Social Media Tip: Convert your Facebook Profile to a Fan Page without losing friends
In the olden days, there was no such thing as a 'business page' for companies on Facebook. Enterprising companies that recognised the marketing potential of Facebook had no choice but to create personal profiles for their businesses. As social media has grown, so has the potential to launch businesses pages for Facebook. The business pages are more suitable to the marketing needs of companies, including specific features that are geared towards businesses.
Unfortunately, this leaves companies that are already well-established on Facebook in quite a pickle. They will have already made connections with their target audience, and will already be familiar with the layout and features of the personal profile. But now, Facebook wants to start taking more steps to separate business and personal profiles. There are many benefits to using a Facebook Page, so here's how to make the switch-over without losing your friends...
Let's put it this way, whether you are a small business or a large corporation, there's little difference if the customer base you have built up is comprised of 'friends' or 'fans'.
On a user profile, you'll have 'friends' - this means you can write on their walls, access their messages and see their updates on your news feeds. Still, you are limited to 5,000 friends.
On a business page, you'll have 'fans' - this means you can use Facebook Insights. This feature provides you with insight to the gender, location and demographics of your fan base. In addition, you can see peak times of interaction for your page, and view what you fans are saying about you and your content. This is good, free market research for your company, and enables you to tailor your online marketing strategy more effectively. Additionally, you can have an unlimited number of fans.
It is generally more beneficial to have 'fans' than 'friends'. purely for Facebook Insights. Beware though, once you've switched, you can't convert back to a user profile. No fear, there is a way to migrate over to a business page without losing the contact base you have already built up. You simply need to convert your 'friends' to 'fans'. Either way, using a personal profile as a business instead of a Page is prohibited... so there's no time like the present begin your migration over to the business side of Facebook.
Careful! There are still a few things you should be warned of before jumping into the conversion.
- When you convert your account, only your friends and uploaded photos will be transferred across. This means you will lose any other content you have on your profile. If you don't want to lose this information, then you need to download a copy of your Facebook data.
- go to 'Account Settings'
- under 'General' you will find 'Download a copy of your Facebook data'
This may take a long time, so make sure you do it way in advance of when you want to make the switch.
- Make sure that you don't lose access to any other pages you an admin for on the page to be converted. If you have a personal account, link it to the 'to-be-converted' page before you make the conversion.
Get started!
- Go to Facebook's Migration Tool page
- You will be offered the choice of local business or place/company, organisation or institution/brand or product/artist, brand or public figure/entertainment/cause or community
- For local businesses, make sure that the address matches your actual business address
- Click on 'Get Started'
- Once complete, make sure you assign administrators to the new page; this can be your personal profile
- Now you can let your fans know that the new page is official
- If you would rather not have your personal profile linked to the account, simply make a new one and link it to the account
Charlotte is a trainee journalist, who loves writing about anything and everything. Currently an intern at Social Media Frontiers, you can follow her @charlotteatsmf and @CharlotteR_4
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Social Media Tip: Convert your Facebook Profile to a Fan Page without losing friends
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Thursday, February 27, 2014
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Reviewed by Anonymous
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Thursday, February 27, 2014
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