Convert Facebook To Business Page

Prafull
Facebook Recruiting/ Social Profiles
37 Comments

As you would know personal Facebook profiles are meant for individual people and Facebook provides pages for businesses and organizations. Pages offer more robust features for organizations and are more suitable to meet your business needs.

I still see recruiting agencies and companies using a personal Facebook profile to promote their business. And if you are one among them you need to do something about it, or you run a risk of losing your profile as stated clearly by Facebook –

Maintaining a personal account for anything other than an individual person is a violation of Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. If you don't convert your noncompliant account to a Page, you risk permanently losing access to the account and all of its content.

In this post i will take you through the steps you need to perform to convert your personal Facebook profile to a page, So lets get started –

Step 1 – Back up your profile data

When you convert your profile to a business page only your profile photo and friends(converted to likes) will be moved to your new page, No other data is moved to your page. So if you need any information on your new page from your existing account, you should first download your profile data which include posts, photos, bios and anything associated with the account. Full list here.

You can download your information from the Account Settings page.

Click accounts menu at the top right of any Facebook page and selectAccount Settings
ClickGeneral in the left-hand column
Click on"Download a copy of your Facebook data"
ClickStart My Archive

Step 2 – Change your profile name & address to reflect your business page

The business page which will be created after migration will have the same name as your profile name. Also if you have more than 200 friends, you will not be able to change the name of your page after the conversion. Make sure your profile name reflects your business page name before going to the next step.

If you already have an active business page you probably would want to merge these pages. In this case, you need to provide same name and address as your active page or you might not be able to merge them.

To change your name

Click accounts menu in the upper-right corner of any Facebook page and selectAccount Settings
ClickGeneral in the left-hand column
Look for theName setting and clickEdit to the far right
Type in your name and save your changes

To change your address

Click on theUpdate Info button under your cover photo on your timeline.
To edit the info in these sections, click theEdit link that appears in the top-right corner.
Enter in your new info, and save your changes.

Step 3 – Convert your personal profile to a business page

You might as well be managing other pages/groups from your existing profile. If you are the only admin for these pages, do not forget to assign new admins before you proceed with the migration. Remember you are about to delete your profile and migrate to a business page.

To convert your profile to a page go here. Below is how the next steps look like –

Step1

Choose a category most appropriate for your business and proceed to next step

Convert-facebook-profile-to-facebook-business-page-step2

Provide your password to confirm migration, Make sure to download your data

convert-facebook-profile-to-facebook-business-page-step3

Your fan page is created with your friends converted to likes

Step 4 – Merge Duplicate Pages

If you have duplicate pages for your business you should merge them. In order to merge duplicate pages, they need to have the same name and address. Merging Pages combines all your likes and check-ins, but all other content from the Page with fewer likes, such as wall posts, photos and its username, will be permanently deleted.

Content on the Page with more likes will remain unchanged, except for the addition of likes and check-ins added from the Page with fewer likes. Facebook removes the Page with fewer likes and you will not be able to unmerge it.

Here is how to merge pages –

Go to the Page with more likes. This will be the one you'll keep.
From the top of your Page, clickEdit Page
SelectUpdate Info
From the left sidebar, selectResources.
Click theMerge duplicate Pages link. This link will only appear if you manage two Pages with similar names.
A dialogue will show Pages you manage that qualify to be merged. Select the Page(s) you wish to merge. If you're merging Pages with a location, they must have the same address information.

Don't promote your business on Facebook with an individual profile, convert it to a business page using the steps mentioned above. If you know someone who will be helped by this information, do not forget to share this article with them!

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About The Author

Prafull

Hi, I am Prafull co-founder of HireRabbit, an easy way to build employer presence and recruit on social networks. I share tips about making more out of recruiting on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. You can find me on LinkedIn, Google+ or Twitter, I would love to connect.

Comments

Mentinkacenty February 1, 2013 at 2:05 am

Thanks for sharing this prafull, Our company had a profile and later on we also created a page. I could convert the existing profile to a page but i am not able to merge it with the page we already have. Any help?
1. Prafull Article Author February 1, 2013 at 9:54 am
  
  Hi there, To merge 2 pages you need to have same name for both the pages, If the page you are merging to falls into places category you also need to have the same address. Let me know if it still doesn't work!
Annie February 13, 2013 at 3:14 pm

Hi!
I converted a profile into a page and now I´m not able to manage the admin roles. There is no admin for the page at the moment. What could I do, do you have any experience on this?

Thanks!
Annie
1. Prafull Article Author February 15, 2013 at 9:56 am
  
  Hi Annie, From the page admin panel you can navigate to Edit Page – Manage Admin Roles and add an admin for the page. Let me know if this doesn't work.
Michael Balicha May 28, 2013 at 1:10 am

So i have more than 200 facebook friends. I am looking to convert my profile into a business page. Am I able to change my profile name into the desired "business page name" prior to conversion? So that upon completion of conversion my friends become likes and my business page now reflects my new company name?

Thank!
Michael
1. Prafull Article Author May 31, 2013 at 2:26 pm
  
  Hi Michael, You can change the name of a facebook page which has fewer than 200 likes. So if your perosnal profile has more than 200 friends, change the name of your profile to desired business page name prior to conversion.
  1. Martin October 19, 2013 at 4:24 pm
    
    What if the desired business page name is ONLY ONE WORD? Is it possible to change the name to be only one word?
    
    I have many more than 200 friends, so will I not be able to change the page name after conversion?
    1. Prafull Article Author October 22, 2013 at 3:27 pm
      
      Hey Martin, Last i know of is you can change the page name if its below 200 likes, If its more than 200 you will not be able to change it. Maybe what you can try is changing the name of your profile to reflect your business name and then go about the conversion. Hope this helps!
suma July 16, 2013 at 5:50 pm

Thanx for sharing this post, was looking for so this. It has solved my problem
Kay September 5, 2013 at 1:39 am

My profile was forced to be converted to FB page but I am unable to download my messages.
How should I go about it?
Please help.
1. Prafull Article Author September 5, 2013 at 10:27 am
  
  Hi Kay, I don't think there is a way to download messages once you profile is converted to a page. But i would recommend you reach out to Facebook support once.
Ajay Rohila September 5, 2013 at 9:07 am

HI prafull…….I have completed 2 steps but in step 3 it is showing…at the time of migrate…

You are about to migrate your profile to a Page. This process is not reversible and you will not be able to access the following:◾
1 App

Whats this 1 App?
1. Prafull Article Author September 5, 2013 at 10:25 am
  
  Hi Ajay, Before migration you would have been using an app from your profile, once the profile is converted to a fan page you won't be able to access the app. Hope that answers your question.
Ka Gelo November 21, 2013 at 9:25 am

I have changed my name too many times apparently and cannot change my name any more, is there another way around it. I want to to covert my Personal Page to Business.

Thanks
1. Prafull Article Author December 3, 2013 at 9:46 am
  
  If you have less than 200 friends, you will be able to change the name after the conversion from profile to page.
Asjer Querido November 23, 2013 at 2:18 pm

Hi!

Our company did the whole migration thing but forgot to download the data beforehand! Is there a way to get the data back? Maybe if we turn the page back to a personal one?

Hope you can help.
1. Prafull Article Author December 3, 2013 at 9:47 am
  
  Hi Asjer, I don't think there is a way to do that after converting your profile to a page. I would suggest you contact facebook support once, to see if they can help you with it.
  
  Hope this helps!
Edba December 2, 2013 at 11:57 am

Hello,

I converted my profile into page, but it doesn't work now. When I do the search, I can find only the profile, and it says "The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed." So, the page doesn't exist.

Do you have any idea what' happening?

Best regards
1. Prafull Article Author December 3, 2013 at 9:50 am
  
  Hi, Seems like your profile didn't convert to a page due to some issue. Are you able to login to your profile? Can you provide some more info?
ankit December 28, 2013 at 10:35 pm

Hi Prafull

thanks for the information you've shared on the blog.

each time I try to convert my profile to a fb page, after completing all the necessary steps it leaves me with a pop-up message – Please use the same computer you used to login to your account in the past.

as a matter of fact it is the same computer I'm using. can you suggest me a solution please.
1. Prafull Article Author January 6, 2014 at 4:03 pm
  
  Hey Ankit, Not sure of what is happening in this case, I would suggest you to take it up with Facebook support. In the meantime if i get more info on it i will post it here. Thanks
David January 8, 2014 at 7:05 pm

Hi,

I currently have a business page and a personal page. My personal page has close to 3500 friends. Today, I migrated my personal page to a business page, and out of 3500 friends, I only have 115 likes. How do I correct this? Do the likes increase as facebook migrates my page, or is the process complete, and that's all i get? If so, how do i petition/contact facebook to fix this? 115 out of 3500 is a complete waste of time.

Thanks!
1. Prafull Article Author January 31, 2014 at 10:48 am
  
  Hi David, You should have had 3500 likes. You can find more information on Facebook support here -> https://www.facebook.com/help/220217228006012
Azim January 21, 2014 at 12:16 am

hi… once i have converted my personal face book page to a fan page… can i get my page back?
1. Azim January 21, 2014 at 12:19 am
  
  i dony need the data of pictures & etc… just my page with my friends? coz i forgot to download the data 🙁
  
  thank you very much
Rita Maria January 21, 2014 at 3:17 am

This was such a great tutorial!! Thank you for sharing! I've done all of this and it worked just like you explained. However now I see that clicking on my personal fb directly takes me to my page. When I'm on my page, I can no longer tag people like I used to. People that were friends and are now "fans"' is there any way to change this. I miss having my personal account just for this reason.
1. Prafull Article Author January 31, 2014 at 10:51 am
  
  Hi Rita, Once you have migrated it's not possible to go back. But you can have a personal profile for your usage and a page for your business.
Marsha Martin January 23, 2014 at 4:08 pm

Hello-
I have followed all of the steps to convert my personal page to a public page. I have downloaded all my info. Now can you please tell me how to re-add the info back to my new page?
Thanks
Jin Zhang January 29, 2014 at 11:57 pm

After I converted my personal profile to a page, I realized I no longer have access to my personal friends posts updates. I have nowhere I can post my family photos for my personal friends and see their posts within a personal circle.

How can I have a business pages and a personal profile at the same time so I can post business and personal content respectively on each?

Many thanks.
1. Prafull Article Author January 30, 2014 at 4:36 pm
  
  You won't have access to your personal posts after converting your profile to a page, you can create a separate personal account though.
jordan February 20, 2014 at 4:21 am

I followed all steps for converted, but my 1,000+ friends did not convert to likes and my page has zero likes! help!
1. Prafull Article Author March 24, 2014 at 10:02 am
  
  That's odd, you should raise this issue with facebook support jordan.
Art Andrews February 23, 2014 at 6:31 pm

Prafull,

Here is the problem/concern that I have. I have a personal profile that constantly hits on the 5000 friend limit. I also own a number of other business pages and groups. I really want to turn my personal page, with its 5000 friends into a fan/business page and then create another personal account for my close friends/family. But… if I do that, the new personal account will have no ownership nor be tied in any way to all the pages I own or to my newly converted fan page. I assume, I would then have account 1) which has no personal page, but just the personal page that was converted to a fan page along with its ownership of all my other pages and 2) the new personal page which isn't attached to anything and I would need to log in and log out to switch between them. Does that sounds correct? If so… what a pain. 🙁
1. Prafull Article Author March 24, 2014 at 10:06 am
  
  1.) You should create a new personal profile/account first (which you will utilize for your friends/family), and make that personal account as admin for all your pages and groups.
  2.) Convert your current personal account(5000 friends) to a page.
  3.) Once it becomes a page you can make your personal account (which we created in step 1) as an admin for this page.
Iftikhar Ahmed October 13, 2016 at 6:09 am

I have 20,000+ followers in my facebook profile. If I change my personal profile to a page. The followers will stay on the Page?
Scotty King January 7, 2017 at 7:41 am

dear Prafull,

I have migrated my profile to a Page. Will my profile page automatically delete after 14 days?

thank you for any help!
sincerely,
scotty
deepika singh January 14, 2020 at 6:21 am

Hello, Prafull
Thank you very much, you wrote a blog on this topic … I got to learn something new from this blog. I did not know how to convert a profile to a page..but I understood this from your blog .. Very well you explained it.