Changes are coming to Facebook — are you ready?

Facebook is making changes to the way third-party applications can access your data. After April 30, 2015, all third-party applications, including ArchiveSocial, will no longer be able to archive private messages sent to personal profiles. This change is designed to increase privacy for individuals, but it will also affect organizations and businesses that have not yet transitioned from personal accounts to Facebook Pages. If your agency is still using a personal account instead of a Page, now’s the time to switch.

Personal profiles are for people — no exceptions

Before Facebook introduced the concept of Pages, governments, businesses, and other entities who wanted to have a presence on Facebook had no option than to create a personal profile for their agency. Many even created fake personal profiles for their businesses page in order to protect their individual privacy. According to Facebook’s terms of service, however, you may not use a personal account to represent something other than yourself. If you manage a page that was set up as a personal profile, you need to transition it to a Page or risk losing access to your Facebook account.

Why pages are better for business

Pages differ from personal accounts in a few key ways that offer clear advantages to businesses and agencies on Facebook:

  • Pages allow you to segregate your personal and professional Facebook presence
  • Pages support multiple administrative roles, allowing for easier transitions in the event of personnel turnover
  • Pages allow you access to tools such as profanity filters and comment moderation
  • ArchiveSocial can capture and archive all records on pages, including private messages

Preparing to make the change

Facebook offers a page migration tool to ease the transition from personal accounts to pages. Before you take the leap, however, we suggest you follow these steps:

1. Download your information:When you transition your page, only your profile picture, friends and followers will transfer. All of the posts, photos, videos, and comments made on your wall will disappear. You can download some of this information with Facebook’s download tool, but agencies requiring complete records should employ a more robust archiving tool for this step. ArchiveSocial customers using our Facebook archiving software will already have this information stored in their archive.

2. Announce the move: Let your followers know that you will be making the transition so they aren’t surprised to see your new Page.

3. Welcome your followers: Start your wall off with a message explaining the move and introducing the new look. Invite followers to take a tour of the new layout, including the “About” section. The “About” tab is a perfect place to post your public social media policy and link to your agency website.

We’re here for you

If you have any concerns or questions about how this change may impact your ArchiveSocial archive, please don’t hesitate to contact us.