Steps To Change Your Facebook Page Name (Even If You Have Before & Have 200+ Fans)
UPDATED MAY 16, 2017
A while back I was dealing with two clients that were going through a rebranding. Part of this rebranding included not only changing their visual identity (logo, fonts used, brand colors, etc.), but also their naming identity. When going through a rebranding, there are many, many things to consider (way too many to touch on in this post), but the impact the rebranding will have on your social channels is pretty significant.
As a digital marketing agency, we supported our clients needs as they related to rebranding their social channels. The renaming of Twitter handles (after researching and vetting naming conventions adhering to the 15 character limit) proved to be a pretty simple task. Changing a company page name on LinkedIn is pretty simple as well, but getting the vanity url that you want may require you to get in touch with the LinkedIn support team, but have no fear, LinkedIn has THE BEST support team and they get back to you super quick.
All channels that are part of the Google network (YouTube, Google+) are fairly straight forward to make changes to, but you need to know who on your team is the main owner of the accounts (who set them up originally) because this person will need to verify the changes before they will be made. If you are changing your Facebook page name for the very first time and have less than 200 fans, then you should have no problem - the process to make this change is pretty simple (see this detailed post from my friend @AmyPorterfield that goes through how to change your Facebook page name in this circumstance).
But, if you are trying to change your Facebook page name post 200 fans AND have changed your page name once, maybe twice before...this could prove difficult. I recently (as of May 2017) reached out to Facebook via their email support form and to my surprise, I got some answers right away. Facebook used to make changing your name so hard to do, but it appears things are a little easier.
Now, don't get me wrong, there is nothing more frustrating than a business continuously changing their name (if it does, there are other bigger issues going on and I would suggest not buying stock in the company). But, time and time again, businesses need to change their name based on acquisitions, mergers, franchise changes or to evolve and stay relevant in a very competitive marketplace. I mean Apple was once Apple Computer; Federal Express Corporation changed to Federal Express then to FedEx and Computer Associates, Inc. renamed to CA, Inc. and then to CA Technologies. Recently the San Diego Chargers changed to the Los Angeles Chargers - oh and didn't Facebook start as The Facebook?
And these are just a very few examples..there are many other brands that have faced rebranding/renaming. I guess what I am trying to get at is, it happens and when it does, you need to be able to rebrand yourself across all channels.
So, here was the feedback I received from Facebook in regards to changing a Facebook Business Page name. Page name changes are only permitted once every 7 days. The new page name may take up to 3-7 days to review, so make sure you start the process early to ensure that your new rebranding/name announcement launch is aligned across all efforts. If your name change is approved, you won't be able to unpublish the page or change the name again for another 7 days. During this time, Facebook will let your page fans know that your page's name has been updated.
Change Your Facebook Business Page Name
- You'll need to be an admin to change your page's name.
- Click "About" in the left column.
- Over on far right, click "Edit Page Info".
- Enter a new name and click save changes.
If you don't see the option to edit your page's name, you don't have a page role that allows you to change your page's name OR you or another admin recently changed your page's name OR this option isn't currently available in your location. Keep in mind that changing your page's name won't affect its username.
If the above steps are still not working for you, but you advertise a good amount on Facebook, talk to your account rep about your need to change your page name - they should be able to make that happen. The advertising team should understand that your brand is not going to run paid ads driving to their Facebook page (or outside of Facebook) if their Facebook page name is not their correct company name (see the disconnect this would present...not a great customer experience and a real brand fail). Honestly, $ talks. Hope this information helps some of you out there.
Please share this with others and tweet me at @Kristin_Bush should you have any questions.