How do I connect my Facebook Page to Sprout?
Table of Contents
This article provides an overview of the profile requirements and connection options for a Facebook page within Sprout Social.
Required Facebook Permissions
The user completing the Facebook Page connection in Sprout will need to be assigned Access to the Page natively, and ensure they have the necessary permissions assigned with their Page Access.
The available levels of Facebook Page Access can be found in this article from Meta’s Help Center.
We typically recommend being assigned Full Access to the Facebook Page to ensure all bases are covered, however, you can connect a page with Partial Access, so long as the following permissions are enabled:
- Content: Create, manage or delete posts, stories and more as the Page. Protect your copyrighted content.
- Community activity: Review and respond to comments, remove unwanted content and report activity.
- Messages and calls: Send and respond to messages and calls as the Page.
- Ads: Create, manage and delete ads for the Page. Manage ad partnerships.
- Insights: See how the Page, content and ads perform.
The permissions above are necessary to be able to manage received messages in the Smart Inbox, publish content to your page via Sprout, and access performance data for Sprout Reporting.
Navigating Facebook: How Access is Assigned
Meta Business Suite is the recommended option for managing and assigning Page Access, however, there is the chance certain users may have been assigned legacy access via the Page itself. We will go into details on checking access for both scenarios below.
To check your Page Access via Meta Business Suite:
- Navigate to the following link: https://business.facebook.com/latest/settings
- If prompted, select the Business Portfolio that corresponds to your Page.
- It is possible to have access to multiple Business Portfolios. You can switch between Portfolios by clicking the image shown in the top left corner of your Business Settings in Business Suite.
- Go to Users > People and then select your name. In this view, you’ll see information on your Business Portfolio Access, as well as the Business Assets you have been assigned
- Locate the corresponding Facebook Page in your assigned business assets and click the Manage button. This will open a window with your assigned access
- Ensure that you have been granted access to Content, Community activity, Messages and Calls, Ads, and Insights with your assigned business tools access.
To check Access via the Facebook Page:
- Open the Page directly in Facebook.
- Click the profile icon in the top right corner of your Facebook view to confirm the account you are currently logged into. Clicking this icon will allow you to switch between profiles as needed.
- If you do not see your Page listed in the dropdown and there is not a Manage Page sidebar shown when viewing the Page, this indicates that you are not logged into a Facebook user profile with access to the Page.
- If you see the option to switch into your Page, move forward with doing so.
- Once switched into the Page, navigate to the left Manage Page sidebar and select Settings.
- In the updated left sidebar menu, select Page setup found under Audience and visibility.
- In the Page Setup menu shown in the center of your screen, click Page access
- From this view, you’ll be able to review the people who have been assigned access to the Page and their access level. You’ll also be able to identify the Business Portfolio that owns the page and ID number for that particular Business Portfolio.
- If you are able to access the Manage Page menu and view Page Access, but you do not see your name listed, this could indicate that you have been assigned Partner Access via another Meta Business Portfolio.
How do I connect my Facebook Page to Sprout?
The steps below will guide you through the actions to take in Sprout in order to connect a Facebook page.
- In Sprout, navigate to Account and settings > Connect a Profile. Select Facebook
- Select Connect Page for the account type
- On the next page, click Go to Facebook.
- Confirm you are logged into the correct Facebook profile that has access to manage the Facebook Page you are looking to connect. You can switch your login by clicking the profile icon shown in the top right corner of the window.
- Review and ensure you've granted Sprout Social the ability to request access to the corresponding Meta Business Portfolio and Facebook Page you are looking to connect
- Once you Save these access permissions and return to Sprout, you will be prompted to select a Connection Method for your profile. We recommend connecting via your Business Manager permissions unless you only have legacy access assigned through the Facebook page itself.
- Select the Business Portfolio associated with your Facebook page
- Select the Facebook pages you intend to connect to your Sprout Account, including any Location Pages associated with a main page.
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Update the Group and User permissions as needed and then click Save.
FAQs
Q: When I attempt to connect my Facebook pages, the connection flow in Sprout doesn't pull up all of the pages I have access to. How do I fix this?
To manage connections for Facebook Pages in Sprout, you will need to have been assigned Page Access and have the following task permissions toggled on with your Page Access: Content, Community activity, Messages and calls, Ads, and Insights.
If you are seeing you have the correct Page Access permissions assigned, then you will next want to make sure that you’ve authorized Sprout Social to access the Facebook pages you need to connect.
You can check this in the settings you’ve saved during the Facebook authorization steps in the Connection Flow. If you’ve already connected a page to Sprout, you will likely need to click Edit Settings to review the previous authorization granted. The following video will demonstrate checking these settings:
Q: When I am sent to Facebook while working through the connection steps for my page, it pulls up my personal Facebook profile. Is that normal? And will this connect my personal profile to Sprout?
That is expected to see that you are prompted to log in as your personal profile during the connection steps. This is due to the fact that Facebook will require authorization through a managing user’s permissions in order to be able to manage a Facebook page through a third-party platform like Sprout Social.
Rest assured, no data from your personal Facebook profile, other than your page authorization, is accessed by Sprout Social. Your personal profile will not be connected to Sprout in any way other than granting approval to the Facebook pages to establish the connection on the backend. Personal Facebook profile connections are not supported in Sprout Social.
Q: When editing the settings that I am granting Sprout Social in the Facebook authorization steps, I am seeing that I am granting Sprout Social access to “create and manage content” on my Page. Does this mean Sprout has authorization to publish to my pages without my consent?
No, authorizing Sprout Social access during these steps simply allows the platform the ability to request the necessary permissions from Meta to be able to run basic functionalities within the platform, and these are only accessed by Sprout Social if you complete the connection to your account in a later step.
These functionalities would include allowing your team to receive messages for the page in the Smart Inbox, allowing your team to publish content to your page via Sprout, and accessing performance data within Sprout Reporting.
The Sprout Social platform is not authorized or able to take action on your page without your consent.
Q: When editing the settings that I am granting Sprout Social in the Facebook authorization steps, is it safe to “Opt in to all current and future” Pages and Business Portfolios? I manage Facebook pages unrelated to my company that I do not want to connect to my company’s Sprout Social account.
Yes, it is safe to “opt in to all and current” Pages and Business Portfolios when working through the Facebook authorization steps. Opting in does not automatically connect the pages in Sprout and you will manually select and decide the pages you will actually connect to your Sprout Social account in later steps.
It is encouraged to opt in to all and current Pages and Business Portfolios to avoid accidentally blocking access to pages or portfolios you need to connect in the future.
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