On one of my earlier blog post, Facebook page ownership can now be changed, someone brought up a good point about Facebook Pages and admins. I started to answer in the thread, but it’s a pretty important question, so I decided just to do a new post about.
Here’s the comment this person had:
The real issue is that the page is still tied to the person’s Facebook account regardless of whether they administer the page or not. Thus, if they delete their Facebook page [profile] for any reason, the page will forever be gone.
I know the short-term answer, but I want to know the long-term answer. So, here’s what I did – step by step:
- Set up a new profile – aka Jane.
- Jane logged into her personal profile and set up a Facebook fan page.
- Jane appointed me as an admin of the page.
- I logged out of Jane’s profile and logged into my own to be sure I was set as an admin of the new page. I am.
- I removed Jane as an admin.
- I logged out of my profile, and logged back in as Jane.
- I deleted Jane’s account.
- I logged in again as myself, and the page is still there. I am now the only admin for the page Jane created.
Once a person gives up their admin rights (or has them revoked by another admin), it appears that they have no rights to that page.
However . . .
I need to follow up with this in 15 days and here’s why:
Facebook allows profiles to be deactivated or deleted – and they are two different functions.
Deactivation – This allows you to make your account inactive, which means your stuff is locked away and made secret but you can get it later if you want to. Facebook keeps all of your information in case you decide to reactivate it at a later date.
Deletion – This permanently deletes your account after 14 days. During that initial 14 day period you’re allowed to reactivate your account if you want to (just by logging in), but after that it will be permanently deleted.
So at this point, Jane’s account has been set for deletion and the page she created is now in my possession. What I want to know for sure is if that page will still be mine once her account has been permanently deleted. Or will it be deleted along with her account since she was the original owner? I’m fairly certain it will still be my page since she was removed as an admin, but I’ll check back in another 15 days to find out for sure.
UPDATE: It’s been more than 15 days since I deleted the Jane account and I’m still the admin for the page she turned over to me. So, it looks like if an admin turns over a page, then is deleted, that page will still exist and it will belong to whoever is the current admin
Do you need help with your online presence?
I'm a social media consultant and work with people to help them learn how to get the most out of the Internet.
If you need help with your website, social media, or other online questions, I can help! Contact me now or find out more here: Therese's Google Profile.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Here’s a slightly different scenario. My main personal profile was the sole admin of my fan page. Without doing quite ENOUGH research in advance apparently, I deactivated my profile, just to take a break from facebook. Now the fan page is GONE. I logged back in and reactivated the profile, but the fan page is still GONE. it took me a really long time to build that page. not only so, but i paid facebook a LOT of money in advertising dollars to build up the page. I have submitted a query to facebook but are they really going to help me? Does anyone have any hope to give me?
Ugh. Not good. I haven’t heard that specific scenario, so I don’t have the answer. I’m surprised they deleted the page completely. I would have thought they would keep it, at least in a dormant state, as long as they kept your profile dormant. If you do get an answer from Facebook, please let us know. I’m curious what the outcome might be.
Thanks so much for this post, its great and answered some questions for me but Im still having troubles. I have a fanpage that I can log into fine but I converted it from a profile and my original profile has now been deactivated. It is now really glitchy, it has no search bar and I cannot add another profile as admin. Do you have any experience with this?
http://www.facebook.com/freeleevfruititionist
@Mary Jane I was just researching this issue and FB says in their Help Center that if you delete/deactivate your profile the page will delete. Pretty sure there is no way to get it back. Sorry
@Therese Thanks for the blog. I was just about to run the same test!
Also just found out that in June FB allowed original Admins to be removed, but in the last month they changed it back to not being able to remove them.
Thanks for the info about not being able to remove original admins. That’s interesting, and I didn’t know they did that. That makes me wonder, given your first comment, if someone creates a page, sets someone else as an admin, then deletes their own profile (the page creator), what happens to the page. Have you tested that scenario?
@Lisa, I was able to remove the original Admin of a fan page today without any problems. Hesitant to remove the original profile, though. Has anyone tested this lately?
Just found your little web site and all these threads regarding FB and if it’s possible to change the ‘owner’ of a page. I don’t believe there is a way to do this. If there is, I hope you (or someone) finds it because I need to accomplish this.
You just need to set someone else as admin.
Hi Therese, I am also in the same situation of switching page ownership. I am the owner/admin of my company’s page and while I was in the process of waiting for my fan base to get to 25 to claim a username……a worker went ahead and create a page on his personal a/c using the company’s name as that page username. Now I am ready to claim my company’s username and was told “it’s not available at this time, try again.” So I google the company’s name and it comes up as the worker’s name with the company’s name for that page of his. I realise if he deletes his page from his personal a/c I will lose the name all together. I was about to have him add me as an admin on that page but I think it still will have him as the owner because its his personal a/c? I am so fustrated, I spent alot of time to create my page which can only be viewed if I invite people to it since itcannot be found when googled on the web. Help me how do I make the switch?
If I understand you correctly . . . you both have PAGES (not profiles) with your company name. So, if he makes you an admin and then you remove him as admin, you will be the owner of the page that he set up. After you do that, you’ll probably want to delete your other page though as you don’t want two pages for the same company.
Hi Therese!
I just came across your blog, and this specific question – which is very much relevant to me! I have a client who originally created their “business” profile by setting up a standard Facebook profile, and adding friends.
Now, they have created a Page, but created it through the original profile. I am set as admin of the Page, as is the original profile. If I understand you correctly, I need to remove the original profile as admin, and then log in again as the original profile, and then delete the profile…and then the Page will still be active under my administration?
I hope you’re able to help!
Linda
Hi Linda, what I would do is to set up a personal profile in your name (a personal profile for yourself). Then login to the current profile that has admin rights to the page, and make your new personal profile an admin. Then, if you want to go back in and remove admin rights for the original profile you can do that. After that it doesn’t matter what you do with that original profile. Just make sure you have an admin on the page.
So I have a new scenario. I run an outreach for a ministry. I set up our organizational Facebook originally as a profile, then as we grew created a Page (VSCconRandyMorrison) with the profile as the sole admin. The profile was deactivated by Facebook, I assume because I used the organizational name instead of a real “personal” name for the profile. (my mistake) The profile which has been deactivated was the only Admin for the Page. The page is still there… but with no Admins. So now, I cannot access either the page or the profile. What happens now? I cannot find anyway to contact Facebook about this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!
Here’s a weird issue. We manage multiple pages for a client. Client has 12 pages with 1 unique admin for each page and 1 master admin who can access all pages. Client did ‘something’. Now when master admin logs in they do not see the notification icons or search box at top of FB page, have limited access to edit pages, and can’t post to all pages at once. They are listed as Admin in right side but clicking on it does not take you to their profile.
Did they delete their original profile? But if so why can they still log in?
I’m getting this exact same thing
I just put up a Facebook page under my Business name Biomagnetism USA, but whenever I post a comment on someone elses page, neither my name or profile picture comes up it looks like an anonymus comment..like is the administrator???why is this happening, how can I change it? i’ve look all over for an aswer, there is none in Facebook…
I’m a little confused about what’s happening with your posts. If you are using FB as Bomagnetism USA and you post on a page Bomagnetism USA has liked, the post should show up as Bomagnetism USA. If you want to post on another page as YOU (your personal profile) then your name/pic should come up. Are you saying nothing is showing up to indicate who is posting the comment?