Remember when Facebook changed personal profiles from listing your interests to making you select links for your interests – essentially wiping out your profile content? In doing so, Facebook automatically generated hundreds of pages from the interests, workplaces, education, activities, favorite TV shows etc. users list in their profiles – called Community Pages. Now your company probably has a  Community Page that is floating around Facebook, unclaimed, pulling in whatever Facebook users say in their status messages about your brand. And it most likely has a lonely, generic briefcase as a logo.

In review, from the Facebook Help Center:

Community pages — the pages that link from fields you fill out in your profile — are for general topics and all kinds of unofficial but interesting things. You “like” these pages to connect with them, but they aren’t run by a single author, and they don’t generate News Feed stories.

This post will help you claim your company’s page, so when Facebook does decide to make its next move, your brand is prepared. I’ve found it’s much better to be proactive with Facebook marketing rather than lagging behind.

1. To find your community page, type your brand name into Facebook Search.  Look for that briefcase logo. Once on your page, look for a box like the one above, under the Profile image.

2. Click on “Is this your Page?” and follow the prompts that appear on the screen.  Below is an example of this process using Search Mojo’s community page.

3. After certifying you’re a representative of your company, continue the process and complete the form below. Facebook will contact you when the next step of the process is available for users. At this point, these actions are proactive in anticipation for Facebook’s next iteration of Community Pages.

AllFacebook stated that the process could take a few days. However it’s been a month or so since I claimed the Search Mojo community page, and I actually had to go through the process multiple times before the option saying “Is this your Page?” disappeared from our Community Page. Facebook has said that claiming your page will merge it with your official Facebook Page, but we’ve yet to see that happen at Search Mojo. For an online reputation management perspective on this issue, see what I wrote about Community Pages back in August on Marketing Pilgrim.

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