help with Facebook, drop by our page and drop us a line.

Nova Scotia Social Media Consulting