A few years ago, you had an employee create a Facebook Page for your business. They might have even set up a Business Manager Account for your company. Now, a marketing agency is requesting access to manage your Facebook Page to post on your behalf. The requests to manage the Page are being sent to the “Page Owner,” but you aren’t receiving them. On top of this, you find you don’t have high enough permissions to grant the agency access to manage your page at all. Too late, do you realize that the page is “owned” by the employee who created it years ago and is long gone? Now, you must deal with the headache of regaining ownership of your company’s Facebook page to give your new team access.

WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU OWN YOUR COMPANY’S SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS?

Usually, pages and business accounts on social media platforms have a variety of assigned user roles. These “Page Roles” have differing levels of access to manage the page. This way, users can still make additions or changes to social media pages without having full access to the account. The most powerful of these roles is the “Page Owner.” The owner of the page has full control over every aspect of the page including granting access to other users to manage the page, publish and make changes to or delete the page.

Whoever first creates your Facebook page or Business Manager is automatically set as the “owner” of the account. Problems can arise when a company no longer has communication with this person. In the marketing world, we see this all the time when a company decides to bring in an advertising agency to help run its social media accounts. The agency tries to get access to a client’s Facebook Page, but the “owner” of the page isn’t available to grant access. Because of this, the agency is unable to link to the client’s social media page, and the entire process is delayed.

WHO SHOULD THE OWNER OF MY FACEBOOK PAGE BE?

The owner of your company’s Facebook Page should be set to a permanent member of your company (i.e. the owner of the business or similar). This will link the Page or Business Account to that person’s personal Facebook profile. Facebook (or Meta) requires a business Page to link to a personal profile to ensure bots are not creating spam accounts, and Pages are linked to a real person. While the business Facebook Page will need a personal Facebook profile to create the page initially, once other Admins are added to the Page, their personal login information or profile will not be shared publicly or linked otherwise.

Or, think ahead! If your Facebook Page or Business Manager is currently owned by an employee who is planning on leaving your company, you should transfer ownership BEFORE that employee leaves. Transferring ownership can be a much simpler process when both parties are involved.

HOW DO I KNOW WHO OWNS MY FACEBOOK PAGE?

There are now two types of Facebook Pages: “Classic Pages” and “New Pages Experience.”

For Classic Pages, the easiest way to find out the “owner” of your Facebook Page is by navigating to “Page Roles.” This is found under “Page Settings.” Here, you can see every user with permissions to manage your Page. If your Page is linked to a Business Manager, you will also see that listed.

If your Page has been created more recently, your Page may be within Meta’s new update: the “New Pages Experience.” In this case, navigate to your profile picture in the top right corner, then click on “Settings & privacy.” From here, you can find “New Pages Experience” that will show you people given “Facebook access” (full control of your Page), “Task access” (partial control of your Page), and “Business accounts with access” (such as agency partners through Business Manager).

WHAT SHOULD I DO IF SOMEONE ELSE OWNS MY COMPANY’S FACEBOOK PAGE?

If you need to transfer ownership of your business’s Facebook Page to you or someone else, there is a simple process to do this.

Note: to assign a new Page Owner, the new owner will also have to be set as an Admin in your Business Manager Account.

As you can see, it’s very important that any business owner has complete access to their company’s social media pages. To ensure this, they should be set as “owner” on every one of their social media accounts and pages. When used correctly, social media can be an incredible tool to grow your business. Set yourself up for success from the start by resolving any ownership issues with your Facebook Page now!

Interested in having us help you take your business’s social media presence to the next level? Contact us now to see how we can help grow your business!