To manage social media accounts properly, your firm has to own them, not the person who happened to set them up. The day a marketing assistant leaves with the only admin login to your LinkedIn page, you find out who really controls your brand. This article covers the control side: connecting business pages and profiles to the levelpartner.ai platform, deciding who can do what, keeping connections alive and removing access cleanly when someone leaves.
Why ownership comes before posting
Most firms of 10 to 250 people built their social presence in pieces. A founder created the Facebook page years ago, an agency set up Instagram, a former employee owns the YouTube channel. Each one sits behind a different personal login. Posting works until one of those people becomes unavailable.
Getting control back after the fact is slow and sometimes impossible. Fixing it before anything goes wrong takes an afternoon. Once each account is owned by a company login and connected to the platform, staff work through their own users and never need the underlying passwords.
Before you start
- An inventory of every social account the firm uses, with the current admin for each.
- A company-controlled email address, such as a marketing inbox, to hold admin rights.
- Admin access on each business page or profile you plan to connect.
- A list of staff who will draft, publish or reply, and what each should be allowed to do.
How to set it up
- Add the company email as an admin on every business page first.
- Go to Marketing > Social Planner.
- Select the social platform you want to connect.
- Sign in with the company login and approve the requested permissions.
- Choose the page, profile, channel or location to manage.
- Finish the authorisation.
- Confirm the account appears in Social Planner.
- For more accounts, use the Settings gear > Social Accounts > + Connect Social.
Permissions that fit a mid-size firm
Three responsibilities cover almost every firm: drafting, approving and responding. Route drafts through the planner's approval flow to a named approver, and give each user access only to the parts of the platform their job needs. One person can hold several responsibilities, but someone should always sit between drafting and going live.
Because the platform includes unlimited users, you never need to share a login to save on seats. Shared logins are the root of most access problems: nobody knows who posted what, and changing the password locks everyone out at once. Give each person their own user and the audit trail takes care of itself. For how roles map to a team workflow, see social media management for small business.
Keeping connections alive
Social networks expire connections from time to time, and they also break them when the connecting person loses admin rights on the page. When that happens, scheduled posts fail quietly. Check the connection status in the Social Planner at the start of each week. It takes under a minute and catches most failures before a post is missed.
Suppose the audit lists seven accounts across five networks. Say three are tied to personal logins, one belongs to a designer who left two years ago, and one Google Business Profile has no known owner. The six with a reachable admin could move to the company login in an afternoon. The orphaned profile would have to go through the network's own ownership claim, which can take weeks, and that is the cost of leaving it until something breaks.
Offboarding a staff member
When someone leaves, remove their user in Settings on their last day. Then check whether they were the person who originally connected any social account. If they were, reconnect that account with the company login, because their removal from the business page may break the link. Finally, remove them as an admin on the network itself. The order matters: reconnect first, then remove their network access, so no scheduled posts fail in between.
Removing a leaver from the network before reconnecting the account. Every post scheduled for the next fortnight fails, and nobody notices until a client asks why you went quiet. Reconnect with the company login first.
When not to connect an account
Leave personal profiles of partners and advisers out of the firm's planner unless the person agrees and understands that colleagues can post as them. Many firms do better asking senior people to share company posts from their own profiles. Accounts you no longer use should be closed or archived rather than connected and left idle.
Weekly time it takes
A quick connection check each Monday, plus about ten minutes whenever someone joins or leaves. The bigger saving is the hour you no longer spend hunting for passwords. If you want everything visible from one screen, read manage all social media in one place.
Troubleshooting
The page you want does not appear when connecting. The login you used is not an admin on that page. Add it as an admin on the network first, then reconnect.
Posts fail with an authorisation error. The connection expired or the connecting person lost access. Reconnect the account with the company login.
Comments arrive but posting fails. Some permissions were declined at connection. Disconnect and reconnect, approving every permission requested.
A user sees areas they should not. Their user access is too broad. Narrow it in the user's settings and check the change with them signed in.
Frequently asked questions
Can staff post without knowing the account passwords?
Yes. Once an account is connected, staff work through their own users in the platform. Only the company login needs the network password.
How many social accounts can I connect?
Connect the business accounts your firm actively uses on each supported network. Keep the list to accounts you post to and answer from; an idle connected account is one more thing to check. A social media organizer approach keeps the rest tidy.
What happens to scheduled posts if a connection breaks?
They fail at their scheduled time. Reconnect the account and reschedule any failed posts from the planner. A weekly connection check, described in social media posting calendar, catches most breaks early.