Facebook Management: 4 Steps To Claiming Rogue Facebook Pages
Does this situation sound familiar? You are a social media manager or a business owner and you were certain you set up your Facebook page properly only to find some other Facebook pages out there that you were certain you didn't set up? Curious how they got there?
If you have found yourself in this situation you are not alone. This happens because Facebook gives any user the ability to add a place when they are checking in and they can't find the place they want to check into. So for those situations where a user simply doesn't find your official Facebook page when attempting to 'check-in' (even though you did have one created) they create a new place page, without you even knowing it. Then another user goes to check in and not only did they not see your official page, but they didn't see the page that some previous user created. Next thing you know, your business has multiple rogue Facebook pages with 'check-ins' and even 'likes' that are not going toward your official Facebook page.
There is a solution to this problem. Not only can you take ownership of these pages, but you can also merge the 'check-ins' and 'likes' with your official facebook page.
Here we give you four steps to claiming your rogue facebook pages and merging them with your current Facebook page.
Step 1: In Facebook, search for your business page, but when you type in your business name, be sure to click on the "see more results for…" text link at the bottom of the search box. This will pull up all results in Facebook. To get even more targeted, click on the "pages" text link to the left of the search results. By doing so Facebook will only display Facebook pages that match your search term.
Step 2: Identify the rogue Facebook pages. Usually rogue pages will have a small amount of check-ins, no profile photo, and just look like an incomplete facebook page.
Step 3: Claim the rogue pages. Since Facebook lets anyone create these pages, they also let anyone have the opportunity to claim them. However, to do so you need to prove that you are the owner or have authorization to claim the page. You'll find a text link all the way to the left below the profile photo area that reads "Is this your business?" which is what you want to click on. Facebook will then walk you through some verification prompts for you to complete the claim of the page.
Step 4: Sign in to your primary facebook page and click on the 'edit page' tab to the top right. From here you go to the 'Resources' tab to the left and Facebook will have a 'Merge Duplicate Pages' link for you to compete the merging process.
Few things to know:
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You can only merge the page that has less likes. So if you find a rogue page that has more likes than your official page, you won't be able to complete the merge. You can either have the rogue page serve as your new official page and merge your old page, or work on getting more likes to your official page so eventually you can merge the rogue page. If you need help with this, you can always contact Casual Fridays to assist with some advanced social media marketing strategies.
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The pages need to have matching addresses to complete a merge.