Facebook migration and merging … made easier!

Facebook personal profiles are exactly that profiles for people.  We all know we shouldn’t use them to represent a business – 1) as it’s actually a breach of the T&C’s you sign up to when you join Facebook and 2) they don’t have the capability Business pages/Fanpages/Like pages (delete as appropriate) to reach your target audience.

But we all did it in the beginning or have had a dabble  … 4 years ago when I started using Facebook to build my business I had a personal profile called “Charlie Moo’s” I had 300 odd friends – who weren’t my actual friends, I never shared personal information with them just Moo related facts.   This profile has been “shut down” or deactivated for 2 years now.   I was doing some research for a client on how to “merge” and “migrate” Facebook accounts and thought I’d see if my deactivated account could be resurrected and merged.

So here is the basic idea – you “migrate” the personal account into a Business account.  This leaves you with 2 business pages, which need merging together into 1 page.  Voilà! 

Sounds easy right?
Well it wasn’t! So I’m glad I was actually able to have a go otherwise I’d struggle to understand what complications there were.

  1. My account had been deactivated for so long it would NOT allow a migration from profile to page.  I didn’t want to start using the profile again though – I think I had it reactivated for about 1 month before I was able to migrate.  During this time I accepted all the friends requests (very important!!  This is the whole reason to migrate & merge). As this profile was admin on Charlie Moo’s Business Page/Fanpage I used it as the entry there.  So I could continue working and not have to post things on the profile.  I also checked all the emails and notifications.
  2. Migration – this was relatively easy – I followed this link which asked me to create a page as per usual – however the name was already there – Charlie Moo’s.  There was a warning that most of the content would be lost and all that you are taking is the contacts and check ins and I had to pop in my password etc … but eventually I was in what looked like your regular fanpage/business page.
  3. THIS NEXT STEP IS IMPORTANT – go into “edit page” and add your PERSONAL PROFILE email as admin – so in my case Joanne Dewberry.  You should see your profile pic pop up as admin.
  4. LOG OUT
  5. Log in now as your personal profile – you should notice now yo can use Facebook as 2 pages with the same name.  (ie. in my case 2 Charlie Moo’s) – Go to the page that has the MOST number of likes.
  6. This is the easy bit! Go to edit page, click on resources on the left hand side.
  7. 2nd down should say “merge pages” – now you have the option to merge the two pages of the same name together.  There will be a general warning etc. The merge may not happen straight away – you might find you still have 2 pages, to check that it’s in-process go back in to the resources tab and you will see the MERGE option has disappeared.

It’s a very fiddly and annoying process BUT one that you only have to do ONCE! I gained 127 new likes once the 2 pages had been merged and as these people were actually Charlie Moo’s friends I know they are my target audience.

As usual feedback is welcome and if you are having any difficulties do leave me a comment or drop me an email and I’ll see what I can do.

 

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4 Comments

  1. Lesley Johnston-Börs
    January 14, 2013 / 10:01 am

    Before I try this out do you know if it works merging two Fanpages with different names ie I have an old fanpage easytoddler and would like to transfer my fans over to online-mama. Would this work?

    • Joanne
      Author
      January 14, 2013 / 10:09 am

      No I went into JoanneDewberry.co.uk and the merge tab isn’t there as there isn’t another page sharing my name. So what I suggest you do is change the EasyToddler name to Online Mama. You can do this in the basic edit info section. Once they share the same name you should be able to merge. It make take a day or two for the merge button to appear. Let me know how you get on.

  2. Lisa Tarcy
    April 30, 2013 / 8:19 pm

    I am trying to migrate a profile called Cleveland APL into a page called Cleveland Animal Protective League. I have not turned the profile into a page yet, as I am afraid they won’t merge because they do not have the same name.

    Will this be an issue for me? Is there a solution?

    Thanks for your time,
    Lisa

    • April 30, 2013 / 8:45 pm

      Hi lovely it is easier to merge pages with the same name I did Lesley’s by changing the OLD page to the same name as the page she wanted to keep. If I was you I would migrate the profile into a business page then change the name to match the page then merge both pages. I hope this helps feel free to email me joanne@joannedewberry.co.uk am happy to help. If this technique to do it yourself doesn’t work you are able to request facebook too but they are slow x