Do I need to convert my personal profile to a Facebook Page?

It’s against the Facebook Policy to use your personal account to sell products or services. Next, FB takes down your account, you could permanently lose access to your account if you don’t convert it to a Page. On the other hands, if you want to make your personal profile more secure, migrating to a Facebook page is the good option.

There are many benefits to converting your profile to a Page:

• You still keep your personal profile to connect with your friends as usual. Moreover, you will have your new Fan page where you can promote your posts, promote your products (in case you want to sell products/services) and reach more followers.
• You’ll have access to Page insights, where you can see metrics like which posts people engage with and visitor demographics like age and location
• You can assign Page roles that let you give other people access to edit your Page
• You can create ads and boost posts to your target audiences

Let’s go through the important changes that take place when you migrate:

• You’ll have a separate personal account and a Fan page after conversion
• Make sure you go through the all the steps, then Facebook will transfer your profile picture and cover photo to the new Fan page.
• The name on your personal account will become the Page’s name
• Tools to help you move info from your profile to the Page will be available for 14 days after conversion
• You can choose friends from your profile to automatically like your new Page, but remember that posts on your profile won’t be carried over to your new Page and your current followers (who are not under your friend’s list) will not transfer to your new page
• You can manage the Page and your personal profile from your personal account simultaneously.

Pros

• With your new Fan page, you will comply with FB rules if you want to sell products/service. There is no doubt if you sell the products on your personal profile, FB will take down your account since it violates the policy
• You can promote your products/services to reach more people or promote your personal brands or posts by running Ad Campaigns. In contrast, Ad functions are not available on your personal profile.
• Since business accounts cannot be found in a search, business owners can be rest assured of their privacy needs being taken care of.
• If you chose to migrate, all your friends are converted to fans as “Likes”. This is a huge bonus as you don’t need to start from ground zero and build Likes. For example, my current friend list is about 4000 friends, after migrating to my new Fan page, I get 4000 Likes immediately without seeking the Likes at the beginning.
• A Facebook business page serves as a better brand ambassador for your business and your personal brand name.

Cons

• There is no doubt that you can’t add or accept friends on your new Fan page. If a Facebook user wants to get associated with your page, they should like your Fan page
• If you migrate, you lose your profile data such as Post, personal information, list of groups and so on. Though you can back up the same, it’s still a risk. For example, after migrating, even though I transferred my photos, there are no photos move from my personal profile to my Fan page

How to convert your personal account to a Page.
Go to Create a Facebook Page Based on Your Profile
Click Get Started and follow the on-screen instructions. Make sure to go through all the steps to complete the migration

I’d recommend Likeable Social Media,The New York Times and Today Bestseller  to anyone who engages in social media or any marketer who is using or thinking about using social media to help build their brand. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Dave Kerpen’s “Likeable Social Media”. It is an easy read, full of examples that helps business leaders frame out the key elements and activities for marketing, branding, and customer engagement. It is full of insights and examples that need to be written down and part of your checklist.

Likeable Social Media is hands-down one of best marketing books I have read in a very long time. There are a lot of  simply terrific advice on how to make the most of social networking in order to improve your business. This book is a great handbook on Social Media and its lessons are applicable to Business as well as Non-Profit institutions and higher education.