Thanks for the question…. nice work with the 5800 fans! As mentioned, the only thing you can really do is post (on the old page) that the original page has moved and invite your existing fans over to the new. I know, what a pain, but FB just won’t let you merge nor change the name if over 100 likers: (https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=15196) It’s all about indexing on their end. If you rename, then the index for the existing page is gone and likers can’t find it. (I’m really not sure why that FB doesn’t implement 301 redirects, but so far they don’t) I’m guessing to them it’s just not a priority.

Hope it helps,
//D

Do you know any trick how to merge 2 pages.
I have a fanpage with 5800 fans, but with a wrong name, and have made a new one with 31 fans, and with the correct name. But it is not possible to merge so that I can use the new fanpage with the new name, only the other way around. I can not find any rules for when it is possible or if?
Can you help? :-)

Thanks for the comment… Sorry, but I have to be literal here. You mention”Facebook fan page username” – there really is no such thing as a separate username for a fan page, if you’ve done it correctly. I wrote on the difference between Facebook Profiles vs. Facebook Pages a while back. (and why you shouldn’t have separate accounts) Or maybe I misunderstood your question? If you’re asking if you can rename the page if you already have over 100 fans, I answered that at the very beginning of the article… You can’t. =( (because Facebook won’t allow the renaming of pages if the page has over 100 Likers. )

Hope that helps.. if not, please ping me back. I appreciate you writing in.

Cheers,
//D

Thanks!

Thanks for the comment. Yep, it’s frustrating… right there with ya. Just try to get folks to click back to your website and capture email addresses, etc,. there… who knows where Facebook is heading.

Cheers

But, as I always instruct my clients… don’t rely on Facebook for the majority of your marketing, etc. Use them to get some traffic back to your site. Who knows… they might end up just like AOL. #foodforthought. Thanks for writing in! //D

Thanks for the comment.

Yep, I’d have to agree… it’s not a great thing that we can’t easily rename our pages after 100 connections. (https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=15196) Be aware that “naming” (pages, files, titles, tags, images, etc. etc.) in my business is a very literal process and such a huge deal with SEO, among other things. So it isn’t that FB is trying to make it difficult, there are simply tons of technical things going on in the background.

Additionally, although many business owners (including me) recognize the importance of our FB biz pages, remember that Facebook is far more concerned with keeping their site “social” and not a giant billboard for businesses. The second they get those 2 things in the wrong order, they’re done.

Cheers!

Really great point that wasn’t mentioned in this post. (written a while ago) This is *somewhat* new in that the question mark ((linked to your mentioned message)) next to your page name wasn’t there when this post was first created) Yes, Facebook will only allow the name change if your page has fewer than 100 connections. Most likely why: On the web, changing names (which among other things are “html titles” – search engines use these to index all web pages) is über important for a multitude of reasons. Perhaps Facebook will auto-create 301 .htaccess redirects (which will solve the problem of renaming) #hereshoping =)

Thanks again for the comment… I’ll update the post

Cheers,
//Dave

thanks for writing.

as i mentioned above, currently you can’t rename the page (as in the main title.) BUT, once you have over 25 fans, you can have a “vanity url.” (our vanity url is http://facebook.com/daveworks – instead of the giant one they originally assign you)

you can see if the url you desire is available here:
http://www.facebook.com/username/

then choose “Set a username for your Pages”

hope that helps!

ouch.

thanks for commenting.