Facebook Profile to Page – How to Change and What Happens to Friends

First ensure that you are using Facebook using your personal profile. You cannot invite friends using a business account or if you are using Facebook as the Page, because business accounts and Pages do not have friends. If you are using Facebook as the Page, switch back to using Facebook as you using the ▾ menu in the upper right corner.

Using your personal Facebook profile, which must be an admin of the page, choose Invite Friends from the Build Audience ▾ menu on your page's admin panel.

From Facebook Help:

How do I invite friends to my Page?

To invite friends to your Page:

1. Open your Page's admin panel
2. Click Build Audience ▾
3. Select Invite Friends...

Use the dropdown menu to choose a list or select Search All Friends. Next, scroll through your friends and check the boxes next to the names of the people you want to invite. You can also search for friends in the menu's search box. When you're done selecting friends, be sure to click Submit to send your friends invitations to your Page.

I was just researching this exact same question for a client. I work primarily with authors and speakers, and this question comes up a lot. Here are the key things to note.

When you migrate a profile to a page:

• you do lose the old profile. You have to create a new profile for your personal use. But if the idea is to clean up the profile, starting with a clean slate isn't a bad thing!
• only your profile pictures and friends/subscribers are transferred over to the page. So, backup your content if you have any interest in saving it. It won't be accessible later.
• other than the new likes and a profile picture, your new page is blank. Once again, not a bad issue. Just start creating content. At least you'll be off to a great start with the following.
• if your profile is the admin for any groups or apps, assign new admins before you migrate.
• if you have a username specified for your profile (otherwise known as a "vanity URL"), it will be applied to the new page instead. FB does not allow you to change the username of a page with more than 200 "likes," so depending on how many people are friends, you may not be able to update the username of the page.
• from what I can piece together, the name of the new page (the page title) is based on the profile name. Therefore, Joe Schmoe's profile will be displayed as "Joe Schmoe" for the page title. At least that's my guess. So, if you want a different title, change your profile name before you update the account. The first name could be "Joe Schmoe's" and the last name "Awesome New Facebook Page." You get the idea. I have to admit, I have not tried this out yet, but my guess is that it would work. Otherwise, to change a page title, you have to put in a special request with Facebook, and they're not very responsive about it.
• the newsfeed of your new page will be blank because you haven't "liked" any other pages yet.
• some people may be put off by becoming a fan when they thought they were your friend (think old high school classmates, family members, etc.). So, anticipate a drop-off in "likes" soon after the conversion.

Know that making a page is definitely the right answer. You need to be in conformance with Facebook's terms of agreement, otherwise, you risk them shutting your account down. But there are other reasons for it too. For instance, Google indexes pages, but not profiles. In addition, pages allow much more functionality than profiles do, including adding apps for a mailing list, creating events, etc. I hope this helps!