Facebook Now Allows Personal Profiles To Be Converted Into Business Pages
For the first time, Facebook now allows personal user profiles to be converted into official business Pages, turning all their friends into fans. The “Profile To Business Page Migration” tool will help people who either created a personal profile for a business before Pages existed, or accidentally started accumulating fans as friends instead of Likes.
The migration tool should come as exciting news to business owners struggling with the decision of whether to continue a profile with its limited capabilities, or start a Page from scratch with zero fans. Facebook has not formally announced the tool, but it appears to be available worldwide.
Facebook has added a new Help Center article on converting profiles to Pages with details about the migration process. Any user with a verified account can use the migration tool. Their profile photo will be transferred, and all their friends will be converted into users who Like their Page.
All other profile content, including additional photos and wall posts will disappear and all Like connections to other Pages will be severed. Therefore, anyone using the migration tool should consider using Facebook’s Download Your Information tool first to back up their content. It appears that uers can rename their new Page during the migration process giving them a chance at rebranding.
Converted Pages don’t appear in the interests section of users who were previously friends with the profile and were migrated, limiting the potential for the tool to be used for bait-and-switch. Also, users are not notified if one of their friendships has been converted to a Like.
Migration will be especially useful for users who initially planned to use their profile to promote a small business, such as an event promotion company or consultancy, but eventually hit Facebook’s 5000 friend limit. It will also allow those promoting a business with a personal profile to begin using third-party Page applications that allow them to set up a Like-gated landing page, run contests, collect email addresses, and recreate functionality from websites.
The tool also allows Facebook to gracefully shift users towards terms of service compliance, as representing a business or other non-human entity with a profile instead of a Page is prohibited.
There is no way to convert a Page to a user profile, so users should be sure they want to migrate before doing so. They won’t be able to write on the walls of friends or see their updates in the news feed once they become a Page. Facebook could do more to warn users of this during the migration process, but overall, the option is a huge win for would-be Page admins.
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