We’ve heard horror stories and had to untangle or even abandon onboarded client’s Facebook accounts because they didn’t know or had given away their personal Facebook login—the login they use for their own personal page. This means sometimes marketing takes longer or stalls completely. Instead, we implore clients to set up their account correctly, using the tools Facebook gives you as a business owner, for a more secure, easier to manage account. Let’s walk you through the steps.
Understanding the Meta Business Suite
Depending on when you set up your business’s Facebook page, or if you’ve only ever had a personal page, you may not be aware of all the components you have. The Meta Business Suite is a free tool that allows you to manage one or more Facebook Business pages and any messages (page comments, direct messages, reviews, etc.) that come in. There are three elements:
Meta Business Account
This is the account that owns or has access to specific pages. If you’re the owner of a page, you can give access to that page from your Meta Business account. If you have a Meta Business account, you can request managing access to a page. Since this account has ownership, you should not give your login credentials to this account to anyone, even your marketing agency.
Facebook Business Page
Instead, you give them access to the specific page. Instead of a login, you’re providing them with access via your Meta business account, usually by having them use their Meta business account to give you access (more on that below). A business page is different than a personal page, and you’ll mostly be interacting with it via the Meta Business Suite.
Facebook Ad Account
Lastly, if you’ve run ads (or want to run ads), you’ll have an Ad Account. Just like Facebook Business Pages, you’ll tie this into your Meta Business account, but it can be used by multiple pages. Depending on your ad strategy, it might make sense to have multiple ad accounts or one central one.
Using Meta Business Manager to Allow Agency Access
Once you’ve set these up or recovered them, you can now not only use the more powerful tools, but you can also provide access to partners (hi, it’s your marketing agency) to get managed access without having to share or update passwords. To do this, do the following (pulled from Facebook itself). You need to have full access to the Meta Business Suite and get your agency’s business ID:
- Go to Settings in Meta Business Suite for your organization’s business portfolio.
- Click Partners in the Users section in the menu on the left.
- If you do not see Partners, then you may not have full control of the business portfolio. Only people with full control of the business portfolio can share business assets with partners.
- Click Add, then select Give a partner access to your assets.
- Enter your partner’s business ID for their business portfolio, then click Next.
- If you don’t know your partner’s business ID, then ask your partner to tell you. Business IDs can be found in Meta Business Suite’s Settings for an organization’s business portfolio.
- Choose which business assets you want to share with your partner and the level of access you want to provide. If providing partial access, select which tasks you want your partner to work on.
- Click Assign assets.
Need to undo this action in the future? Learn how to change someone’s access or remove a partner from a business portfolio.
This Is Also True for Other Managed Social Media Platforms
This option of securely sharing access (while not giving up control) is available on several other platforms as well.
- Instagram (also owned by Facebook) can be integrated into the Meta Business Suite, allowing you to share access to both, cross-link for posts and ads, and more. Learn how to do so here.
- LinkedIn has a similar feature, allowing you to add admins to your LinkedIn page to manage it. The easiest way to set this up is to make sure you’ve got a connection with the user you want to add. More information here.
Whether you’re reading this blog as a prospective or onboarding client (talk to you soon) or a business owner trying to safeguard their marketing assets, it’s important to understand and use all the social media tools available to you. If you’d like to learn more about social media marketing, from brand management to dealing with spam messages, it’s time to talk to Vision. Contact us today to get started.
