Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are a great way to promote your studio and keep in touch with your dance families, but make sure you have an "insurance policy" in place in case the unthinkable happens.
The past 10 days or so have been stressful to say the least. A couple of Friday nights ago, my husband and I headed out to a local pizza place for dinner and on the way home I quickly checked my email from my phone. I had several emails from Facebook advising they had locked my account due to "suspicious activity" and that I needed to change my password ASAP.
I waited until we got home, fired up my laptop and clicked the link in the email. What followed has been 10 days of trying to access Facebook's almost non-existent support department, a whole lot of frustration and even some tears. Yes I cried over Facebook and I'm not proud of it!
I won't bore you with the details (there are many!) but basically the result is that my personal Facebook profile has now completely disappeared. That alone I can cope with (just) but what really raised my stress levels was that my personal Facebook profile was the only admin assigned to my business page and advertising account so when I was locked out, I also lost ALL access to anything related to my business.
I did end up getting help through Facebook's advertising support team (the link is here if you ever need it) who have filed an 'Admin Dispute' for my page and business manager. If approved, this means my new profile will be added as an admin and I will regain access to everything. 🤞🏼
While the issues with my personal account being locked couldn't have been foreseen, I could definitely have saved myself some sleepless nights if I had just followed one simple step when setting up my business page.
Add a second admin.... seriously, go and do it now!
According to Facebook terms, you're only allowed to have one personal profile but marketing experts recommend setting up an account using an email address and password that you use for social media purposes only and adding that account to your Facebook Business Manager as an admin-level user.
You could also add a trusted friend or family member to your Business Manager account as extra "insurance" should your personal account be locked out. In essence, you need to make sure that you are not the only one with admin access to advertising assets and your business page. Make sure there is someone else with admin access to that page.
Adding an admin to your page is simple - from your Page, select Settings and then choose Page Roles. type the name of the person you want to add and select their permissions level from the drop-down menu.
That is it! Just one simple step that could have prevented all the headache and stress I've had trying to regain access to my business page. If you haven't already opened Facebook in a second browser, do it now and save yourself some stress down the track.
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