Taking Control: Convert Your Facebook Community Page Back!
Taking Control:
Convert Your Facebook Community Page Back!
Something is happening to many Facebook Pages this Spring, as Timeline has rolled out and it is confusing Facebook Admins:
Facebook Business Pages are being converted to Facebook Community Pages!
In 2010, Facebook automatically created 6.5 million Community Pages.
Mashable published an article on Facebook Community Pages on April 1, 2010 and had this to say:
The new feature looks a whole lot like the Facebook Pages businesses and brands create, but there’s one key difference: It’s for the hordes of “unofficial” Pages that have been created by users in support of topics or causes.
There’s a big difference in functionality too –- Facebook says that if a page becomes popular enough, administration will be handed over to the Facebook community. In other words, Community Pages become a whole lot like a wiki once they reach a certain threshold.
If you want to learn more about Facebook Community Pages, follow this link to Facebook.
Social Media Examiner dove even deeper into the subject and classified Community Pages as either user-administered Community Pages or Facebook-administered Community Pages. Find a very comprehensive blog post about Community Pages.
Oh oh! Seriously? I admit I wasn’t paying much attention when this feature came out in 2010!
So fast forward 2 years and the roll out of Timeline for Pages…
Here is what made me pay attention to this feature real quick!
Last Friday as I was meeting with a new client, Linda of ‘Zumba Fitness With Linda C‘, an interesting question came up:
Why did her Facebook Business Page (recently) convert to a Community Page?
And should she keep it that way?
Has this happened to you? Did your page convert, too?
I was able to help her convert her Community Page back to a Facebook (Business) Page.
I thought that was the end of that…
No. Not really!
You see or hear something once and think…a fluke
You see or hear something a second time and think…a coincidence
You see or hear something a third time and think…a charm?
No way.
Third time means something’s going on!
Because…
Another client called. Same issue.
Gail and Al Cashman of Success by Design had a similar question about the same feature:
Each time they logged onto Facebook as their Facebook Page, a notice flashed on the screen, asking them to permanently convert to a Community Page. They wanted to know if they should make that move. My advice was ‘No!’ The same easy solution took care of the annoying flashing message and restored their page back to its original state.
And then I saw a Facebook Post about the same issue.
Seems as if many people are confused!
Here is what I found, and how I restored both of my clients’ (user-administered) Facebook Community Pages back to regular Facebook (Business) Pages.
STEP 1
Go to the Admin panel of your page
STEP 2
Click on the toggle feature next to ‘manage’ and click on ‘edit page’.
STEP 3
Scroll down (on the left side of your next screen) and click on ‘Basic Information’
STEP 4
Under ‘Official Page’, on both of my clients’ pages I found information linking to a larger Facebook Page. I simply deleted that link and their pages were converted back to their original state.
All three of the cases I’ve seen in the last week involved this ‘Official Page’ link.
YOUR TURN
Have you found your Facebook Business Page has turned into a Community Page?
Do you want to convert back to a regular Facebook Page, or are you happy with the ‘status quo’?
Please share your recent experience with Community Pages with us!
About Dorien Morin-van Dam
Dorien is owner and social media marketer at More In Media. Dorien enjoys social media training, educating and consulting and is passionate about teaching social media to small business owners. In her spare time, Dorien manages five kids, two dogs and a husband. She runs marathons and loves to bake, travel and read.
May 16, 2012 Community Pages, Facebook, Fan Page
Dorien, I really like this post. I don’t usually care for how-to blog posts, but this one is clever, relevant, solves a problem and also highlights your expertise. I checked and my page has not converted, but if it does, I know how to fix it. Thank you!
Thank you Sherry!
That means a lot.
And my How-To posts are geared towards my clients, not my colleagues, so it would make sense they do not appeal to you.
Fondly, Dorien.
Hey, I did not mean your how-to blog posts, I meant in general. I am sure your how-tos rock as well, like this one.
Sherry Nouraini recently posted..3 examples for why a traditional marketer makes a lousy social media consultant
I got it…no worries!
I love the interaction on the blog and sometimes I have trouble reading other people’s blog’s too.
Everybody has their own preference, for sure.
I read many, many blogs a week and I often do not read all the ‘fine print’ but read the general outline.
Some are boring, some are unclear, some are badly written…
I took NO offense!
Fondly, Dorien.
I appreciate the time and effort it took for you to research and write this. I’ll go and check my own pages and see if this glitch happened to any of them.
Hasn’t been an issue for me but SO appreciate the info (just in case!)
Thanks, have not experienced that issue yet, but will attempt to remember what to do if I do have it.
Leanne Hoagland-Smith
Thanks so much! I was able to reconvert it! I had to leave the field blank for it to work.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Hi and thanks for your helpful post. We were able to help our customer with your guidelines. The problem was that they could not post offers to their 50 000 fans since the page was defined as community page. Easy fix, just needed to know what to do. This also reveals one big difference between community page and business page. Offers are allowed only on normal page.
I am so glad you found this article helpful! Thank you for letting us know.
~Dorien
I appreciate your coverage of this topic. My business’s Facebook page is currently listed as a community page but unfortunately your advice did not solve my issue, as it is not currently linked to a larger Facebook Page. I also tried to follow steps listed on Facebook’s help page here https://www.facebook.com/help/151753258228443/ but I do not see an “Official Page” section listed on my business’ basic information page.
Any thought? Thanks!