How to delete a Facebook business page

There’s a lot of good reasons to have your business on Facebook; its unprecedented global reach makes for an excellent marketing channel for those that can properly utilise it, and locally-focused businesses in particular can use it to drive strong, engaged communities.

However, there’s also a number of equally good reasons to expunge an organisation’s presence from Facebook. Perhaps you have ethical qualms over its use of personal data, driven by incidents such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Maybe you’re shutting a business down and the page is no longer relevant - or perhaps you’ve just decided that Facebook isn’t the right platform to reach your audience, and maintaining the page is too much work. 

Why you may want to delete a Facebook business page

Facebook has a massive user-base, but digital marketing is about more than just the pure reach of the channel in question. It’s important to consider the kind of mindset in which that channel reaches people, too. In the case of Facebook, it’s largely used in people’s downtime to connect with friends and family. This makes it well-suited to companies in areas like lifestyle, leisure and travel, but perhaps less relevant for B2B organisations, particularly at the enterprise level.

While you may be able to reach business decision-makers through Facebook, they probably won’t be using the platform in a business context - whereas with LinkedIn and Twitter, there’s a much greater likelihood that they are. 

You may also have to delete a Facebook page if you’re consolidating duplicate pages into one - such as replacing pages for regional branches with a single umbrella page, for example. Equally, a merger may result in the dissolution of a brand, requiring its Facebook page to be removed.

Whatever your reasoning, deleting a Facebook business page is a quick and straightforward process, but you might want to consider merging pages - if there are multiple - before you completely delete it.

What's important to understand is that if you do decide to delete a Facebook page, you will lose all the content forever, as well as anyone's page likes, comments and interactions. Only follow these steps if you're certain you no longer want the page to exist.

How to delete a Facebook business page on iOS or Android

From the Facebook app, head to your list of pages and select the one you wish to delete. Tap edit page for options and then select settings. Scroll down to find the 'Remove page' section and tap the option to permanently delete the page. You'll see a warning, but click to continue if you're 100% sure you want to remove it and your page will be gone.

You do have 14 days to reverse the deletion, so if you change your mind, you can restore it.

How to delete a Facebook page from your browser

The process if you're using your browser to manage your Facebook page is equally as simple. Just head to the page you'd like to delete, head to the settings option under 'Edit page' and scroll to the bottom to 'Remove page'. Hit delete and hey presto! Your page will be removed. As is the case on mobile, you can restore your page within 14 days of deleting it, but after that, it will be gone forever.

How to delete a Facebook page if you're not an admin

Obviously, both of the options above assume you're an administrator on the page, but what happens if you're not and it was set up by an ex-employee?

This is a little trickier and is a more involved process than simply deleting the page as an admin. First, you will have to report the page to Facebook for a breach of your intellectual property. To do this, go to the page you want to delete, click the three dots below the page's cover photo and select Report page. You can explain why you want the page to be removed and it will be up to Facebook whether it removes the page or not.

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