Many people have duplicate accounts, especially on LinkedIn. Most of the time they aren’t even aware of their “dual identity,” because they have forgotten they ever created their original account, as it was a long time ago. So they make a new one, without even realizing that it’s not the only one.
The problem with duplicate accounts is that people get confused about which one is the real you.
![cartoon-duplicate-businessman-in-his-head-100262173[1]](https://boomerssocialmediatutor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/cartoon-duplicate-businessman-in-his-head-1002621731.jpg)
A year ago I created a business account on Pinterest just to check out the features of business accounts. Sometime later I decided to convert my personal account into a business account, having forgotten all about the separate business account.
It wasn’t until someone asked me a few days ago about how to find me on Pinterest that I did a search for myself (really, how often do you search a social media site for yourself?!) and found the original (and by now severely outdated) business account.
How to Find Out If People Looking for You Might be Seeing Double
- Go to each of your social media sites and type your name into the search box. If nothing comes up, try any nicknames you use, and any name you used in the past (such as a maiden name).
- For Facebook, also enter all the emails you have used over the past few years. Depending on a person’s privacy settings, you can find someone via their email as well as their name.
- If you used the site for business purposes, search for your business name and any variations of your business name that you have ever used.
Now What: Dealing with Duplicate Accounts
- In order to close a social media account, you need to know the email address you used to create that account. It’s OK if you don’t remember the password, as that’s resettable, but you generally have to have the original email address.
- For LinkedIn, if you don’t have access to the email address you used to create an account, use the “contact us” button to ask for help.
- Open the duplicate account and make a note of who you are connected with (friends on Facebook, connections on LinkedIn).
- For Facebook, you can notify your friends that you are closing an account and ask them please friend you at your other account – some may be friends on both accounts, so they don’t have to do anything. Provide the ones you want to move with the URL so they can easily access the correct page.
- For LinkedIn, notify your connections that you are closing this account and will be inviting them to connect to your other account.
- If you have two Facebook business pages, you can merge them, as long as you are the admin for both pages, they have similar names, and are about the same subject. Go to the help center, type in “merge pages”, and you will receive instructions.
- LinkedIn allows you merge two accounts, as long as you have more than 10 connections for each account. Go to the help center for detailed instructions.
![act-now-shows-motivation-to-respond-fast-100142258[1]](https://boomerssocialmediatutor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/act-now-shows-motivation-to-respond-fast-1001422581.jpg)
How About You?
Have you ever discovered that you had duplicate accounts on a social media site? How did you deal with it?
About Joyce
![joycefeustel_1334461223_600[1]](https://boomerssocialmediatutor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/joycefeustel_1334461223_6001.jpg)
Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 50 and up, to become more effective using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.
She works with business owners, nonprofit organizations, retired people, consultants, and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.
Hi Joyce. Great post however I was looking for a topic on “how multiple social media accounts can impact your online ranking.” I was working on a project where my boss told me not to work on their social media accounts such as liking on their facebook accounts, claiming that I work for that website by adding the website link in my profile because she said it is tantamount to duplicate social media which I totally disagree because unless I use the website name or the in charge, I think I am not making any duplicate social media content. Any advice?
Joseph, I am glad you liked this post. I must admit that I am not completely clear as to what you mean by adding a website link to your profile. Are you talking about a LinkedIn profile and referencing a company where you worked? I am just trying to understand the context in which you are adding a website link. And what kind of a project are you working on?
Where duplicate content can confuse search engines, such as Google, is when there is a blog post published on your website, for example, and then that same blog post is published on LinkedIn in its publishing platform. In cases like this, you need to change out the title of the blog post and some of the content so that there are two separate posts. However, if you post a link to a blog post from your website to your Facebook business page, Google+ account, Twitter account and your Pinterest account, that is not a problem for search engines, as the content being shared all tracks back toy our website. Feel free to comment again and/or to email me at joyce@boomerssocialmediatutor.com to continue this conversation.