How to Control Access to Your Social Media Accounts

By Elizabeth Victor

Published April 6, 2015

Do you have multiple administrators on your social accounts?

Want to know how to remove an employee's access?

If employees leave or change roles within your company, you'll want to avoid potential securityissues.

In this article you'll find out how to remove admins from your social media accounts.

Discover how to controlaccess to your social media accounts.

Manage Social Account Access

When an employee leaves your company, don't forget to remove his or her access to your socialaccounts. A bitter ex-employee with access to your social accounts is a problem waiting to happen.

Ask British electronics company HMV. They laid off a large group of employees, which included ahuman resources employee who still had access to the company's social accounts. She live-tweetedthe events on the company's Twitter account.

Even if a departing employee isn't disgruntled, the less control you have over who is speaking foryour brand, the greater the risk you're taking.

Don't risk your brand'sreputation. Image: Shutterstock.

In some cases you may even want to close your account. Perhaps the account was created for acertain product or campaign that is being discontinued. Or maybe you're going in a differentdirection.

Most social platforms won't close your account for you for security reasons. You must log into theaccounts yourself and make the changes. Whether you need to revoke an employee's access orremove the account completely, the process is generally painless across the board.

Social King Maker

#1: Remove Facebook Page Roles

With Facebook, you may want to remove page admins or close a page account when an employeeleaves the company.

To remove an admin, open your Facebook page and click Settings in the top-right corner of the page.Click Page Roles in the left column to see everyone who has a role on your page.

Click Page Roles to see allpeople who have access to your Facebook page.

Click the X next to the name of the person you want to remove and click Save.

Keep in mind that you can also change a user's page role. This is useful if the person isn't leavingyour organization completely. Maybe he or she just no longer needs access to the entire dashboard.There are five different types of roles you can choose: Admin, Editor, Moderator, Advertiser andAnalyst.

If you want to close your business Facebook account altogether, skip the Page Roles tab and gostraight to the General tab. In the bottom-right corner of the screen, find the Remove Page option,click Edit next to it and then click Delete [Your Page].

You can delete yourFacebook page from the General tab.

After you click Save Changes, fans and other users will no longer be able to see the page, butanyone with an admin role can still access it for 14 days. That's a failsafe in case someoneaccidentally deleted the page or did so when they weren't authorized to.

#2: Revoke Twitter Tokens

Twitter uses tokens to grant users access to your account. So if you have users who need to beremoved, start there.

After you log into your company's Twitter account, open your profile and click Settings. In the leftcolumn, click Apps to see all of the applications that can access your account.

Click Revoke Access next to the one you want to delete.

Click Revoke Access next toan app to remove access to your Twitter account.

If you'd like to shut down your Twitter account for good, click Account in the left column. In theright column, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Deactivate My Account.

Click Deactivate My Accountto permanently delete your Twitter account.

Remember that once you click Save Changes, someone else can take your old Twitter handle.

#3: Remove Google+ Managers

Google+ pages work a lot like Facebook pages, except a business page on Google+ also shows up inGoogle Maps and Google Search.

To remove a Google+ manager, log into Google My Business. Click the Settings wheel and then clickthe Managers tab. Locate the user you want to remove and click the X next to that person's name.That user loses his or her manager privileges immediately.

Remove managers fromwithin the settings.

To delete a Google+ page, click Settings and then click Delete Page at the bottom of the page.

Keep in mind that if you have a YouTube account associated with your business page, you have todelete the YouTube account first. Sign into the YouTube channel you want to remove. In youraccount settings, click Advanced Account Settings and then click Delete Channel. You'll have to signback in to confirm your username and password.

#4: Remove Hootsuite Team Members

Hootsuite isn't a social media platform, but it's a popular way for businesses to manage multiplesocial media presences. You can use it to assign tasks and social networks to team members. It alsokeeps a record of who posts what, which is especially useful when you have lots of cooks in thekitchen.

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To remove a member on Hootsuite, click your user profile picture in the top-left corner of thedashboard. Choose View Members to view your current team members.

In Hootsuite, click ViewMembers to see all of your current team members.

Hover over the team member you want to remove and click Remove. Don't forget to check the boxnext to Also Remove Access to Social Networks in This Team. The team member loses accessimmediately, but will keep his or her Hootsuite account because it's independent of your team.

#5: Change Passwords to Control Access

Facebook, Twitter and Google+ all allow multiple admins on one social account. However, yourbrand may be running another platform by just sharing passwords. This is common with companyInstagram and Pinterest accounts, for example.

Remember to changepasswords when you change employees. Image: Shutterstock.

There are inherent risks to sharing account access this way. If users have your password, they canchange the admin email, change the password and lock you out.

But if you must share access this way, change the password after an employee shake-up. Then notifyall current admins of the new password. Also, consider moving to third-party social mediamanagement software that allows you to grant access without giving out sensitive information.

Conclusion

Sometimes you need multiple admins on your social accounts. Maybe your brand needs tocommunicate with social audiences in different time zones. Or you have to subcontract your socialmedia posts because you're too busy with other business operations.

If you have multiple admins, keep track of which employees have access and be sure to remove thataccess when they leave or change roles within your company.

What do you think? How do you manage access to social accounts? Please leave your thoughts in thecomments below.

Risk photo and Password security photo from Shutterstock.

Tips for controlling access to your social media accounts.

Tags: elizabeth victor, social media account access, social media for business, social mediamanagement

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