How to keep your Facebook business page secure
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Posted: Mon 13th Jun 2022
If your business has a Facebook page, protecting it against hacking and data breaches is crucial. Without this security, you risk having private information stolen and potentially harming your brand's reputation.
Although the settings within Facebook do provide some security and encryption, it's well worth putting some other simple measures in place to keep your data secure.
Read on to learn some tips about account security, and how to change security settings on your business Facebook page.
Make your Facebook business page private
You can set your Facebook business page to private. But be aware that doing this won't make the page any more secure, it'll only restrict who can see it. If customers can't find your page, obviously they won't be able to buy from you. It's harming your business.
That said, the feature to make your page private is useful for when you want to edit your page without anyone seeing the changes in progress. This can be helpful if you're going through the process of launching your business and refining how you present yourself to the public.
How to make your Facebook business page private
Log in to Facebook.
In the left-hand column, click Pages. If you can't see it, you may need to click See more first.
Under Pages you manage, click the page you want to make private.
Under Manage Page, click Settings.
On the General tab, there's a section called Page visibility, which shows whether your page is published. If the page you're working on is published, change it to Page unpublished then click Save changes.
Create a private event
If you're launching a business event but want to invite only certain people – and not the general public – you can use the private event feature. This could be useful if you're running an event in a particular location and only want to invite people who are local to that area.
How to create a private event on a Facebook business page
Log in to Facebook.
On the Events tab, click Create New Event.
Choose whether you want the event to be Online or In person.
On the Privacy tab, click Private or Public. Once you make an event public, you can't change it to private later.
Enter the information about the event – name, description, time and date and so on.
Click Create Event.
Invite guests using their name, number or email address.
Strengthen your password
Protecting your business Facebook account with a strong password is a really easy way to improve the page's security. There are some basic recommendations to keep in mind when setting a password:
Make them long and complex, including a mix of lower-case and upper-case characters, numbers and symbols.
Don't choose a password that has a connection to your personal life or business.
Don't reuse passwords from any other accounts you have.
Rather than attempting to come up with a perfect password yourself, use a password generator to pick a complex password for you. Avast's free online Random Password Generator is ideal for this task.
And instead of trying to remember all your passwords, why not use a password manager to store them all in one place, safely and securely?
Use two-factor authentication
Applying two-factor authentication (2FA) to your Facebook business account will immediately make your page more secure.
What is 2FA? It means when you (or anyone else) sign in to the account, you must complete two steps to gain access, rather than just one (such as entering a password).
Facebook provides two methods of 2FA:
Log-in codes from a third-party authentication app (such as Microsoft Authenticator)
Text message codes from your phone
When you turn on this option, anyone who tries to log in to your account will also need access to your phone or other device. You can also set up approval of:
log-in attempts from recognised devices
the use of a recovery code
using your security key on a compatible device
How to set up two-factor authentication
Follow these steps:
Log in to Facebook.
Visit Settings & privacy.
Click Settings.
Click Security and login.
Under Two-factor authentication, where it says Use two-factor authentication, click Edit.
Select the options you want to use.
Manage access permissions
If you have more than one person managing your Facebook business page, you might want to give each person different levels of access. The platform offers five roles with varying permissions:
Admin
Editor
Moderator
Advertiser
Analyst
The Admin and Editor roles give the most access, while the Advertiser and Analyst roles are limited to a small number of tasks. Moderator falls somewhere in the middle.
It's recommended that you grant admin permissions to more than one user. This protects you from losing access to your account if you're hacked, as having another account with admin permissions makes sure you aren't locked out of the page altogether.
To tighten security and make sure only those you trust can access your page, you need to be selective when granting these permissions. You should also regularly review access and remove anyone who no longer needs it – perhaps because they've left your company or changed roles.
How to set access permissions
Follow the steps below:
Log in to Facebook.
Visit Pages.
Click Settings.
Click Page roles.
Go to Assign a new Page role.
Type the person's name or email address in the box and use the drop-down menu to the right to assign the role.
Click Add.
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About Avast Business
Avast Business provides simple yet powerful security solutions for SMBs and IT service providers. Backed by one of the largest, most globally dispersed threat detection networks, the Avast Business security portfolio makes it easy and affordable to secure, manage, and monitor business devices.
The result is superior protection that businesses can count on. For more information about our managed services and cybersecurity solutions, visit www.avast.com/business.
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