Many a time a Facebook business page has been set up by an employee or marketing company.

But when the people involved have moved on, how do you get access to your page?

The difference between a business page and a personal profile

A Facebook business page is different to a personal profile or account – but it's easy to get confused when Facebook changes things so regularly.

In simple terms, a business page is for a company and a personal profile (also known as an account or a personal page) is for a person.  A business page has a few different tools designed to help you engage and measure interactions with, your audience.

A business page needs an administrator – ie a person and this person has to have a personal Facebook account. Facebook has changed it's mind a few times on this one – first you did, then you didn't – but as of now, you have to have a Facebook personal account to administer a business page.

A personal account can only have one person associated with it, but a business page can have multiple personal accounts attached to it.

If you are an administrator of a business page, you login to Facebook as normal and then switch to the business page (via the 'Use Facebook As' link that is in the drop down menu next to the nofication globe icon).

To get around concerns that the two get somehow confused or that customers see what you did at the weekend, Facebook recommend you control your personal account's privacy settings.

Here is some information about page privacy: Facebook Help

Setting a business page up from scratch.

Straight from the horses mouth, here's how to setup a business page: Facebook Business Pages

Getting administrator access.

So, what if a page has been setup for your business and you want access to it?

If a marketing company set up the page they should have made an employee an administrator (if they haven't - insist that they do).

If you know the person who has administrator rights at present, you can ask them to add you to the page as an administrator.

Here's how to give someone admin rights:

1. Login to Facebook as normal and go to the business page page (ie 'use Facebook as.....) from the drop down menu next to the notification icon (the one that looks like a globe)
2. From the links on the top left hand side, click on 'Settings'
3. From the left hand menu go to 'Page Roles'
4. On this page, there is a small link that says 'Add another person' – just above that is a space where you 'specify an email address'. Enter an email address here - this has to be the email address that the person uses to login to their personal facebook account
5. From the small drop down menu under this space, select the appropriate rights – they will need admin rights if they are going to be looking after the page in the future.

Requesting admin rights if the administrator can't be contacted

Unfortunately, lots of businesses only think about this after someone has left the company, and sometimes it's not feasible to get in touch with the individual concerned.

If it is not possible to ask them to go through the process above for some reason, then you can try claiming the page, here's how Facebook says you can do it: Claiming a Page

However, many people report difficulties with this option - and in fact say the option does not exist - so it may be easier to report the page as a duplicate page and start all over again.

Hey – they've got my Facebook page!

Same company name – different company?

Because Facebook's search option and naming convention does not recognise country boundaries it is quite possible that you will come across a page with your business name on it.

There are millions of business pages and it is inevitable that there is a business somewhere else with the same or similar name to yours.

Unfortunately assuming it is a legitmate business (and realistically, even if it's not) there is nothing you can do about it.

You could try naming your page with an 'NZ' after it.

To save a lot of heartache

If you have a Facebook Business page and want to safeguard it a bit, have more than one administrator.  If you can, have one person that is senior in the company or at least is unlikely to leave any time soon (but don't rely on this!).  

You should have a leaving check-list that includes changing passwords etc - so add  check Facebook administrator to this list so you can get them to add a person before they leave.

You could setup a fake personal account on a business email you have control over (eg This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and have this as an administrator, although strictly speaking this is contrary to Facebook's terms of service.

It's much better if you can stay on good terms with employees :)