You may remember that I wrote a blog a while back about why you should set your business up on Facebook as a “fan page” instead of a friend account. And, you may remember my follow up blog about HOW to transition over, where I detailed steps on how to complete the transformation from a friend account to a fan page. These steps were very long and tedious, but at the time was the only way to make the switch.

However, I discovered yesterday that there is an easier way. Before, businesses were setting up accounts incorrectly as friend pages. Often times, they built a large friend base before realizing their mistake. However, they were not converting them to fan pages because the process was so difficult and tedious. Facebook FINALLY woke up and realized they needed to make it easier to make the transition from a friend page to a fan page. And thus, I give you your one click option to make the switch….. WAIT though, before you click, read my notes about the conversion first so you know what to expect.

A few things to keep in mind:

  • All of your CONFIRMED friends will be transferred to fans. For the sake of transparency, you may want to let your “friends” know you plan to do this before you pull the trigger, and remind them after you’ve completed the conversion. Pending friend requests will be lost.
  • Only your profile pictures will transfer over. If you have more albums you’d like to save, you’ll need to download them from Facebook first. To do this, go to your Account settings page and then click the “learn more” link beside “Download Your Information” on the “settings” page. From there, click the “Download” button. Once they are downloaded, you can re-upload them to your new fan page once the change is complete. Or, if you have these backed up somewhere, skip the download step and just re-upload them.
  • Once you convert, there is NO going back to a profile again (shouldn’t be an issue).
  • After you convert, I’d recommend adding additional administrators to your page to ensure that multiple people can access it. The original log-in you used for the friend account will be migrated over to be the new administrator of the new page.
  • There are A TON of benefits to converting to a fan page from a friend account: Your new fan page comes packed with valuable insights and expanded capabilities to help you grow your business!

To make the transition, visit http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=19691

OK, so I can’t say that I’ve done this yet because our client’s pages are obviously set up correctly as fan pages. However, if you go through this experience, I’d love to hear how it goes. Oh, and if you are a business who set up friend page instead of a fan page, you no longer have an excuse to switch over. 🙂

~Christina Torri, Social Media Coordinator, Mindscape at Hanon Mckendry