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 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?
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Chris Gardner 3:44 PM on March 31, 2011
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?
Alex Gilmore 4:00 PM on March 31, 2011
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.
Lisa 4:01 PM on March 31, 2011
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?
Jen 5:23 PM on March 31, 2011
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.
Bonnie 5:41 PM on March 31, 2011
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...
Henry Daniels 7:07 PM on March 31, 2011
FB needs to allow you to Keep the Personal Profile after converting. I'll probably stick with the old way to do it.
Kathy Colaiacovo 12:27 AM on April 01, 2011
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.
JudyAnn Lorenz 11:20 AM on April 01, 2011
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.
Mark Anthony 12:22 PM on April 02, 2011
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!
Virginia beach dui lawyer 7:19 PM on April 07, 2011
This is great news for lawyers who want to market through social media. Thanks for the update.
Charlie Murtagh 1:09 PM on April 09, 2011
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
varda shalom 1:45 AM on April 24, 2011
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