How to Merge Social Media Accounts
Whether you acquired a new business, are consolidating location pages, or simply accidentally created multiple profiles for the same business, chances are at some point you’ll need to merge your social accounts.
Every social channel has different processes when it comes to merging profiles. Luckily, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn do all offer options to successfully merge two existing accounts. Instagram and Twitter currently do not offer merging account options, but we’ve developed a strategy to make sure you can still effectively make the move without losing followers from your original account.
Merging two or more social accounts can seem daunting, but our guide is here to assist you in making the process a breeze.
The good news is, it is actually possible to merge two or more accounts on Facebook and bring over the followers from one to the other. In order to merge two Facebook pages together, you will need to manually request the merge to Facebook support, which can be done here.
Facebook will only approve account merging if:
- You’re an admin of both Pages you are attempting to merge and
- Your pages have similar audiences and represent the same audience.
In order to expedite the approval process for Facebook merges, it is a good idea to have your Facebook page ID handy. You can easily find this by looking at your Page Info when logged in as an admin.
If your merge request is approved, the people who like your Pages will be combined, but posts, photos, reviews, ratings, and the username will be deleted from the Page you merge. Meaning, the page you are merging into the “master page” will be completely dissolved (including all content there) but the followers will be added to the “master page”.
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The Page you want to keep will remain unchanged, except for the addition of people who like the Page and check-ins that were merged from the other Page. The page you don’t want to keep will be removed from Facebook, and you won’t be able to unmerge it.
The approval process and merge is a relatively quick process with most merge requests being accepted or denied within 48 hours of placing the request. It is imperative that you save all content from the page you are merging prior to placing the request.
Once the merge has been approved there will be no way to access the merged page. We suggest doing 1-5 awareness posts to the audience of the page you are eliminating prior to placing the merge request so that none of your followers are inconvenienced by the change in any way.
LinkedIn also allows you to merge company pages by placing a request to their support team. They do offer some online resources to merge multiple company or personal pages which can be found here. We suggest contacting their support directly to accelerate the merge process.
You can submit a contact request form on LinkedIn.com here. Similar to Facebook, this merge will allow you to bring all of your connections to the master page but all other data will be lost. Be sure to clarify the page that you want to deactivate and the page that you want to keep.
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It is a good idea to update your connections prior to the official move on LinkedIn. The best way to make sure everyone is aware of the transfer is to update your bio with information about the change and the new location that your connections will be moved to.
We also suggest providing content that explains why the change is being made, and to reassure your audience that they’ll still be getting the same great information they always were. These posts should include a date that the merge will be taking place on and a link to the page that they will be moved to.
Google+
Unlike LinkedIn and Facebook, Google+ allows you to not only merge your connections, but all of your account data. Google offers a tool called Google Takeout which allows you to download, export, and archive all data from the Google services including Google+. This process is quite manual but does allow you to precisely choose what data you would like to merge.
To begin this process, make sure you are logged into the Google account that you are wanting to deactivate, then head over to Google Takeout. You’ll see various “Google products” available for download. You’ll want to select the options you want to transfer to your new Google+ account.
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We suggest taking your connections and circles with you. Once you select the products to download, click “Transfer to Another Page”. From there, you will be able to declare what page you want to move your data into, known as the “destination account”.
This is where you’ll be able to submit the final transfer request. Google+ offers a 7-day transfer waiting period for you to change your mind on the merge. After the 7-day waiting period has completed, the merge typically takes 48 hours.
Just like Facebook and Twitter, once this merge of your connections and circles has completed, you cannot undo the change. Google+ does has a caveat that this same request cannot be placed for at least 6 months, so make sure the decision to merge is going to be a long term one!
Unlike the other social networks, Google+ does not delete the merged page. If you would like the page you merged to be fully deleted, you’ll have to deactivate that user account separately through the Gmail account tied to that profile.
Instagram & Twitter
Instagram and Twitter, unfortunately, do not allow you to merge any data, followers, or accounts. In order to make the move from multiple accounts to one main user account effectively, we suggest following these steps:
- Set all the accounts you want to deactivate to “Private” and no longer accept follow requests. This will ensure that you are not building a following on an account that will soon be inactive.
- Set your bio to redirect all potential followers to your new account or the account you are wanting to save.
- Consider personally inviting any very active followers to move over to your new page.
- Up to four weeks prior to deactivation, begin posting daily “We’re moving” alerts to your following.
Tip: Be sure to tag your new account in these Tweets and Instagram posts to make it easy for your audience to follow the new page.
To recap, a good rule of thumb is to make sure your audience is always aware of any change you are planning to make with your accounts. Even merging the most relative accounts can upset your audience if they are unaware of the change.
While merging two or more social pages is never convenient, our guide can be used to give you a step in the right direction.
