How to Switch Your Identity on Facebook From You to Your Page

As I said in my post "The Good News and the Bad News About Facebook Page Changes":

Another major change is that you are able to switch personalities while on your Facebook Page. In other words, you can switch from being logged in as yourself to being logged in as your Page. Then you can leave comments on other Pages in the identity of your Page rather than yourself.


(But you won't be able to do this on your friends' profiles because Pages can't have friends although they can now "like" other Pages.)

This one change is going to be a huge social media marketing advantage for those who use it. And that's why I want to devote this blog post to explaining how-to switch identities.

When you sign into Facebook, you'll see "Home Profile Account" in the right-hand side of the blue bar across the top of your screen (visible from any place on Facebook when are you signed in). Click on "Account" and you'll get a dropdown.

Click on "Use Facebook as Page."

At the top of the revealed box you'll see:

New! Select Switch to get a newsfeed and notifications for that page. You'll also be able to interact with other pages as your page.

You will then see the list of all Pages for which you are an admin. Click on the "Switch" for the Page whose identity you want – and that's it.

You're now that Page. You can "like" another Page and leave a comment on that Page in your new identity.

To switch back, you again click on "Account" and click on "Switch back to [your first name]." Or you can again click "Use Facebook as Page" and now switch into the identity of a different Page for which you are an admin.

Another new social media marketing option on your Facebook Page: When you are working on your Page, click on "Edit Page" (now moved to the top right-hand side of the new Page format) and then click on the option "Featured."

From this box you can choose to have the Facebook profile photos and profile links of the Page owners displayed. (For an example, scroll down on the left-hand side of www.facebook.com/powermarketing – and while you're on the Page, I'd appreciate it if you would "like" it.)

One additional note (although this can change as Facebook responds to issues pointed out by users). The notification of when someone writes something on your Page appears to have a very long time delay before it is actually sent.

For now I would recommend continuing to rely on a third-party application such as HyperAlerts for speedier notification (by several hours in my experience). See Miller Mosaic post on HyperAlerts.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) is the co-founder of Miller Mosaic Social Media Marketing. Download the company's free report "5 Tips for Staying Top of Mind With Your Prospective Target Markets" at www.millermosaicllc.com/los-angeles-s...