Tag Archives: Facebook Page

How To Merge Facebook Pages With Facebook Places

Have you noticed duplicate listings for your business on Facebook? You may have a page that you manage, but you’ve also noticed that there’s a “Facebook Place” with your address where people are checking in and Liking that location instead of your business page. How can you merge the two so that all the interaction is going to the same place? Here’s how.

Some things you should do first:

  • Ensure that you are an Admin (or “Manager”) of your Facebook Business or Brand Page.
  • Be logged in to your PERSONAL account. You should be “using Facebook” as yourself, not your business.

Also, here’s a quick explanation of Places vs Pages: a “Page” is what was formally known as a “Fan Page.” It looks like a Facebook profile page and is typically created and moderated by the business itself. A “Place” is a location people use to check in, and anyone can create one from their mobile device. This may result in multiple instances of the same location.

Now, here’s how you merge them.

Locate the Place you’d like to merge into your Page. You can do this via Facebook’s Graph Search by typing in your business name and selecting directly from the dropdown list. If you don’t see your location, click the “See more results” option at the bottom of the dropdown, then select “Places.”

Facebook MergeOnce you find a location, look to the right-hand side for the Settings icon (looks like a gear). Click it. You’ll see another dropdown with multiple options. You’re going to select “Is this your business?”

Facebook Merge

From here, you’ll go through a quick walkthrough to claim the page. Here’s the first panel. Again, make sure you are an Admin of your brand page, then check the “I am an official representative” box and continue.

Facebook Merge

This step is important! You’re going to verify your page info. Make sure you list all of your publicly accessible, accurate information. Facebook needs to verify that you are attempting to claim a business you actually represent, so this information should closely match that of the Place you are attempting to claim.

Facebook Merge

The last frame is the verification for claiming your page. You have the option of doing this verification through email, phone number, or documentation. I’ll be using email, but you can use whatever suits you.

Facebook Merge

Your email, phone number, or documentation will need to be linked to your Facebook account AND business, so be sure to add it if it isn’t. Select the appropriate option, then click “Submit.”

Facebook Merge

Then you should get a nifty little “Claim Request” notification.

Facebook Merge

You should receive a notification email pretty quickly letting you know your claim request has been received and is being processed. Now it’s just a waiting game. Like the notification says, this request could take some time. Usually it’s done sooner rather than later, especially if you were sure to verify the business information exactly.

Once you’ve received approval for your claim, you will now be the admin of that Place page. If needed, go into your admin settings (“Edit Page” > “Edit Settings”) and update your address, business name, phone number, etc. to exactly match your primary business page. Save the changes.

From there, navigate to your primary business page and access your settings. You can do this from the options in your Admin Panel. Click “Edit Page” and select “Edit Settings.

Facebook Merge

From your Settings list, select “Merge Pages,” which is located toward the bottom of the list of Settings.

Facebook Merge

Remember, in order to properly merge pages, you must be a manager-level administrator of BOTH pages. That means you must wait for your notification from Facebook that you’ve been approved for the page you tried to claim. After clicking on “Merge Pages,” you should have the ability to merge similar pages you’re the admin of. You can select the “Request to merge duplicate Pages” link from here.

First, we recommend you read the provided information. After that, you should see a check box indicating you have done so. Check it. A dropdown menu will come up asking you to select the page you want to keep. This is important! Select your primary brand page from the dropdown.

Facebook Merge

Next, you’ll see a second check box indicating you’ve read the information about merged pages being about the same thing. Check the box. Now you’ll see another group of drop downs. You can select up to five other pages you want to merge with your primary page, which is convenient if you’re dealing with multiple duplicates. This is where you will select the Places location you just claimed. Pages you merge will disappear as they become one with your primary page, so make sure you’re choosing correctly.

Facebook Merge

That’s it! You should be all set. The Place will be merged into your primary business page. Be aware that there are occasionally bugs in Facebook’s system that cause issues with this process, but if all is well, this should work just fine.

Stephanie Wargin is the Social Media Strategist at Zenergy Works, a web design and SEO company located in Santa Rosa, California. Her friends like to brush her hair into her eyes whenever she talks about Facebook.

Social Media Marketing-Right Versus Wrong Tactic

Social media online marketing is a relatively new discipline, but practical experience has shown that some “shortcuts” have had little or no effect on truly improving social media presence.  Below are some examples of tactics that work, and shortcuts that do not work.

Social Media Online Marketing

Increasing Your Audience: Social media marketers have been tempted to purchase followers for their Facebook and Twitter accounts. This has led to a temporary illusion of popularity, but I have not seen a case of this strategy reaping long term benefits. The best way to increase your social media audience is with creative, valuable and unique content. Increased exposure of content can be achieved with sponsored posts on Facebook and creating strategic alliances with other related firms to trade information and content to reach related, but non-competitive businesses.  (ie. Auto Repair Shops and Used Car Sellers and Test Only Smog Shops.)

Promoting Using Facebook Cover Photos: Facebook clearly outlines that cover photos should not contain price or purchase information, email addresses, mailing addresses or website addresses, and cannot be more than 20 percent text.   If you must use the cover photos to promote a product, be clever, leave a lot to the imagination, and tease the viewer to read your page to find out how to get more information on a new product or promotion.  These rules are for the good of the Facebook page owner as well as the viewers. Making your Facebook page look like an ad is a negative.

Automated Responders: It is the natural instinct to want to entice a new follower to your Facebook page to do business immediately with you by employing a responder that will send a new follower a coupon, offer, or some other enticement to begin doing business immediately. It might make more sense to post a different special to all Facebook followers on the same day of each week to train those interested in your business to check for incentives regularly at the same time. Social Media is about relationships with your customers and weaving your business into their lives.

Bottom Line: You should, by now, distrust most “shortcuts” to online marketing success.  Whether it is link building, social media followers, or website content, taking the slow, sure, and hardworking approach will reap more benefits in the long term than any shortcut.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, a Santa Rosa, California based Social Media, Website Design, and SEO Firm.

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