I seem to be running into a particular situation a great deal lately so I was compelled to write about it.
Digital Properties
By digital properties I mean your social media sites, ad accounts, website, hosting account and any other like properties. Do you know who owns them? You might think you do, but are you sure about that?
When you own a home, you have the keys or combinations to get into that home. So why don’t you have that for your digital properties too? So very many businesses do not.
Example
Say you have someone set up a Facebook page for you, but you never give them your login to Facebook (or maybe you don’t have one yet) so they just set it up off of their login and give you admin rights so you can post. Who owns that page then? Guess what, it’s not you. Why? because it was set up off of their main account not yours.
Time
Yes, it takes more of your time when someone sets accounts up under your email and password, but it is worth it. You know you are the owner. Why does it take more of your time you might ask. Most all of the above-mentioned platforms use some sort of pinging (most of the time text messages or some can be via email) to verify you are really the owner of that business to try to keep some of the spam out and for security. Along with that if they notice that someone logged in from a different computer or IP address, they will ping you also asking if it is okay. So, many times the set-up has to be done with you at your office phone or mobile phone.
Questions
Here are a few of the most asked questions on Google in regards to not being able to get into accounts, and the list goes on.
How can I recover my FB account?
How many times can you enter a wrong password into Facebook?
How can I recover my twitter password without email or phone?
What does my account has been compromised mean?
Google My Business works about the same. If it isn’t attached to YOUR Google account login, it is very possible that you only have admin rights to it if at all, and don’t really own it. And your Google analytics and search console, and everything Google should all be in the same account.
“On average, people have 7.6 social media accounts”
Websites
What about your website? Do you know how to login to the back end of it? You should know who is hosting your website and have the capability to login to the hosting also. It is your property. You are currently paying for it. Even if you don’t know what to do when you get there, you should have the capability. The same goes with your domain. (That’s the www.joesplace.com.) How else are you going to renew it? (Yes your domain has to be renewed every year or two, depending on how it was set up AND along with that ICANN [ICANN-accredited registrar] will want you to update your contact information every year.)
Websites, like everything these days have to be updated all the time. So maybe the person that created your website is doing that, or maybe you’re even paying for an upgraded plan and the hosting company is doing it. But think about this, if you don’t know how to access your website and hosting, and something goes wrong with it (which still happens even with all precautions taken), what are you to do? Poof your website is no longer available.
Ownership
Google, Facebook, Microsoft and every other type of ad platform needs to be under an account that you can login to and own – not the marketer’s account! Of course the big corporations do just let the big marketers do it all for them, but those big marketing firms don’t disappear – generally speaking, and when spending $10,000+ a month on digital ads, I would probably not be worried about that part of it either.
“$74bn was spent on social network advertising in 2018”
If ads are set up in Facebook on someone else’s account, that someone else is the owner of those ads and Facebook won’t even let you transfer it back to the original company without sending them multiple forms of identification for you and your business. (It is a long list. I saw it because I had them send it to me.) I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want some programmer at Facebook having my state ID or anything else like that. Now don’t get that confused with sharing an ads account in Facebook’s Business Manager or the other platforms with a marketer.
These ad platforms have settings so that you can share them with marketers but still keep the actual ownership. That way if something does happen with the marketer, web designer or social media manager you can still easily access your accounts to add someone new and keep everything in motion. The key term here being “still easily access your accounts.”
Just Do It
If you have digital properties that you don’t know how to get into, find out! Anyone can get hit by that proverbial bus. If you can’t remember the password but they were set up under your email (your account), you can usually submit for a new password and the platform will either email or text you a link to create one. If it is your website, call your developer and find out the information. Write it down somewhere so you have it if ever needed.
And if you have any questions, let me know. We would be glad to help you figure it all out.
