Every so often, we find ourselves in situations that are difficult to solve. Maybe not because they are incredibly technical, but more because we are not used to those problems arising before or because the documentation of a system is so poor that you don’t even know where to start.
That was the case for me recently when I couldn’t get a client’s Instagram account to connect to their Facebook account. It should be fairly easy right? Not so fast.
We have Facebook classic pages, and the new Page’s Experience. We have profiles, and pages, and a professional dashboard and then the improved Meta Business Suite. Each with its unique set of challenges and a complete mess of menus that make it frustrating to say the least. The whole system is a piece meal that should be at the very least well documented, but at best: redesigned from the ground up.
So, here is the problem and how I ended up solving it in case you are in the same situation.
When trying to connect Instagram to a Facebook page, it gives a message that reads: Error: Can't Confirm: You must be an admin of the associated Page's business in Business Manager to confirm the Instagram account.
To understand the issue we need to first know that a Facebook Page can only be connected, as far as we know, to a single Business Account as the owner.
So if you create a Business Account as an agency for a client, and then connect it to that page (which is extremely common), then the page is now considered “admin” by that Business Account.
The error happens when someone in an organization creates a Business Account, link the Facebook account to it, and then one day in the future, part ways with the organization.
They often have no problem remembering to let go of the access to the Facebook page —but they forget to unlink the Business Account from that Facebook page.
If you are lucky, the person associated with that Business account is still available and reachable through the email that they used to create the Business Account – otherwise, you can’t link the same Facebook page to another Business account without it being released first.
If the account is associated to a Business account which you don’t control, you’ll get the error that won’t allow you to link the Instagram account to the Facebook Page.
The Solution
The solution, once you know the problem is pretty straight forward. Unlink the old Business Account from the Facebook page. Where?
1. First select the page that you are linking and visit the settings menu item of the page.
https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=profile
2. Next click on the left menu “New Pages Experience”
3. Here you’ll see the associated Managers, Community Managers and Business Accounts. The business account that is currently associated will be listed here and you’ll see three small dots to the right. Click those three dots and request to unlink the Business Account.
The owner of the Business account will get an email if they still can, and with a little bit of luck you’ll be on your way to linking the accounts.
Why is this important in the first place? Well, if you manage more than one account for more than one client, you’ll probably eventually consider a social media manager tool – such as HootSuite and others. The only way you can connect to the Instagram page via the API is if the page is connected to Facebook. And the only way to connect to Facebook is if the Business account is under the proper ownership.
Hope this helps! Until next time!
