Are you relying too much on your Facebook business page?

A cautionary tale for anyone who relies on a Facebook Page to run their business and keep revenue coming in.

I woke up this morning to several messages from friends and family telling me that something dodgy was happening on my Facebook biz page where I have around 1000 followers.

It turns out that someone has stolen my Facebook Business Page, and has removed me as an admin so essentially I don’t own that page anymore and have no way of getting back into it. They applied for a name change, Facebook granted it without any ‘suspicious activity’ notifications to me.

Now, I’m not a dimwit. I’ve put in place the maximum security settings you can use for any online account - and this still happened.

The question is, will I ever get it back? I’ve lodged two separate support issues with Facebook. I’m waiting to hear from them. But from what I’ve discovered today, there’s a strong chance I’ll never hear from Facebook and that my Biz Page, my content, my pictures and my 1000 contacts are now in the hands of someone else.

This is kind of embarrassing for me because I’m a digital marketing professional - surely I must know what I’m doing, right? But I think this is the point - it can happen to anyone, even if you think you’re digitally savvy. The AI bots out there are constantly blasting online accounts looking for any teeny tiny weakness they can find and they find as way to sneak in.

Many people out there have lost their FB biz page for good

I’ve discovered multiple forums this morning full of people who have had their business page stolen, and in many cases, the thief has run amok using their Meta Ad account to run ads using the ‘real’ owners' credit cards. Many of these people have not regained access to their business page again. The only solution to stop the financial theft was for the victim of the page theft to cancel their credit card with their bank. The stories told in these forums all say that Facebook apparently does little to help, nor does it refund any of the money spent by the rogue page thief.

Part of the problem is that business pages can be easily passed around - adding and deleting admins is fairly simple, and there’s no double authentication process for transferring page admins and ownership (not that I can see, anyway).

How secure can we make our accounts?

My personal account was hacked a few weeks ago, which may have been the start of all this, but I managed to re-authenticate myself to FB, which included providing Photo ID, and that seemed to be sorted. I've made sure that I have two-factor authentication in place, created a new super strong password and in theory, that’s as secure as an account can get. I’ve re-authenticated myself again today - but it’s only for the personal account. It seems there’s no secure re-authentication process for business pages.

The AI bots are sneaky

I think the personal account hack (which was sorted in a couple of hours) was done very sneakily. After I re-authenticated my account, they obviously lay in wait for a few weeks before pouncing on the Business Page. I was lulled into a false sense of security, believing that my account was as protected as it could be.

If I relied on that page to be the main source of revenue generation for my business, I’d be stuffed right now. Fortunately, I’ve always taken the ‘don’t put all your eggs in the same basket approach’ for my own marketing, and losing this page won’t make any significant difference to my revenue.

So many small business owners rely on their FB page for revenue

From my work with start-up businesses, I know just how many people use Facebook as their primary (and, in many cases sole) method of generating income. If you rely heavily on FB to run your business, imagine waking up tomorrow morning to discover that your primary revenue-generating asset is now in the hands of another person - what will you do? Even if Facebook do step in to sort it out, it could take weeks to be resolved, which could result in a huge drop in income while you are waiting.

Don’t put all you’re eggs in the one basket

There’s a reason why marketing professionals mostly recommend a mix of marketing activities and that it’s not a good idea to just rely one third-party controlled platform. And this story is it. Someone can pull the rug out from under you in the blink of an eye.

So…

1. Check and double check your FB security settings for you personal account, any business pages and your Meta business account. If you’re not using it for advertising purposes right now, remove any credit card or paypal details.

2. Put a double authentication on your FB account (either using an authentication app or via text message code that will notify you of suspicious activity - but I must add that despite having these things, I got no such notification when someone changed the name of my business page and removed me as an admin.)

3. Create a virtual date of birth. I do this on all my accounts now, I have a different date of birth on online accounts that insist on having one. Our date of birth is a gateway to online banking and all sorts of other secure data. If you get hacked, there’s no telling what else they could access.

4. Have your own website. It’s yours; no social media platform can take it away from you.

5. Build an email list. Those contacts are then legitimately yours. If I hadn’t used list-building techniques in my business, my 1000 Facebook page followers would be gone. Chances are, I’ll only lose about one-third.

6. Don’t rely on just one platform. Spread your marketing out a bit so if one thing goes wrong, there’s something else while you wait for things to get back to normal.

7. Argue copyright infringement. If someone steals your page, that has all your content, images, videos etc., it could be argued as copyright theft. I found this video on YouTube that explains how to make a copyright complaint to Facebook. I’ve sent my complaint in on this these grounds, I’m just waiting for a reply.

This can can happen to any of us at any time, without warning.

So there you are. I thought this kind of thing could never happen to me. But it has and it’s a monumental pain. I’ll let you know if I ever get it back.