Facebook has become the protagonist of digital marketing platforms. They have made marketing broader than ever for the advertisers, and are working continuously to make the use of Facebook as a platform easier and safer.

In the digital world, advertisers need to be conscious of the safety of their brand, to avoid aligning with harmful or unsuitable content, and thus build trust with their customers.

To address these risks and create a safe environment for brands, Facebook is continuously working on increasing the safety of its Business Manager. Currently, there are three brand safety controls to prevent the ads from running alongside specific content, which could potentially harm advertisers and brands.

• Block Lists: The best way to ensure brand safety is to prevent campaigns from going on to harmful or controversial websites or apps. Facebook Business Manager’s Block List allows users to avoid their campaigns from appearing in controversial sites or apps. To make the process easier, we suggest that advertisers use Facebook’s publisher lists to create the blocklists rather than blocking random sites.
• Inventory Filter: Inventory filter allows advertisers to control the type of content that their ad would appear within, and by doing so won’t block the URLs. Advertisers can choose from full inventory, standard inventory, or limited inventory on Audience Network, Facebook in-stream, and Facebook Instant Articles. There are, however, certain limitations to this option, such as apps, websites, and Facebook pages that comply with Facebook policies.
• Live Stream Opt-out: Facebook’s in-stream video placement can be done for a selected group of gaming partners. However, advertisers can exclude gaming partner live streams or add Facebook pages of publishers that had a live gaming stream in the past 90 days to the blocklist.

In managing brand safety controls, advertisers can follow these simple steps:

1. Open Business Manager
2. Select and then Brand safety.

Overview opens, where you can learn about Facebook’s brand safety controls.

1. Select Inventory filter on the left to see your Inventory filter settings.

Select an ad account at the top. See if Inventory filter settings have been applied. You can change the settings for in-stream video and Instant Articles on Facebook and Audience Network.

1. Select Blocklists on the left to see your blocklists if you have any.

To apply or remove, replace, download or delete a block list, select … on your chosen blocklist to see the options in a drop-down menu.

1. Select the Publisher list on the left to download a list of places your ads could appear, including Audience Network apps and websites, and Facebook Pages for Instant Articles and in-stream videos.
2. Select Publisher delivery reports on the left to see where your ads appeared during or after a campaign.

Facebook is dedicated to creating a safe platform for brands and people, whether you’re looking at promoting your business or just keeping in touch with friends. Apart from the above efforts listed above, Facebook also collaborates with other brand safety management leaders such as Double Verify and Integral Ad Science, as well as industry associations such as 4A’s,  IAB, and  JICWEBS‘ Digital Trading Standards Group’s brand safety audit, receiving the IAB UK Gold Standard and World Federation of Advertiser’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). ( Source: Facebook)

Taking care of your brand’s image is key to success. Brand safety online should therefore become one of the key ingredients in your mix of social media advertising.

Author: Rohan Noronha, Facebook Partner Director, Httpool Bangladesh (Httpool -A Facebook Authorized Sales Partner)