Facebook will now allow you to change your “profile” into a page!
As you may know, Facebook “profiles” are for individual people. “Pages” are for businesses and organizations.
Having a profile for anything other than an individual person is a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. If you don’t convert your profile to a Page, you risk permanently losing access to the profile and all of your content. This means they can delete your profile, at any time, without warning, for being in violation–even if you aren’t doing anything “wrong.” It happened to a rescue in Oklahoma just last month.
But NOW, if you accidentally set up your Facebook presence as a “profile,” you can switch it over easily, AND all your “friends” will automatically become “fans”!! Pretty exciting.
So, here is what you need to know, because (as with all things Facebook) it’s definitely possible to mess this up!
What will transfer over?
Right now, ALL your friends will become fans, and it will keep your same profile picture. That’s IT. So if you have notes, photos, videos, etc. it will NOT copy those over–UNLESS you do a couple extra steps, which I’m going to outline for you below.
Is it permanent? Can you switch back?
Yes, it’s permanent. No, you can’t switch back.
So how do you do it?
If you have extra content on your profile, like notes and other photos (besides your profile photo), you can easily download this to your computer, and then re-upload it once you convert your profile to a page. So you have to save this information first. If you just recently created your profile, you don’t need to worry about this.
To do this, Watch the video below or follow these steps:
- Click on Account Settings (upper right corner).
- Click on “learn more” next to “Download Your Information.”
- Click on “Download.”
- They will send you an email with a link to download the file when it’s ready.
DO NOT start converting your profile to a page until you’ve downloaded that file!!
So, if you’re ready to convert your profile to a page, click here to start. (the link will open in a new window so you can still see the instructions here)
Are you not sure what kind of page you need to create? Watch this video to understand what kind of Facebook page is right for you.
BE SURE you are logged in to the account that you want to convert! If you maintain your own personal account, plus one for your shelter, be sure you’re logged into the right account, because there’s no going back.
This account you’re logged into will become a Facebook “Business Account,” and will be the admin for the new page that it’s creating. So now you an add other people as admins to your page. It’s really important to have other people as admins on your page, age least one other person, just in case something happens to you. So make sure you set up some other admins on the page!
If you’re having trouble, comment below or on my Facebook page, and I’ll be glad to help!
Emily Garman is COO of 
Petar, yes–you can do that. You can convert your profile into a page, then, if the two pages have the same exact name, you could merge them into 1 page. However, if you don’t have a profile, you’ll have the issue of not having any admins on that page. Once you convert your profile to a page, “you” (the profile you created) no longer exist on Facebook. So there is no profile to be the administrator of your page. So before you do the conversion, at least put someone else as an admin on your page. Otherwise you will have an orphan page, with no admins, and it’s impossible to edit the page at all in that situation.
Hi,
I’ve followed the steps, did the download and converted.
BUT I have issues on my page display.
I only have a facebook, settings and logout tab on top bar.
No Search bar or messages tab, friend request or notification icon.
I cannot see my friends feeds.
It’s as if my page is just dead.
I only see a couple of tabs below my PF pic and the the friends that turned into a like this.
I can’t click on a friend or even see a friends list.
Can you assist me please or tell me how to contact FB direct.
Thank you
This sounds like a bug; report it here: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=wall_bug
How do i go back from page to profile??
Hi Emily,
Do you happen to know – is there a way for me to do this if I already have a business page? Or will I need to start from scratch and rebuild my business page. Thanks so much for posting this!
-Kelly
Hi Kelly–You can still convert your profile into a page, but then you would have two pages. You MIGHT be able to merge those pages, but I wouldn’t count on it. (if you couldn’t, you could just delete one page). I think if you already have a business page that is successful, you should keep that. If you don’t want your profile anymore for some reason, you can just delete your profile. BUT, make sure that profile is not the only admin on your Facebook page–otherwise your page will be left “admin-less” when you delete the profile!
Sorry, Michael–I wish you had watched the video all the way through! There’s no way to go back to a profile from a page. You’ll need to create a new profile and start over.
Emily is there a way around the facebook requirement to be on a computer that has been used for facebook browsing (I am assuming they are connecting accounts to certain computers as I am doing this for someone else on my computer)? I suppose I could use his computer but it is much easier if I can do this on my own. Any ideas? Thank you by the way for posting this information…very helpful indeed!
Hi Wendy, This is a very frustrating thing; I have encountered the same problem myself. It seems to be totally random. Facebook “recognizes” the IP address of the computer you usually login with, kind of like your bank website. So if you try to login from a different computer, it senses that it COULD be a security risk. This is good, in theory…it protects your account. But what it SHOULD do at this point is ask you your security questions, so you can verify that you are legitimately accessing your account. (in your case, you could ask your friend to answer these security questions so you can access her account from your computer). But what is happening to you, it seems, is that it is NOT prompting you for those questions. So there’s no way for you to login. You could try reporting a bug here–perhaps you will get some resolution this way? It’s the only thing I know to tell you!! Good luck. http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=optin_notifications
I have been experiencing the same issue for quite some time as well. Trying to convert my client’s personal page to a business/fan page, and every time I get the error message that I can only do this on a computer that is regularly used to login to FB. I have even sat next to my client at his computer at his office and had him attempt to convert (using the regular computer he uses) and this error keeps occurring. If anyone has a solution, please let me know. And I have have sent bug reports to FB and literally have been ignored by them.