Facebook allows other users to tag or mention your Facebook page in their posts and comments. This can be useful for increasing engagement and reach. However, it also means you don’t have full control over who can interact with your page. If you want to limit who can tag or mention your Facebook page, there are a few options available.
Should I Stop Allowing Tagging and Mentions?
Before changing your settings, consider the pros and cons of allowing tagging and mentions:
Pros:
- Increased engagement and reach as more users interact with your content
- User-generated content like photos and stories
- Mentions can alert you to feedback, questions, or issues to address
Cons:
- Unable to control who interacts with your page
- Potential for negative or spam mentions
- Having to monitor and respond to more notifications
Think about your goals for your Facebook presence and if you want to limit or encourage interactions from others. Typically brands strive for increased engagement, so completely restricting tagging and mentions may not be ideal.
How to Partially Limit Tagging and Mentions
Instead of completely disabling tagging and mentions, you can set up filters to only allow interactions from certain users. Here’s how:
- Go to your Facebook page and click “Settings” from the top menu
- Select “Tagging Ability”
- Switch the toggle to enable “Limit Who Can Tag Your Page”
- Type in the names or profiles of users you want to allow to tag your page
- Click “Save Changes”
This will restrict page tagging to only those you’ve specified. Others will no longer see the option to tag your page.
You can use a similar process to limit who can mention your Facebook page:
- Go to “Settings” then “Mentions”
- Select “Limit Who Can @ Mention Your Page”
- Add the profiles or names of users you want to allow
- Click “Save Changes”
With this activated, only authorized people will be able to mention your page in posts, comments, etc.
Limiting instead of fully disabling these interactions enables you to control the experience while still allowing engagement from fans and partners. Monitor how these settings impact your growth and engagement to see if you need to adjust.
How to Completely Disable Tagging and Mentions
If you want to prevent anyone from mentioning or tagging your Facebook page, you can fully disable these capabilities:
Disable Tagging
- Go to “Settings” then “Tagging Ability”
- Switch the toggle to disable “Allow Tagging Your Page”
- Click “Save Changes”
Disable Mentions
- Go to “Settings” then “Mentions”
- Switch the toggle to disable “Allow @ Mentions”
- Click “Save Changes”
With tagging and mentions disabled, your page name will no longer appear as a suggested tag and users will get an error if they try to mention your page.
This gives you full control, but eliminates organic engagement from non-administrators. Be sure the loss of reach and interactions on public posts is worth the trade-off.
Using Page Roles to Limit Access
Page roles enable you to restrict posting and tagging abilities without fully disabling mentions or tags. Assigning specific roles can prevent unwanted interactions while still enabling approved users to engage.
Key page roles include:
- Admin – Full page access
- Editor – Create and edit posts, send messages, create ads
- Moderator – Moderate and delete comments, send messages, create ads
- Advertiser – Create ads and boost posts
- Analyst – View insights via Facebook Analytics
Administrators have the highest level of access. Limit other roles like Editor or Moderator to control who can post and tag on your behalf. Page roles give you flexibility to engage users while restricting full permissions.
Using Comment Moderation
Another option is requiring comment moderation approval. This automatically holds any comments on your posts for review before they are publicly visible. To enable:
- Go to “Settings”
- Select “Comments”
- Check the box for “Comments Must Be Approved Before They Are Visible”
- Click “Confirm”
Now comments will be pending until a page admin or moderator approves them individually or in bulk. This allows you to filter and block any unwanted or irrelevant remarks before they display.
The downside is needing to manually approve all comments, which takes more time and effort to monitor. Make sure you have enough resources to handle this moderation process before enabling.
Preventing Tagging in Photos
When people tag your Facebook page in photos, that photo may display on your page’s timeline. If you want to prevent being tagged in any photos, you can adjust the settings:
- Go to Facebook settings
- Click “Timeline and Tagging”
- Select “Who can post on your timeline?”
- Uncheck the box for “Allow users to tag your page in photos”
- Click “Save Changes”
This will remove the option to tag your page in any photos posted on Facebook. Some user-generated visual content can be beneficial, but this prevents unwanted or unapproved images from displaying on your page timeline.
Should You Create a New Facebook Page?
If completely limiting tagging and mentions greatly impacts your engagement and reach, you may consider creating a new Facebook page instead.
Start fresh with a new page name that you share sparingly. Don’t promote it publicly or add a Facebook vanity URL. This allows you to control who knows about the page to limit unwanted interactions.
Maintain posting consistency, but only share the private page URL directly with core audiences like email subscribers. This lets you continue engaging fans while avoiding spam and unwanted tagging.
However, this fragmentation can confuse audiences and split engagement across pages. It also prevents organic discovery of your page via searches and shares. Proceed with caution.
Conclusion
Tagging and mentions can be a double-edged sword for Facebook pages. On one hand they increase visibility and engagement, but on the other they cede control of your brand image and community.
Take time to consider your goals, resources, and priorities before limiting mentions and tagging. Often a balanced approach works best, such as restricting capabilities by page roles or requiring comment approval.
Carefully weigh the pros and cons of each option covered here. With the right strategy, you can filter unwanted interactions without sacrificing the benefits of an engaged Facebook community. Focus on quality over quantity by enabling your real fans while disabling spam.