The above words are part of our everyday live chat conversations, and I wish I could wave a magic wand and fix the problem for you, but sadly I am not that talented.

It is so important to make sure that you have a minimum of two people as administrators of your company Facebook page.  I have also seen situations where a disgruntled employee has removed the business owner as administrator from the page, leaving the page and the brand open for abuse.  Please do not let this happen to your business.  There are various levels of administration rights on a Facebook page.  I am pleased to note that Facebook have now changed the default setting to “editor” rather than “admin”, which will save a lot of heartache in the future.

If you are in the unfortunate situation of being left high and dry with your business page then there are really only a few options available to you.

Option 1 – Be nice to the ex-colleague!

If you are still on talking terms, then the quickest, and most efficient way of gaining access to the page is for them to make you an administrator of the account.  Here is a quick video showing you how to remove or add someone to your Facebook page.

Option #2 – Report the page to Facebook

From experience, this option takes forever!  They are not the fastest people to action these sorts of requests, but sometimes you may not have a choice. You will need to prove that you are the owner of the business, which means that you need to send them documentation to support your claim.   To start the process, simply visit https://www.facebook.com/help 

It may be worth noting this very handy Facebook contact list / directory of forms, that I found on Mari Smith’s website.  If you have any reason to contact Facebook, then completing the right form will certainly save you some valuable time.  Check out the link here: http://www.marismith.com/how-contact-facebook-directory-of-forms/

Option #3 – Go down the legal route

This is probably the final, and most expensive option, but even a scary letter from a legal representative may have the desired results.  I have no legal experience, however, I do appreciate that a company website and social media platforms are the property of the company and not the individual who set up the account.  In a court of law, you will have more rights to the page than the disgruntled employee, but you need to weigh up the cost against the gains.

A personal LinkedIn connections list is different, as I understand this belongs to the individual unless you have an alternative written agreement.

In summary

Prevention is better than cure!  I urge you to check ALL of your social media platforms immediately to make sure that you have more than one person in control of your social media accounts, and not just Facebook.  Do you have more than one person as administrator on your LinkedIn company page?  What email address is set up for your Twitter account?  Do you have access to your Google Plus page?

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