How To Change Your Facebook Fan Page Name
Facebook Now Offers *Two* Ways To Change Your Business Page Name
Please Note: These methods do NOT change the custom vanity URL (username) for the Page, which currently remains completely non-changeable.
What the Rules on Fan Page Name Changing Used To Be
Prior to the most recent update, the hard and fast rule by Facebook was that you absolutely could not change your Facebook Fan Page name… EVER!
As you can see, the only solution for anything from a typo to a business change was the delete button. Suffice to say this didn’t make people terribly thrilled.
However, the precaution has been necessary as Facebook has needed to actively restrict someone from making a page in a generic name, farming a ton of fans, and then renaming the page (possibly after selling it)!
Can you imagine the nightmare if you people were suddenly able to easily generate and sell pages with 100,000 fans? It would be insanity (and fans of the page would likely be pretty pissy at Facebook for it).
How To Change Your Facebook Fan Page Name
Method 1: Do-It-Yourself! (Only Works For Pages Under 100 Fans) – Currently Broke! (Please file a bug report.)
Find the particular page name in question and under it, select “Edit Page” to enter that particular page’s administrative dashboard.
In the screen shot above, you see the new dashboard and the “Basic Information” tab presenting the “Name” field in an editable fashion.
This is how it will be displayed if your page meets the qualifications to have it’s name changed. If your page is not eligible, the Name field will not be available to you.
Now type the name in the way you would like it to be displayed and select “Save Changes” to change your Facebook Fan Page name!
Method 2: Request A Change Form (Only permitted for fully TOS compliant names & pages and where no confusion of the fans is likely.)
Facebook has recently re-introduced their name change request form: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact_us.php?id=262629790471076
Please listen carefully: If your page is not 100% TOS compliant including no modifiers, descriptive words, etc in the existing page name and no unsanctioned contests…. this is VERY high risk. Consider carefully if you want a Facebook staff member having a good long look at your page.
Also, recall that Business pages are only for fully owned brands and it is possible that a request for your business identification paperwork (Taxes, Trademark, LLC, Corp, etc) may be requested. Recall that we are not authorized to have a page in any name that we do not fully, legally own.
I am seeing about a 50% decline rate for this request form at this time. This is actually reasonably high as it means about 50% of those that are requesting the change are getting approval. Facebook is mostly declining TOS violations and pages that have changed industry/niche.
Summary
This is an excellent opportunity for those that need it to make a much needed name change.
If you feel this post may benefit others, I’d sincerely appreciate you sharing it via social bookmarking, Google, Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social site!
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image source: Facebook & my own
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