Users who want to migrate from a traditional Facebook Profile to a Facebook Page might want to think twice, or even thrice, before making the leap. The new tool is intended to help brands, local business, organizations or public figures create a new Facebook page while still bringing their friends (ie, fans) along with them.
It's great that Facebook is offering users this tool, but those interested in the migration should proceed with extreme caution. I unintentionally committed Facebook suicide earlier this afternoon when I participated in the process myself. What I had hoped would be a way for me to create a fan page and then re-establish a new personal account has instead turned into a bit of a technical, and social media-induced nightmare.
Understanding the Target Audience
Facebook told me that this is a tool meant for businesses, not individuals. The company doesn't encourage users to convert their profiles to Pages because content doesn't move over, only connections.
Just looking at the page for the new migration tool, Facebook makes this point clear, but the site isn't explicit about what this actually means.
Here is what converting a page actually means, in terms of user content:
- Only your profile photo transfers, no other profile photos or intricate profile information carries over.
- Any uploaded photos, wall posts, comments and likes disappear.
- Facebook messages disappear.
- Any applications linked to a Facebook account lose that connection.
- The username you have on your profile may or may not transfer over. In my case, it didn't, and nowhttp://www.facebook.com/christina.warren serves up a big fat, not found page, rather than my profile. The kicker? The name has been "used" so I can't claim it again.
- The resulting account is known as a Business Account and can only be used to create and manage pages, not to engage in personal contact. This means that even if you do create a brand new Facebook profile (more on that later), you have to consistently switch between the two accounts for different tasks.
The real trouble, however, came when I attempted to re-create a personal profile page.
Personal Profile Hell
I have been using Facebook since 2005. In that time, I've amassed far too many "friends" and had over 800 pending friend requests in my queue. That was the reason I wanted to convert my account to a public page. My thought was, if I can make my main page and point of contact public, I can have a more private regular profile and use Facebook like a normal person again.
This, was not to be. Forgetting the actual concerns with managing a public page in this way, for starters, re-creating my personal profile page required a number of new hoops.
The first problem was that I could not longer associate myself with any networks or e-mail addresses in use by the other account. That meant I couldn't show that I work at Mashable and I couldn't add my cell phone to my new profile. Removing those e-mails and networks from the Business Account was that workaround, but it creates more of a problem in maintaining separate pages.
Second, and this is the real issue in my case, I can't even send friend requests to half of my friend or even some family members because Facebook thinks that I'm spamming people I don't actually know. I can't do anything to convince them that I do know said individuals and instead will have to harangue my friends and family to add the new me as a friend.
Third, even though I can switch between acting as the Christina Warren that is my personal profile and the Christina Warren that is a fan, because all of my social accounts are linked to a now defunct personal account, I have to reset every tool I have used that integrates with Facebook. I was under the impression that as a Page, I could still like a share content to that page's feed without having a problem. Not only can I not do that, if I want to like or share content on my personal account, I need to be logged into a totally different setup.
Don't Try This at Home
As usual, I should have listened to Jeffrey Zeldman. Had I seen the great web standards guru's blog post from March 5, 2011, I might have avoided this entire mess. Zeldman also underwent the process of converting a personal profile to a public figure page and met with the same set of problems that I am now facing.
Fortunately for Zeldman, a kind anonymous Facebook engineer was able to reverse his account to working order. Facebook makes it clear that once the conversion is done, it's done. So for me, that means that I will have to try to figure out a way to manage the hell I have created for myself, all in the interest of trying to better separate my personal and professional Facebook presences. (An aside, if anyone at Facebook wants to throw a good gesture my way, holla!)
I can't say I wasn't warned, but the reality of the situation differs so dramatically from even my worst-case scenario thoughts that this is a process I can only recommend to users who created regular Facebook accounts specifically for a business or public figure and that never had a real personal connection of any type associated to that account.
The real solution, sadly, for individuals looking to migrate, is to create a Facebook page and then try to convince friends to fan that page and look at it as a source of news.
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