Many indoor tanning retailers, eager to get in on the Facebook action, have rushed to build a presence on the site only to realize that the profile they made for their business is actually intended for personal use. This can have some unintended consequences, like making it harder for fans to follow your salon and also having a 5,000 friend limit. It could even lead to your account being deleted if Facebook finds that you are in violation of their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

To help solve this issue, Facebook has designed a tool that allows users to convert a personal profile into a business page. The process is called migrating and is currently irreversible. By migrating, your profile pictures will be transferred as well as all of your friends, who will be added as people who “like” your page. All other content will have to be filled in by the user after the switch is made.

If you are worried about losing content from your profile while making the switch, Facebook also has a tool that will let you download your content such as wall posts, photo albums, contact info and your messages.

This is great news for business owners who accidently made a profile instead of a business page, which is specially designed to fit the needs of a business. Business pages allow you to add multiple administrators and track the success of your page.

If you plan on using Facebook to promote your business it is a really good idea to make sure you are not risking your presence and fully taking advantage of the tools available to you by using a business page instead of a personal profile.

Click here to get an overview of what it takes to migrate or click here for an article on Mashable about the benefits of a business page.