Facebook just released a tool that helps you migrate your profile account to a Facebook Pages. Why would anyone want to do that?
Well, some people are using their Facebook Profile Accounts (meant for personal use for friends and family) for their businesses. And this is against Facebook’s terms and conditions (this video explains why).
You can see this as Facebook “helping” businesses make that transition by introducing this tool. More likely, Facebook is shifting users towards terms of service compliance, as representing a business or other non-human entity with a profile instead of a Page is prohibited.
With a Facebook Page businesses and public figures can run contests, promote your products or services and collect email addresses using email management systems. Using the Facebook migration tool, your personal friends instantly becomes fans of the new Facebook Page; so businesses do not have to start a Page from scratch with zero fans.
However, there are some issues you will want to note before migrating your profile account to a page. Among them, your vanity URL may no longer work, for example, if your personal account was www.Facebook.com/janedoe, once this converts to a page, you will not be able to use www.Facebook.com/janedoe for your personal account again. There are other implications and you want to get more information before making the migration.
Now, just when I was going to publish this post, I found out that Facebook has disabled the migration tool. This is about a day after the migration tool has been released.
What does this tell us? That things change very fast in the social media space, especially with Facebook. This tool has not yet been officially launched but many were already testing it and within the space of a day or two the migration tool is disabled.
Not because Facebook doesn’t want to encourage the use of Pages, more likely that they are fine tuning the tool with the feedback they received. You’ll want to stay on top of these changes. And one thing is clear though that Facebook is serious about enforcing their terms and conditions.
So if you are using your profile account for business use, if you are doing any sort of promotion using your personal account, you will want to start a page instead. I see more local businesses and public figures in Kuala Lumpur setting up Facebook pages as they begin to see the power of social marketing.
You can set up a page for your own business or have someone else do that for you. If you are interested to find out more or outsource this piece of work you can contact us for a free marketing consult. We can discuss your total marketing plan tapping into social media, local and mobile marketing plan. And if you like to receive updates on changes in the marketing space, you can sign up for our complimentary newsletter here.
About Louisa Chan
Louisa is an Author, Content Strategist, Coach and Trainer. She helps you build rewarding businesses so you have the time to serve bigger purposes.
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