For many organisations our digital footprint, including our Facebook page, Instagram account, Twitter and LinkedIn are the main drivers for our marketing, leads and engagement with customers.
It’s easy to take our online presence for granted but when it comes to social media, you unfortunately can’t do that: we are all at the mercy of the social media platforms and have to work with them (not against them!).
Why do we need Business Manager?
Facebook business pages are integral to many businesses – providing an outlet to communicate with customers, showcase products and build brand awareness with target audiences.
It’s believed that there are over 60 million active Facebook business pages on the social networking site globally… that figure equates to 10x more businesses than are registered in the whole of the UK (5.9 million).
Facebook’s Business Manager tool, while being a tad complicated and subject to change (Facebook is a BETA platform!),offers businesses a platform where they can manage content, assets, ad campaigns and access rights all in one place so it really is useful and you really do need it.
It enables users to easily review and collate data, providing an understanding on how their business’ Facebook pages are performing. All the information is integrated, saving time and brain power (once you get your head around how it works!)
Plus, it also enables businesses to operate their organisation’s page separately from their personal profile – particularly helpful if you run multiple business pages or run pages for clients!
Business Manager from Facebook offers numerous benefits for users, enabling businesses to manage multiple areas of their online presence under one roof. Plus it’s completely free to use… However, what do you do unthinkable happens and you lose access to your Business Manager account on Facebook?
What to do when you lose access to Business Manager
Don’t panic (although we appreciate it may be hard not to and it can be really, really frustrating)!
Losing a Facebook Business Manager account can happen to the best of us… and it happens a lot even to the best of us!
As a leading social media marketing agency in Essex, we frequently deal with clients, companies and organisations which have suddenly discovered they’ve lost access to their Business Manager page.
With a bit of know-how and a lot (A LOT!) of patience it can usually be resolved, without having too much of a detrimental impact on your account. We have recovered accounts for clients from anything between 3 days and 3 months. It varies considerably depending on the complexity of the problem.
It’s definitely worthwhile taking any preventative measures you can put in place to avoid anything like this ever happening. It is a nightmare, and no one wants to be dealing with page owner issues.
Ask yourself, who has access to your Facebook Business Manager account?
Perhaps a former staff member has left the business, but they were the only individual who had access to the Business Manager page.
Top tip! Always make sure that an employee hands over access rights on Facebook before leaving – or ensure that more than one employee has access rights to the Business Manager account… otherwise you could open up a whole can of worms if the ex-employee isn’t very co-operative!
By ensuring multiple (trusted) individuals have access to the Facebook Business Manager account, you should hopefully alleviate this issue from ever arising.
Who should have access to what in your Facebook Business manager?
Via the Facebook Business Manager account, you also can manage who has access to what assets – for example, if you don’t want one user to have access to a particular page, you can restrict their rights.
Some of the people within your organisation may need full access to all assets – perhaps they manage the Facebook page and run the advertising too.
Others may not participate in advertising but they do post on your Facebook page or Instagram account.
Your web person and advertisers may need access to your pixel for remarketing and tracking.
There are many different permutations of access available which means you can ensure that perhaps three or four people have full admin access, and others within the team have eg editor access rather than admin access.
Make sure that you add employees to Business Manager with their work email address
When giving people access to your Facebook Business Manager, make sure that you add them using their company email address. This connects them to your business manager account in a way that separates their personal facebook profile from your business.
Facebook uses an employee’s personal profile to verify their account but having everything connect through Facebook Business Manager means alerts and notification can go to their work email rather than their personal Facebook account.
If the only person with admin access to your Facebook Business Manager leaves the company what do you do?
Finding who had ownership of your Business Manager account can be a bit of a nightmare if you don’t know your way around Business Manager.
First things first, you need to check to make sure that the person who has left your company really is the ONLY person who has access to the Business Manager.
We recommend you email everyone within the company who could possibly have some sort of access to the Facebook account, and ask them to click on this link https://business.facebook.com/
Once they have clicked (and as long as they are signed into their Facebook account) they should be able to see if they are on the Facebook Business Manager account (or not!).
We suggest you ask everyone to send back a screenshot of what they see when they click on the link above. This way, you can tell who has access to the admin account and who hasn’t.
You can also check your own access.
If you are connected to more than one business account, it will show as a dropdown menu.
One thing to note: everyone seems to have different versions of Facebook so some people will see Business Suite, others will see Business Manager. What you need to work out is the what everyone has access to as things stand.
I am already admin on the Facebook page we are requesting ownership of, but do not have ownership
If you have lost access to your Business manager you can often still be the admin on the Facebook business page. This is really confusing. Being admin on the Facebook business page isn’t the same as being admin in Business Manager.
If your Facebook business page has been pulled into a Business Manager, it means that page is ‘owned’ by that Business Manager.
You can find out the name of the Business Manager which ‘owns’ your Facebook page by going to the Facebook page itself, Settings, Page Roles.
Under Page Roles, you’ll see a note which says ‘This page is owned by xxx’. You will need to make a note of the name of the Business Manager for when you contact Facebook support.
You definitely haven’t got access to Business Manager
You’ve checked everyone in the company and they haven’t got access to the Business Manager that owns your Facebook page.
Next steps: collect together evidence of your business ownership to show to Facebook Support. Whether we contact Facebook for you, or you contact them, you will need to show that you own this business asset (the Business Manager).
If you are already admin on the Facebook page, it makes things a bit easier (although it’s still a bit of a mission!)
To claim back your Business Manager you need to prove that you represent the company, you will need to provide a business license, a valid government issued photo, a notarized and signed statement to declare that the business is yours and should have ownership of the Business Manager.
The credentials Facebook look for have changed a bit but the last time we did this for a client to prove page ownership we provided:
- A statement from the client which included ‘Authority for making the request’
- A copy of that person’s ID
- 2 recent business utility statements
- A certification to show this person is the company director
- A certificate of incorporation (from Companies House)
- Confirmation of company accounts
Squarestar Digital, which is based in Colchester, is a leading Social Media Marketing and Digital Marketing Agency in Essex.
