We’re all well aware of Facebook’s 20% rule, where the image in a promotion cannot be more than 20% text. But do you know about all of the restrictions on images? I was a little surprised when a fitness client of mine had their promote page ad rejected for showing a male and female model with well-defined abs.

Apparently, this breaks one of Facebook’s rules:

Images may not be overly sexual, imply nudity, show excessive amounts of skin or cleavage, or focus unnecessarily on body parts. (See Facebook’s full list of ad copy and image restrictions here.)

In the past, I’ve used Facebook’s Promote Page and Boost Post features to successfully gain fans and boost engagement. And yes, anytime you have a situation where there’s too much text in your cover image or post image, you run into the 20% rule issue. But once you figure out and get a feel for the balance of image vs. text, it’s smooth sailing. However, Facebook’s image standards seem a little foggy. It seems that some ads that should perhaps be fine are rejected.

Admittedly, I haven’t done as much with Twitter advertising. Though I ran across this recent article on Twitter advertising basics from Social Media Examiner—How to Build a Winning Twitter Ad Campaign. Much like Facebook, you can choose to create ads for specific purposes, like gaining new followers or increasing website hits.

After jumping onto Twitter and going through the guidelines, it seems Twitter’s guidelines are more expansive than those on Facebook. They also appear to be more specific and less confusing. You can read the Twitter Ad Policies here.

You’ll also find specific Editorial guidelines for advertising on Twitter. For example, you can’t use “excessive or unnecessary capitalization or punctuation to draw attention” and you must use “correct grammar and spelling.” Naturally, language that could “offend or shock your audience” is also prohibited.

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