You’ve spent years building up an active following on your business’ Facebook Page. Then, one day, your trusted Page Admin goes haywire – storms off the job, runs away with the circus, won’t return your calls, etc. Do you have to start from scratch? Can you reclaim your Facebook Page?
We’ve heard the horror stories, and they are usually variations on these themes involving employees or agencies who have permission to manage your Facebook page suddenly becoming incommunicado. Sometimes it’s innocent. Sometimes it’s malicious.
- They delete you and all the other admins leaving themselves in full control. Then sometimes they,
- Change your page name.
- Change the username.
- Trash your online reputation for sport.
- Find a new job and simply don’t return your phone calls when you’ve realized that you don’t know how to get in.
- And sometime, someone created a Place page for your business and it’s taken on a life of it’s own. This is a slightly different issue, but see this post on how to claim your Facebook Place Page.
Claiming Lost or Stolen Facebook Pages
If asking, begging, threatening get you nowhere, don’t despair. Visit your page, and:
- Click on the gear icon (1).
- Click on report page (2).
- Click on “Is this your intellectual property?” (3).
- Now, fill out the Reporting a Violation or Infringement of Your Rights form on Facebook. Keep it factual, brief and not emotional.
- It may take a few days or a week to hear back.
- Encourage your friends to follow steps 1-3 to report the issue. This may help get Facebook’s attention.
How to Prevent Facebook Page Loss or Theft
A signed agreement stating their obligation to be responsible in their management of the page and not remove you ad Admin may give you some legal recourse, but it’s not foolproof. Here’s what is.
You , as the business owner, are the only one who needs to have “Manager” level permissions on your Facebook Page. You may wish to grant the same access to someone you can trust completely – like your mother, as a backup. Other than you two, every other person with permission on your Facebook page should be at “Content Creator” and lower. Here’s how to make the changes:
- Visit your Facebook Page.
- Click on “Edit Page”.
- Click on ”Admin Roles”.
- Next to the administrator, there is a blue triangle. Click that and select another role for them.
Related articles
- Protecting Online Identity is Growing in Importance (allstate.com)
- How to recover or claim a Facebook page that belongs to you, but someone else owns or controls (thesocialanimal.com)
- How to Claim a Place Page on Facebook (scalablesocialmedia.com)
As partner and analyst at Scalable Social Media, Alisa Meredith spends a lot of time keeping up with online marketing trends for the benefit of our customers. Computers have been a passion of hers since her first T1-99, so website design and social media marketing are a natural fit. Enjoy this post? Tell her about it below!
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Excellent article, Alisa! Unfortunately, there are those who would tread on other’s intellectual property. Thank you for clearly outlining the steps tp take to regaiin access of a page.
You’re very welcome, Robin. It really is up to the business owner to make sure they keep control of their online presence and I hope they will take my word for it – no one needs to have “Manager” status but them. Thanks for stopping by!
This is a great article Alisa! This is how I instruct my client’s to set up permissions on their page if it’s existing. If I set the pages up, I use these settings as well. Unfortunately some business owners trust a little too much and then you end up with a situation like what’s described in your article. It’s also great to know how to reclaim a hijacked page!
Thanks, Shannon! It’s true, business owners need to become just a little more involved, whether they like it or not.
Great how-to! Most business owners have no idea there are different levels of Admins for their page. I even had a conversation with one this morning that had no idea he could add other people to manage his page. Thank you for providing this information!
You’re very welcome, Sarah. Glad you liked it! There is so much education to be done, isn’t there? Gone are the days of creating a website and saying, “So long!”
Super post! This is definitely one of those pages that people need to bookmark, because sooner or later you’ll need to use it! Especially when you have a handful of clients … it’s just bound to pop up. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Brooke! Yes, unfortunately, this was one of our “special request” posts.
Really helpful stuff here, thanks! It’s a keeper for sure. I’ll be sharing this with my audience, it could save someone a whole lot of hurt!
Oh, I hope so, Kerry! Mostly I hope business owners will keep tighter control on admin permissions to avoid the issue in the first place!