Social Media Profile Ownership ~ Best Practices and Tips

Many managers at both growing or established companies struggle to find the time and  resources to manage multiple social media profiles. In many cases, an intern or junior employee is assigned the task of getting social networks set up plus tend to posting the messages on behalf of the organization.

Now imagine that the intern decides to take off to Australia to go backpacking for six months — or worse — leaves under less than ideal circumstances. Now what? How do you regain control of your online profile? Getting access back from social networks like Twitter or Facebook can be a support conundrum taking months to resolve – and by that time it could be too late to repair the damage.

Streamline and Protect

Social network profiles are quickly becoming one of the most important parts of your brand and your internal IP. That’s why HootSuite has created “Teams” allowing one account owner to assign tasks and various levels of access while protecting passwords and control.

So… What is Account Ownership?

Lets face it, when you’re dealing with people mistakes can happen. But with HootSuite you retain ultimate control of your account so that if it is compromised you can act quickly, removing users and deleting posts to minimize damage.

If you “own” a social profile in HootSuite, it means that you have the final say over all of the administration. As an account owner, you – and you alone – get to decide what happens with your social media accounts, including who gets to help manage them, and what level of access each team member is granted.

How to Add or Delete a Team Member

Because HootSuite is built as a collaborative social media dashboard, both Pro and Enterprise plans have the option to both add and remove team members, as well as maintain control over what level of access team members have. This means you can assemble a team to write status updates on behalf of your organization without revealing any account passwords. Inversely, account ownership also means you can revoke social media account access to a team member when they move on or change roles.

For most agencies or big businesses, it is necessary to have a number of contributors to your accounts. For example: junior employees monitor comments and mentions, marketers publish messages, contractors measure analytics, project managers delegate tasks and contribute messaging…  and so on.

Indeed, all of these people need access, but not necessarily the same level of permission. As an account owner, you can control who has access to what.

Team Levels

With the HootSuite Pro and Enterprise plans, each team has three levels of users:

Account owner

A social media profile can only have one owner. This class of user has ultimate administrative privileges, including transferring ownership when/if needed. An account owner can invite team members as well as revoke access to anybody. The account owner also decides what level of access team members have – as either advanced or basic members.

Streamline and Protect with HootSuite

Advanced team member

A social media account can have multiple advanced team members. These team members have nearly full access to the management of the account, including some administrative privileges. Advanced team members can invite other team members, or revoke access. They cannot, however, revoke an account owner’s access to a social media account, nor can they transfer ownership or change passwords. The advantage of the Advanced team member is that it allows others to manage your day-to-day social network needs without having total control over the accounts.

Basic team member

A social media account can also have multiple basic team members. This class of user simply has the ability to monitor social media streams and submit status updates. They have no administrative privileges nor can they invite other team members to social profile, revoke access, nor transfer ownership. This is perfect for outside contractors, interns, or team members that only need to post to one of your networks – but not all.

Account Management Best Practices

Account ownership is an important role, so to help you achieve the best management of your social media networks, we’ve put together these guidelines to keep you on track:

Ensure the Owner is in a position of authority

Some companies entrust their social media accounts to interns or agencies, which can make transfer of ownership tricky should there be a changeover of staff or agency accounts. Rather than setting up key external, or temporary contributors as owners, it would be better for these interns or agencies to be brought on as Advanced Members. This will ensure that any change of staff, agency, or level of authority is controlled by someone trustworthy in your organization, and will keep your account secure.

Never share your passwords

If someone else knows your social media passwords, they can step in and take control away from you, potentially causing a very damaging scenario for your brand. HootSuite’s security allows you to add team members without sharing passwords. Also, by utilizing tools like LastPass, you can provide access to your HootSuite account without compromising the security of your individual social media accounts.

Delegate responsibility

Delegate Tasks to Team Members

If other commitments prevent you from actively managing your team, transform a basic team member into an advanced team member. An advanced team member can have the administrative capabilities of an account owner without knowing any social media passwords. The advanced team member can then manage the account for you, adding and removing team members as needed, but you still retain control over the security of the account.

Register your HootSuite account with a corporate email address

Sometimes employees create a HootSuite account with a personal Gmail or Yahoo Mail address. This can get messy if they have multiple personal email addresses and cannot remember which address is associated with their HootSuite account. Ensure that whoever owns the HootSuite account registers with a corporate email address so there is no confusion. Getting email information back from social media networks can be a very lengthy process, if they provide that information at all.

As we’ve shown here, social media is like a dance with a lot of different dancers, and sometimes there are missteps. Keep yourself in the starring role — ensure everyone on your team is accountable for what they do. HootSuite makes accountability a breeze through our team assignment and auto-initial features.  These enable you to delegate tasks to others and follow up on assignments. Auto-Initial automatically pre-populates status updates with the initials of the team member publishing the post.

What are your Tips?

We enjoy hearing how teams have implemented HootSuite to both streamline and protect your social media accounts. Share your findings, scenarios and the potentially awkward situations you’ve mitigated by using HootSuite’s team management tools. Your comments always help us to better develop the tools we’ve created for you.

Author: Dave Olson

Dave Olson has written 108 posts for the HootSource blog..

VP Community at HootSuite finding Owls everywhere and bringing them into our social programs. Also enjoy hotsprings, personal expression, art n crafts and literature.

• View all posts by Dave Olson →
• Twitter
• Facebook