Why Facebook is giving your ad agency the runaround

I was reading an article by Maggie McGary recently on the social media today site called Why Businesses Should Think Twice Before Investing Money or Time in a Facebook Page and I it most certainly struck a chord. I’ve shortened Maggie’s initial paragraph a bit but will let her kick off this post.

Not to be all “what if”–but the more integral to companies’ social media efforts Facebook becomes, the more leery I am about the idea of putting business eggs in a basket over which one has no control. . .Facebook pages, while clearly a business offering, are still dependent on individual profiles. This is a HUGE liability which is virtually never discussed.

Ok, so say you’re the individual who initially set up a huge brand’s Facebook page. First of all, congratulations to you–you’ve basically made yourself indispensable to your company or agency because if you go, the brand’s page goes. Seriously. The ability to transfer ownership of that page to anyone flat-out does not exist.

I think Maggie has hit the nail directly on the head here. Since the day I set up our FB page this past July, it’s not only been unreasonably difficult in regards to the personal profile connection, but just doesn’t even make sense. Maggie also mentions the instances of FB business pages inexplicably being shut down because the admin’s personal page has been deleted. In some cases perhaps warranted, but in the example she gives, not at all.

Having said this, there are some work-arounds, and I encourage you to read the comments for some of those if you’re interested, as I’m not going to list them all here, but when it comes down to it, at best it’s incredibly inconvenient and time-consuming and at worst a pretty big flaw, if I can use that term.

As an agency principal, if you weren’t aware of this potential issue, make yourself aware. We know a lot of agencies that have taken time and effort to establish and maintain FB pages and while many of these are well aware of this potential problem and know the ways around it, I would bet just as many don’t. Maggie answers a few of the commenters to her piece, and I think it’s worth posting it below as the final word:

The bottom line is that, yes, there are hoops you can jump through–like business accounts or setting up an additional account in the name of one person in the business, but the issue still remains that Facebook has ultimate control and no accountability–no matter how much money a company may be spending on Facebook ads.

Right now Facebook feels that they’re untouchable because they’ve got so many users–but plenty of companies have been there before and fallen. Facebook will be no different unless it stops fooling around with the layout of the home page and starts addressing one issue that ultimately matters to its survival: keeping the money coming in.

Click here for Maggie’s entire article.