Remember when colleges and universities were freaking out over Facebook’s deployment of “community” pages – those bland pages of aggregated content that did nothing to build community?
Freak out no more.
It turns out Facebook doesn’t hate your brand as much as we may have thought. The social media behemoth last weekend started allowing organizations to reclaim community pages and merge them with existing pages.
The process is pretty simple and straightforward. Navigate to the “community” page in question and click “Is this your Page?” A pop-up window will ask if you’d like to merge the page with the page you already administer. It looks a little like this:
Facebook will then as offer users the opportunity to merge as many as five “community” pages with your already-existing page, but with friendly reminder in the help section:
Once you have submitted the request to merge the Community Page(s) to your authenticated Page, Facebook will review your request and verify that the merge request is for two similar entities. For example, the Community Page for Nike could merge with the authenticated Nike Page, but a merge request for Nike Basketball or Nike Shoes to merge to the general Nike Page would not be approved.
Please keep in mind that the review process may take a few days, and that we may contact you if we need additional information. If we approve the request, anyone who has “Liked” the Community Page(s) will be combined and connected to your authenticated Page.
It would help to have the URLs of all your “community” pages handy to complete the following before submitting it:
It took six months for Facebook to relinquish its control of these community pages. It took me about three minutes to reclaim them in the name of the university I represent. We’ll see how long it takes for request to be granted.
In the meantime, I say thank you, Facebook. Thank you for not hating our brand … but what took you so long?
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This is great news, but I continue to wonder (perhaps futilely) why Facebook handles things so inefficiently. Fan Pages, Community Pages and Place Pages were all running about independently, and the mechanisms to merge them or unite them under one owner is scattered and not completely obvious. Perhaps there is some bizarre Facebook logic at work, but it just seems odd and not very productive (to the user or to Facebook).
Also, with community pages, does that mean if a user lists our university in their profile as something they “like,” will it go to *our* managed page when someone clicks the link?
I went through the process yesterday, so far nothing obvious has happened. It took six months for Facebook to take the next step in allowing brands to claim a page. We’ll see how long before making that claim actually results in anything.
Have you seen anything happen yet beyond making the claim? I suspect the initial volume of claims is so high that if they are doing any sort of manual review, it may take a while.
I’m more curious as to how the pages will be merged. “Official” pages don’t show related posts the same way “community” pages do, and that is perhaps a benefit to some. Merging the pages may result in some undesired consequences.
Oh, Facebook. At the very least you keep a person wondering!
When I click the “Is this your page” link, I am presented with prompts to “claim” the page rather than “merge”. Is the first screenshot in your post the first thing that popped up when you clicked “is this your page”? Is your page “authenticated” do you know? If so I wonder if that is the magic piece of this puzzle.
I created a Community Page for my organization, ignorant to the difference between Community Pages and Official Pages. Since then, I have acquired quite a few fans and have posted quite a bit of content, but I am unable to utilize the valuable features of a Official Page, such as a customized landing page. I have, however, created a vanity url for my Community Page, and I have begun advertising my vanity url.
If I create an Official Page and then merge my preexisting community page to it, I have the following two questions:
1. Can I keep my vanity url from Community Page?
2. Will all my content show up on my new Official Page?
Thanks!
@AF I’d be leary of making the merge, especially considering the following: http://www.1goodreason.com/blog/blog/2010/12/03/friday-facebook-fiasco/
Thanks. I’ll hold off. It’s scary to think that we could lose our content.
My big thing is that I’d like to be an Official Page, so I can capitalize on its advantages over Community Pages.
Do you know of a way to convert over to an Official Page?
We’re having the same issue as brandon. When I go to the community page, it doesn’t give me the option to merge a page – just to claim it. Any idea why this is happening?
The “Is this your page” link is no longer available on Community Pages. If anyone has new information on how to get rid of them, please update! Thanks!