There are a variety of reasons you may want to delete your Facebook Business Page. Before you do this, give it careful consideration. Is this something you may want to come back to in the future? Are you ready to give up contact with the audience you’ve spent time building? If you still want to move forward, here are your steps.
This actually comes at a time when I’m personally considering a change to my pages. I was a theatre major in college and have spent many years acting and doing voiceovers. In the hight of my voice acting career, I, of course, started a page. It currently has 400 followers; not a lot but nothing to sneeze at. I realized that I’ve neglected the page. To delete or not to delete, that is the question.
My focus really is my business right now and while having a page dedicated to my acting was fun, it didn’t really generate opportunities. To save confusion, I will unpublish it at the very least. Unpublishing is a great option if the business page is something you may want to return to in the future. You won’t have to rebuild your audience or rush to add content.
Whether unpublishing or deleting, there is one step I suggest doing first.
Update your current followers with how to follow your next venture
Let’s say for example that you are in another line of work now. I want that 400 to know that I have a new business Get Social with Cat and that if they want to listen to my radio show, I have a page for that too, KSVY Hollywood & West Napa. If you haven’t set up a business page for your new thing, make sure you do that first because here is your homework: Post.
Tag any other pages you own and if you have a group, link to it! For example, I’ve got Wine, Women, & Instagram! While none of these are directly related to my acting or voiceover career, you never know where your followers are in life and your new career may be just what they need! Open the door for the introduction.
So now, you’ve given that post a day or two to make its rounds. Hopefully, in that time you’ve carefully considered your options. Time to move forward. Whichever path you are taking, they both start with going to your page settings.
How do I find Facebook Business Page Settings?
Backup your data!
Before deleting your profile, make sure you backup your data! This is very important because you don’t want to lose your old photos, reviews, etc. All of this data could be useful for many things in your future so download a copy of it.
How do I download my Facebook Business Page Data?
I’m glad you asked. We just clicked on settings so the page you have just landed on is the “General” settings for your account. Scrolling almost to the bottom, you will see “Download Page.” to the right side, click on “Edit.”
You will now see, “Get a copy of your Pages posts, photos, videos and Page Info.” followed by a clickable phrase, “Download Page.”
The default is to have all checkmarks clicked so you download everything. If you don’t want all of the data (Posts, Photos & Videos, Events, Page Profile Information, Other Page Activity, and Page Settings), remove the check from any of those tabs. I suggest collecting it all.
You also have the ability to select a certain date range and quality. (Don’t mess with the format button. It’s set for easiest use.) I do suggest you change the media quality to high to make sure you keep those photos at their best resolution.
When everything is set, go ahead and click, “Create File.” When it is ready for download, you will get an alert in your notifications. Be aware that if you have any other admins on your page, they will receive the same notice with the ability to download all of that information as well.
Speaking of admins, let’s remove everyone else from the page before continuing on.
How do I remove an admin from my Facebook Business Page?
As I mentioned before, when you click on settings, you automatically end up in “General.” These categories are found on the left side of the page. If you scroll down from “General,” you will then see “Page Roles.” Select that.
This is also where you will be able to add administrators, editors, moderators, etc. to your new page. Below assigning new roles, you will see Page Owner and Existing Page Roles. If you don’t have anyone listed other than yourself, you are good to move forward.
If you do have another user associated with your account, you will just need to click on “Edit” and then “Remove.” Easy, peasy.
I mentioned that your choices are to unpublish or delete your page, but there is one more option but it is rarely used. You also have the ability to merge two pages together. I feel that if your at this point, whatever you are doing now is so different that it needed a new page. For example, I could consider merging my Cat Smith (actor) page with my radio show page, but I think they are just too different to do so.
How do I unpublish my Facebook Business Page?
Go ahead and click back up to the “General” section. Your very first option will be “Page Visibility.” Because you’ve been actively using your page, you know that it is set to “Published.” By clicking on “Edit” you may revert back to “Unpublished.”
All that this means is that your page remains as is, completely intact, but people can’t see or search for it. You are still able to see it in your pages and can still access every part of it. If you wanted it to become life in the future, you would just reverse this step.
How do I permanently delete my Facebook Business Page?
That’s it! You’re done with the page! You never want to see it again! Understandable. We have one last step. Remaining in your general settings, scroll all the way to the bottom of the options. Find the next to the last setting, “Remove Page.” Click edit.
“Deleting your Page means that nobody will be able to see or find it. Once you click delete, you’ll have 14 days to restore it in case you change your mind. After that, you’ll be asked to confirm whether to delete it permanently. If you choose to unpublish instead, only admins will be able to see your Page.” ~Facebook
Click delete. As you can see above, you do have 14 days to reverse this decision. You have time to have a change of heart. And there you have it. Your page is now either deleted or unpublished and you can now move on to your next adventure with ease!
Any questions? Let me know below or even better, head to Get Social with Cat on Facebook and post there.