Avoiding Facebook Jail
This Week:
Getting Authorized to Boost
Target’s Empty Internal Communications Message
The One Thing
Before We Go…
1. Why Facebook's Ad Policies Require Early Planning
If you’ve ever tried to boost a post about a community event, a nonprofit initiative, or even a book club meetup, only to be met with a blunt “Ad Disapproved” message from Facebook, you’re not alone.
What many people don’t realize is that Facebook requires anyone who wants to run ads on topics it deems “social” or “political” to go through an ad authorization process. That includes verifying your identity, confirming your location, and disclosing who’s paying for the ad. Even if you’re not campaigning for office or lobbying Congress, you might still fall under these rules.
The best course of action? Take steps early to make sure you don’t run into roadblocks.
2. Short Takes: Target’s Update to Employees in the Midst of a Storm
Target has had a rough year so far. Between boycotts, lawsuits, decreased sales, and looming tariffs, employees of the company desperately need leadership.
So it was a good thing when CEO Brian Cornell reached out with an all-staff email providing encouragement to the team after a long stretch of silence from the C-suite. Or was it? You can read the full email here.
Our take? It was an email that said a lot without saying much of anything at all. Here are just a few quick notes.
There was little to no acknowledgment about the strain employees may be feeling with the turbulence, nor did it point to any resources available to quell these anxieties.
There were no specifics about the rumors they were trying to quash with the email, allowing employees to speculate even further instead of addressing their challenges head-on.
There was no course of action outlined for moving forward. What’s going to happen next? Couldn’t tell ya.
There was no humility or empathy. The email came off as defensive instead of allowing for differences in opinion.
The number one rule with internal communications is that transparency breeds trust. Ultimately, this email felt perfunctory — a covering of bases rather than a true rallying cry.
We’d love to know your thoughts and possibly share them in a future edition!
3. The One Thing
Each week, we’ll share one task that takes about five minutes to complete and can make an impact on your communications strategy.
This week “The One Thing” needs you! Here’s an invitation to suggest topics you’d love for us to cover. Is there a resource we should build for you? (In the words of Jerry Maguire, “Help me help you.”)
Send us anything … a couple of sentences, a bullet point, a half-thought, a developed idea, something easy, or something hard.
Your Task This Week: Take five minutes (or less!) to shoot us a note to tell us what you’d love to see in a future edition of The EO Report.
4. Before We Go…
From MSN: Concerns over Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman’s frequent absences and recent public outburt have come to light, creating a crisis media storm for his office when a New York Magazine piece was published. How would you handle this as a public relations pro?
From 10 News San Diego: The Department of Education recently sent a letter to Harvard notifying them they were no longer eligible for federal funding. A rumor quickly followed that Harvard had posted a proofread version on their channels, complete with the red pen marks those of us in the comms field are intimately familiar with. The myth has been debunked, but the markup is still a good reminder that proofing matters for establishing credibility.
And finally, a little humor for our copywriting and editing friends:
Friends don’t gatekeep. Share The EO Report with someone who would love it.