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Facebook Now Allows Profile Pages to Become Business Pages

 

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Businesses on Facebook need to have a Facebook Page. For the past couple of years, many business owners have struggled with using a profile or a business page. Many businesses start marketing on Facebook with a personal profile until they understand its limitations. Then, they have difficulty scraping their personal profile and starting from scratch to create a Facebook Business Page.

Facebook Profile Migration resized 600

Facebook recently launched a new tool for business owners that will now allow them to convert a personal Facebook Profile page into a Facebook Business Page. The new Profile to Business Page Migration Tool transfers the photo from the profile page and converts all friends of that personal profile into people who like the new Business Page. However, this migration will delete all other content from the personal profile page, including all wall posts and other photos.

Other rules from the migration include page brands and interests. Profiles with fewer than 100 friends will be able to rename their new business page. However, profiles with more than 100 friends will have to use their profile name as the name of their business page. Additionally, converted pages will not appear in the interest sections of users who were previously friends with the profile. Profile friends will not be notified that their friendship has been turned into a Like.

Marketing Takeaway

Facebook Business Pages are public pages and have distinct marketing benefits over Profile Pages. As a business looking to increase traffic and leads from social media marketing, you should create a Facebook Business Page or migrate your existing profile into a Business Page. But simply having a page isn't enough.

You need to think about the content that appeals to your prospects and customers. Share your blogs posts on your Facebook Page as well as articles from other quality industry sources. Begin to think about Facebook News Feed optimization. Attracting likes to your page is only the first step. The more a person interacts with your content, the higher the likelihood that your Page updates will appear in their Facebook News Feed. Engagement on Facebook is a critical component for increasing the reach of your content and calls-to-action.

Do you think Facebook's new migration tool will increase the number of Business Pages?

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Posted by Kipp Bodnar on Thu, Mar 31, 2011 @ 02:00 PM

COMMENTS

What if awhile ago you started using the personal profile, then created a new business page.  
 
Can you convert your personal page friends to LIKES of your existing business page? Essentially merge the personal profile into the existing profile page?

posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 2:44 PM by Chris Gardner


finally Facebook has come around and I thought Linkedin would be the first. Since I am a SEO professional i have struggled with putting effort into FaceBook but now I think it will be worthwhile. Thank you for the marketing guide to as I am a novice at marketing through social networking sites.

posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 3:00 PM by Alex Gilmore


Think this is a great idea. I've created a business profile using my own name awhile back and having to use my own name has driven me crazy. I just went to migrate my profile to a page and facebook won't let me change my name to my business name. It keeps saying to keep it similar to my real name. I only have 88 friends so what gives?

posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 3:01 PM by Lisa


Yes, I agree with some of the earlier posters. Facebook still doesn't seem to go far enough; I've never understood the business logic of their locking in users with their complex array of profiles and profile rules: "you can do this w/this number of friends" or "you can change this but not that." I've just tried the migrate my profile and the thing I was hoping for most, which was to remove my personal info, is still not allowable. Unfortunately, the monopoly of their's allows them to continue to disregard the frustrations of their users.

posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 4:23 PM by Jen


Please be careful... Your Groups, when making the switch Groups apps, photos etc do NOT show up! 
 
I was able to gain access through an old account i never used and having group admins activate my admin...

posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 4:41 PM by Bonnie


FB needs to allow you to Keep the Personal Profile after converting. I'll probably stick with the old way to do it.

posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 6:07 PM by Henry Daniels


I can only imagine how many people will be making this switch! I have run into many business pages who were trying to add friends because they opened a business profile in error. Great to see this functionality in place.

posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 11:27 PM by Kathy Colaiacovo


As Kathy said, so many business want to get their message out, but the personal pages aren't as well indexed if they are at all. I hope this can be done in a useful manner.

posted on Friday, April 01, 2011 at 10:20 AM by JudyAnn Lorenz


Really great information. Thanks for sharing a solution to such a common question. I was at an internet conference last week and social media was a major topic.  
 
You are the first to share this simple solution or at least not keep it to themselves!

posted on Saturday, April 02, 2011 at 11:22 AM by Mark Anthony


This is great news for lawyers who want to market through social media. Thanks for the update.

posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 at 6:19 PM by Virginia beach dui lawyer


Hi, I converted my facebook profile to a business page and all the friends become fans, great but the problem is that i can enter the admin section of the page but it will not publish or display, does anyone know how to fix it??? thanks

posted on Saturday, April 09, 2011 at 12:09 PM by Charlie Murtagh


 
The new possibility is also a new change in the eyes of users 
If until now people could join a profile considering friendship and personal motives ,now they should suspect everyone to manipulate and convert them to LIKE followers  

posted on Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 12:45 AM by varda shalom


Comments have been closed for this article.