I started a Facebook page for my business many years ago. I had spent thousands of dollars running ad campaigns and gaining likes. My business was part of a worldwide franchise, so I was using their brand in my Facebook Page Name (which I recommend you don’t do, I found out it can be hard to change!).
When branching out on my own, I wanted to keep the page, and the thousands of followers I had gained through my campaigns and years of running my business. I thought it would be simple enough, follow the Facebook Help instructions and simply request a name change.
Here are the instructions on Facebook to change your page name.
How do I change my Page’s name?
You’ll need to be an admin to request a change to your Page’s name.
To request a change to your Page’s name:
- Click About on the left side of your Page
- Click Edit Page Info
- Enter a new Page name and click Save Changes
- Review your request and click Request Change
Seems simple enough, right?
I soon found out… not so simple!
Every time I requested a new name, it would be rejected. After 3 attempts I decided to reach out to my network of professionals in the digital marketing/web space and even they were not sure what to do. Facebook make it extremely hard to change your page name, and even harder to contact someone to find out why!
I turned to Google for answers and I found all sorts of info on the web…
In the e-web marketing blog they say;
“Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that. In fact, for those of us with over 200 ‘likes’, changing your Facebook Page name is not an easy task. The Facebook Help Centre doesn’t provide much assistance either, with the only answer to changing your name being that, well, you can’t. This is clearly a big problem for businesses that have spent time and effort building their fan base. Indeed, many businesses I have spoken to have had to create an entirely new page from scratch and while they can ask existing fans to ‘like’ the new page, the conversion rate of an attempt such as that is slim”
I came across another article on the www.paperstreet.com blog.
The title of the article and the very first sentence had me hooked!
It’s easier than you think
“Updating information on your Twitter and Facebook page is generally pretty easy”
only to be disappointed as a read on that this person didn’t have the secret formula either!
“Changing your business name on your Facebook page usually requires approval from Facebook before it can take effect. Your claim may be denied if the proposed new name is not close enough to the current name or violates any of their page guidelines. If your Facebook page has not been used and has very few likes, the easiest thing may be to create a new page with the new name. However, this is never recommended for active pages with a large amount of likes and engagement.
For more information on how to change your page name, check out Facebook’s support section.”
Well that was disappointing!
I had resigned myself to the fact that they were not going to let me change the name of my page and I decided to just start over. I set up a new Facebook Page using my new company name, it was disappointing but I didn’t think I had any other options.
A Breakthrough!
Although I had already set up a new page and I was migrating my followers from my old Facebook page to my new Facebook page as best as I could (not easy). I decided it was still worthwhile to try and work out how to change the name of my previous page, as I could still benefit from the years of hard work, not to mention the money I had spent gaining likes.
I am not one to give up easily so I started doing more research, I even contacted other Facebook page owners that had successfully changed their name, only to learn that they had gone through weeks of rejection and had no ‘secret formula’. It just seemed that they lucked it!
I just kept trying different names, and then one day… it happened. They allowed the change! I have no idea why, I cannot tell you what the secret formula was, all I can say is that sometimes persistence pays off.
I recommend you just keep making requests until you get approved. Of course, you will need to come up with a dozen or so acceptable new names, so you can try different variations.
As the saying goes, “The squeaky wheel gets the oil” and in my case, I think my repetitive requests is what got me the name change in the end. Hopefully you don’t have to put in as many requests as I did (9 in total) but if that what it takes I guess it’s what you’ll have to do!
Social Media should be one of the easiest ways for you to generate more sales… so why are you struggling to make it work?
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About the Author
Ben Fewtrell is a sought-after Business Coach, Keynote Speaker and trainer who has featured in Virgin’s Inflight Magazine and Entertainment Portal, SKY Business and “Secrets of Top Business Builders Exposed”. He is also the host of the popular Business Brain Food Podcast where he interviews leading experts on anything and everything business.
