Did you make your Facebook page a while ago when you hadn’t a clear idea what your business was about?
Many people have the impression that once they choose their page name it’s something they should be stuck with forever.
After all, you spent a lot of effort building trust in your brand and changing your page name might confuse your followers and lose your hard-earned brand equity.
But changing brand names happens more often than you’d think.
In the past, it was impossible to change the name of your Facebook page.
Luckily, Facebook updated its policy and now changing the name of your FB page can be done in a few steps that I will explain today.
Changing the name of your Facebook page is an easy process from a technical perspective, and it won’t hurt your reputation either as long as it’s done properly.
Note that changing the name of a verified Facebook page will likely need to go through more reviews from Facebook to ensure that you didn’t just buy a page and changed the name, but rather is a business you own and rebranded (like when Brad’s Drinks became Pepsi Co.)
Step 1: The “Edit” Option
The first step that you need to take is going to the page and choosing the “About” section on the left side.
Note that you have to be an admin to make changes of this type.
Once you’re in the “About” section, click the “Edit” button displayed next to your page’s current name.
Step 2: Come up with a new name
Once you click the “Edit” button, a new window will pop up looking like this:
As you can see, there are some Do’s and Don’t suggested by Facebook, and you have 75 characters for a new name.
How to choose a good name?
When it comes to choosing a good name for your Facebook page, the processes differ depending on the type of the page that you are creating.
If you are thinking about creating a page for business purposes, try the following tips:
- Simplicity— the title of the page is not the right place to get creative and talkative. Make sure that you put the name of your business so your page is easily found. Get inside the brain of your customers and try to think about how they will search for your business.
- Length—even though you can use 75 characters on Facebook, which can be up to 10 words depending on the length, my advice is to not use them all. Try to limit the name to a few words at best, because otherwise, your page might appear like spam.
- Specificity— the best thing to do is to avoid terms that are too generic and don’t distinguish your business from the general term. For example, “Digital Marketing”, “Sports”, “Cooking”, are bad names. They can mean anything. Also, Facebook is not allowing updates for pages like these because they want more authenticity. Try to use a specific name that is both short and simple. (like my company Flux Chargers)
When you’re in this phase, make sure that you listen to your customers.
Do keyword research on how they are searching for you, is it by the full name, is it maybe a shortcut, etc.
When it comes to Facebook, it is better to use spaces in your name because people search for things on Facebook as they do on Google.
On the other hand, when it comes to Twitter, names are best written altogether.
You can also use Google Trends to see if adding Paleo or Vegan to your name could help with impressions.
Step 3: Submit the name
Once you click “Continue” the following window will appear.
How long does it take to change your Facebook page name?
The review process might take up to three days and Facebook might contact you for further information.
If you are sure about your new chosen name, go ahead and press the “Request Change” button.
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After you do that, you’ll receive this notification window that lets you know that the review process has started.
Usually, these things go quite fast especially when the request has been denied.
Anyway, in the span of a maximum of three days, you will know the outcome of the name change request.
Denied request
If you are requesting to change your name to a new one that is completely different from the original, the likelihood of your request being denied is extremely high.
The reason behind this is that Facebook flags this as against the Page guidelines.
What this means basically is that they perceive your new name as misleading since it’s so drastically different from the first one.
In the explanation from Facebook about why they denied your request they give an example:
“Page name change requests that don’t meet our guidelines include changes that may be misleading (example: renaming “I Love New York” to “I Love San Francisco”). Requests that meet our guidelines include removing descriptions from a Page’s name (example: renaming “John Smith, Trainer” to “John Smith”).”
One way to go about this is to send an Appeal to Facebook.
However, it looks like many people are getting the same explanation of why their requests were denied.
So, the chances of this working are also not very good.
Now, I am aware that this can be quite frustrating and stressful, and that is why I will share a bit of a time-consuming trick to go around these Facebook guidelines and have the name that you want.
How to change your Facebook name if it gets denied
A handy trick to rename your page is changing it word-by-word.
So for example, let’s assume that the current name of my page is Alejandro Rioja Blog and I want to change it into Best Growth Guides.
What I would do is go and request the changes word by word (you can let a few weeks pass in between each change):
- Alejandro Rioja Blog Guides
- Alejandro Rioja Blog Growth Guides
- Alejandro Rioja Growth Guides
- Rioja Growth Guides
- Best Rioja Growth Guides
- Best Growth Guides
Make sure that you combine the words in a way that is not too weird standing alone.
All of these could potentially be names of my page on their own.
You can also try to add two words at a time or add one take one out, but the chances of denial are higher.
I am aware that this is not an ideal way to change a simple name, but it might be what you have to do in order to make the change.
Keep in mind that you are allowed to make one change per 24 hours, or sometimes in 2-3 days.
This means that this process of changing the name might take you anywhere from a few days to more than a week or two.
All of this depends on how drastic the name change is. If you need just one or two words exchanged, you’ll be done in a few days.
Btw, if you are curious about my best growth guides, they are here!
How to see if a page changed its name?
You can head to the Page Transparency section on the right hand side on any page, then click to see more info about any name changes.
Then click on See More and then on Page History.
Conclusion
Changing your Facebook page is doable.
If you are a big brand and have documentation to show Facebook that you changed your name, they will likely accept it.
If not, then you can try changing your name and wait to hear back in 3 days.
If you get denied, try changing your page name one word at the time. This usually works.
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Found this post helpful? Read some of my other posts with tips and tricks:
- My best productivity tips
- 11 simple on-page SEO tips to rank first on Google
- 3 Psychology Tricks You Should Implement in Your Marketing Strategy
Comment below what kind of tips and tricks you want to read next on my blog.
