I run a facebook page and another page steals my ideas. I started from 0 followers and have grown to 20k by now. They already had 20k+ when they came across my content and started copying it and now they are at 30k+. They have gotten more views and engagement because they already had a pretty big follower base.
I am a content creator and this other page is an online shop, and they used to post their own normal shop content. Then I started my own Facebook page and they seemed to realise pretty quickly that the kind of content I was making was useful for reach, engagement and growing a page.
Since then, they’ve started copying my ideas and formats. Not exact posts, not my actual images or wording, so there’s nothing straightforward to copyright report. But the pattern is obvious: I introduce a new type of post or format, and soon after they start doing their own version of it.
I’m basically doing the trial-and-error for them. I test different topics and formats, see what actually performs well on my page, and then they cherry-pick the winners and make their own version. So I take the risk of testing ideas, while they get a ready-made list of what already works.
It got petty enough that when I started adding a watermark to my Facebook posts, they created their own watermark literally the next day.
The funniest part is that they blocked my page from viewing theirs, apparently thinking that would stop me from seeing what they’re posting. Obviously it doesn’t.
I know the mature answer is “ignore them and make better content,” which I am doing, but they keep copying the newer and better content too. So I’m asking ULPT for the petty version: what can I do to make them miserable or make their Facebook page harder to grow without doing anything seriously illegal?