Every so often, I get a friend request from a business. Facebook created Pages specifically as a way for businesses to connect with people, so there’s no reason to have to set up a personal profile for your business.
If you haven’t set up a profile for your business, check out my post on how to create a brand new page for your business. If you have created a profile for your business, follow these steps to convert it into a page.
20 reasons to convert your Facebook profile to a page
Not only is there no reason to have to set up a personal profile for your business, there are at least 20 reasons to use a business page instead.
- More than one person can manage the page
- Your page managers don’t need to remember a password
- Analytics
- You can have more than 5,000 “friends” (or likes if you will)
- Facebook tabs
- Facebook offers
- Advertise your posts
- Assign various admin roles, limiting capabilities
- Schedule your posts
- It’s illegal (well, okay, against Facebook’s TOS)
- Install apps
- Customers can check in on Facebook when they visit your location
- Customers using the mobile app can phone you directly through Facebook
- Search engine results
- People don’t have to be a friend to tag your page in their updates and photos
- People won’t take your social media efforts seriously
- Your content is more shareable
- You can’t use Facebook like buttons on your website
- Access to Graph Search traffic
- Customers don’t need to wait for you to approve their friend request.
Note especially #10. Using a personal profile as a business page is against Facebook’s terms of service and could get your profile shut down.
How to convert your Facebook profile into a page
Hopefully, that list will convince you to switch your profile to a page. If you’re ready, simply set aside a few minutes to follow these 5 easy steps.
1. Archive all your profile data.
Click on the drop down icon in the top right corner of the page. Then click on Settings.
Click on the General tab in the left column. Click on the Download a copy link at the bottom of the right column.
Click on the Start My Archive button.
Enter your Facebook password.
Click on the Start My Archive button.
Facebook will email you a link to download your archive file.
2. Create admins for all your other pages and your groups.
By converting this account to a page, it will lose any admin access it has to any groups or other pages. Be sure you assign someone else as full administrators before you continue with this process. Otherwise, you will not be able to manage those groups or pages.
3. Choose your category.
Go to the migrate page. Choose a category that best fits your business.
Facebook will ask you to enter your password. Enter it, then click Confirm.
4. Pick a photo
Next, choose your profile picture. (You could just keep the one you had been using.)
5. Fill out the about section
Enter a brief description in the About section. Click on the Save Info button.
That’s it! All your friends will automatically like your page. You will need to go through your archive file to find photos and other items to add to your page.
As you can see, having a Facebook page is a much better strategy in the long run. If you have any questions about starting (or converting to) a Facebook page, let me know in the comments below.
Don’t forget to check out Theresa Potratz’s post on the topic.