By Princess Jones
Facebook pages for your small business are generally pretty easy to get. You just click button, fill out the information, and get to posting. But when you have more than one Facebook page for your business, things can get a little complicated.
You wonder how someone ends up with multiple business Facebook pages and the answer is that it depends. If you have brick-and-mortar business, Facebook sometimes creates a new page each time someone checks into your business. Others end up with multiple pages because they had two brands that evolved into one. Or maybe you acquired a business and then absorbed it into your existing one.
Whatever the reason, having multiple pages to manage can be cumbersome and ineffective. If you want to streamline the process, you can merge Facebook pages if you fit the eligibility requirements.
Eligibility
Facebook doesn’t just let anyone merge pages. The first requirement is that you have to be an admin on both pages. The pages also have to have similar names and represent the same brands. This is where most mergers get tripped up. The guidelines are vague but it seems like it must be obvious to the reviewer that the brands are the same.
You’ll have a better chance if the two pages have the same headers and profile images. Make the information in the About section match, too. Pull up each page on separate tabs and copy and paste the info from one page to another.
Finally, change the name of the pages so that they match. (Keep in mind that you can only change your page name so many times so if you can’t do this, just make the names as similar as possible.)
Some Caveats
Before you decide to merge your Facebook pages, there are a couple of things to consider. Merging pages can’t be undone. It’s a permanent solution so think twice about whether your problem is just a temporary one.
Also, everyone who likes both pages will be notified of the merger, though it may take a few days. This is similar to when you change the name of a page. Honestly, this shouldn’t be much of a concern because the pages should represent the same brand.
Content from the merged page will be deleted–including your posts and pictures. (If you need to download content prior to the merger, you can do so by going to the setting page.
Requesting the Merge
Start by going to facebook.com/pages/merge. (You may have to log in again to verify your identity.) Use the drop down menus to choose the two pages that you want to merge. Click “Continue.”
And then you wait. Facebook will review your request but the review is manual so it won’t be instantaneous. You get a form message with the decision in a day or so. If your request was granted you’ll see that your smallest page is now gone. If your request was not granted, you’ll have to come up with another solution, which may include a manual transfer.