Authenticating social accounts with Influence grants the platform access to deeper data from the accounts, providing more analytics to give insights for your campaigns and social media strategies. This article will review why authentication is important and also cover the steps for social account authentication with Influence and common troubleshooting questions.

Understanding authentication

Authenticating social accounts with Influence grants the platform access to deeper data from the accounts, providing more analytics to give insights for your campaigns and social media strategies. This article will review why authentication is important and also cover the steps for social account authentication with Influence and common troubleshooting questions.

Key details:

• Influence never handles account login details. We only collect data securely via authorization protocols provided by the social platforms themselves. There is no danger of social account login credentials being exposed by our team, because we never receive them.
• Influence does not ask for the ability to post or edit content on an account, or for personal information associated with the account. We only collect social media posts and their performance data (e.g. impressions, engagements, audience, etc.).
• Authorizing an account does not have any negative impact on its chances of becoming verified on the social media platform.
• Access to an account’s data can be revoked at any time by removing Influence’s permissions on the social platform itself, or from the influencer’s dashboard > Accounts tab.
• Our team takes security very seriously. Data is securely stored via AWS in compliance with GDPR law, and we regularly audit our systems and employee data access.

Authentication steps

For influencers

Authenticating accounts during your application

If you are a new influencer that has not yet been added yet to the Influence system, you can connect your social accounts through the online application link your network or agency provides you. The first step of the application will ask you to connect your social accounts, which will authenticate them into the system.

Authenticating accounts using an authorization link

If your accounts are already connected in Influence but still require authentication, your network/agency can notify you via an authorization link. Your network/agency can choose to send you an automated email with the authorization link, or share the link with you using the communication method of their choice. Follow the prompts in the authorization link to authenticate your account(s).

Authenticating accounts from your Influence dashboard

If you have already been approved by your network/agency and have access to your Influence dashboard, you can easily add and authenticate new social accounts or re-authenticate existing connected accounts from your dashboard homepage. Use the Add Accounts button to connect and authenticate a new account. Any accounts that require re-authentication will say Reauth with a button to re-authenticate them. 

Revoking authorization

If you would like to remove the authorization to an account at a later date, you can do so on the social media platform directly, or by accessing the account in your Influence dashboard. For Instagram Business or Creator accounts, data is managed via the Facebook Page, and access can be revoked from the Facebook Page’s settings.

From your Influence dashboard, open an account and click the Revoke Authorization link to revoke Influence’s permissions to the account.

For Admins

If you are a network or agency partnering with an influencer and the influencer's accounts are already in the system, you can send them a link to authenticate their accounts.

From the Influencers tab or in a campaign, open an influencer’s profile and go to the Accounts tab. You'll see the option to either send the influencer an automated email with an authentication link, or you can copy the link and send it to them directly however you prefer.

If an influencer’s social account requires authorization or re-authorization and you see the red Attention notice at the top of a campaign indicating that accounts are in a Reauth or Non-auth state, you can also click on the notification to display a list of influencers and their authorization links.

Troubleshooting

Authenticating Instagram accounts

Authenticating Instagram accounts with Influence requires a few additional steps. The Instagram account will need to be either a Business account or a Creator account, and the account must also be connected to a Facebook Page.

Switching to an Instagram Business or Creator account

To confirm that your account is set as a Business or Creator account on Instagram, first click on your profile photo in the top-right corner of Instagram, and then go to Settings.

Once in Settings, you will see the option to Switch to Professional Account if you need to switch to a Business or Creator account. You will be given a choice of creating a Business Profile or a Creator Profile.

Once you have updated your account to either a Creator or Business account, you will need to connect it to a Facebook Page.

Connecting your Instagram account to a Facebook Page

An Instagram account will need to be connected to a Facebook Page in order to be authenticated, but it does not matter what the page is, or if it has any likes or credibility. If you do not have an existing Facebook Page, you can create a new one for the purposes of connecting your Instagram account.

1. From your Facebook account, click on the Pages tab from the left-hand menu.

2. On the left side of your screen, choose Create New Page if you need to create a page and follow the steps to do so. You can make your page as personal or as bare as you would like.

   Tip:

   See detailed instructions to Create a New Page from Facebook’s help center.

3. Once you have created your Facebook Page or located an existing page you would like to link your Instagram account to, click Manage Page in the left side of your page, then scroll down and select Settings. Then, click Instagram from the Page Settings menu.
4. Follow the prompts in Facebook to connect the desired Instagram Business or Creator account to the Facebook Page. When connecting your Instagram account, all of the permissions that we request during the authentication process must be ticked to Yes in order for the account to be successfully authenticated. In the event that you are unable to tick all of the permissions, click the Back button on this permissions page, reselect any applicable Facebook Pages, and make sure all of the permissions in the permissions list are ticked to Yes before proceeding.
5. Select Done to complete your Instagram account connection to the Facebook Page. When you refresh the page, you should see your Instagram account connected in the menu. In Instagram, you can also check that the Facebook Page is connected under your Instagram account Settings > Account > Linked Accounts > Facebook. You can disconnect or reconnect your Instagram account from the Facebook page any time.

Issues during authentication

During the Instagram authentication process, you will be asked to select the Facebook Page and the connected Instagram Business or Creator account. If either one is not showing during authentication, this could mean that you are signed into another Facebook profile in your browser that does not have access to the proper Facebook Page. If you're logged into the wrong account, simply log out of Facebook, log back into the correct account, and try connecting once more.

If you do not see your Instagram account listed when you attempt to authenticate, your Instagram account could not be a Business or Creator account or the Business or Creator account could not be properly connected to a Facebook Page. Revisit the authentication steps to double-check that your accounts are correctly set up for authentication.

If your Facebook Page does not have all of the permissions ticked to Yes, you will see the following error screen during authentication:

Revisit the Facebook Page authentication steps above to double-check that your Facebook Page has all of the enabled permissions. You can also check your Facebook Settings > Business Integrations to double-check your settings granted for Influence.

If you upgraded your Instagram account to a Creator or Business account from within Instagram, but did not link the account to a Facebook Page that you own prior to authenticating the account with Influence, Facebook will create a dummy page. To resolve this, link your Instagram account to a Facebook Page you own. Once completed, try re-authorizing your account in Influence.

Adding influencers with non-authenticated Instagram accounts

If you are an admin and attempting to add influencers directly from Discover into the Influencers or Campaigns tools, you may experience some issues adding influencers who have a non-authenticated Instagram account associated with their profile.

At this time, you will be unable to add an influencer with an Instagram account into your Influencers tool. Instead, we recommend adding the influencer with all required fields and the influencer's email, but skip adding their Instagram account during the add influencer flow.

Once the influencer is added to your Influencers roster and they can access their Influence dashboard, they can click the Add Account button in their dashboard to connect their Instagram account themselves.

This process will also authenticate their instagram account and thus avoid the current non-authenticated Instagram account issues.

If you experience this issue when adding a YouTube or TikTok influencer to the Influencers or Campaigns from the Reports tab, please first confirm that the influencer’s report does not have an associated Instagram account.

To check this, navigate to the Contact Information tab in the specific influencer report and see if there is a listed Instagram account, as shown in the example below. This will prohibit you from adding the influencer to your CRM or a Campaign at this time. Instead, navigate to the Influencers tool and add the influencer there with the desired social account.

Authenticating TikTok accounts

Overview of TikTok authentication requirements

Non-TikTok Creator Marketplace (TTCM) accounts:

• Must be authenticated
• Can only be added via the influencers' dashboard or via the influencer application flow, directly into the authenticated state

TikTok Creator Marketplace (TTCM) accounts:

• Can be either authenticated or non-authenticated
• Can be authenticated using any of the above authentication methods
• Can be added via the CRM as non-authenticated accounts

Connecting a new non-TTCM account

If you would like to connect a non-TTCM account for an influencer, you can either:

• Create a CRM profile for the influencer manually, then ask the influencer to log into their influencer dashboard and connect the TikTok account from there. 
• Have the influencer connect and authenticate the account via the onboarding process (if enabled for your organization).

Please note that non-TTCM account connection must be done by the influencer. If you attempt to connect the account under the influencer's profile in CRM, you will see the following error message:

Tracking existing non-TTCM accounts

Due to Influence's integration with TikTok's TTCM API, existing non-TTCM accounts connected to influencers' profiles will no longer be trackable while they’re in the non-authenticated state. For us to resume tracking of these accounts, you can either:

• Invite the TikTok account to TikTok’s Creator Marketplace via the TikTok button in the CRM profile, or:
• Have the influencers add their TikTok account via the influencers' dashboard.

Inviting influencers to TTCM

When you view an influencer's TikTok account in their profile, you will see if they have an authenticated or non-authenticated account as well as whether or not their account is part of the TikTok Creator Marketplace. TTCM accounts will have a "Marketplace" label when you view the account. Non-TTCM accounts will have a "Non-TTCM" label and you will have a Send Invite option to invite the influencer to join the TTCM.

Once the invitation is sent, the influencer will receive a message in their TikTok System Notifications saying they have been invited to join TikTok Creator Marketplace.

When the influencer clicks the message in their inbox, they will be taken to the their System Notifications where they will see the invitation and can click to View More.

The influencer can then click Join to accept the invitation.

The influencer will see a confirmation message and their account will then update to TTCM in Influence.

Managing existing TTCM accounts

For influencers that have existing TTCM accounts connected to their profiles, these accounts can be kept in the profile and continued to be tracked. They will remain in the non-authenticated state until they’ve been authenticated by the influencer. You can ask the influencer to authenticate their account using the standard methods above.

Please note that previously tracked data for these accounts using the third-party data vendor will be removed from their influence CRM profile, to comply with TikTok’s policy.