If you work for an agency that manages social media marketing for your clients, you will likely be helping your clients resolve occasional channel disconnections. Channel disconnections can arise from a variety of situations, from changes initiated by the native network to changes a client may have made with their social accounts. We recommend using and sharing the guides below as references when resolving channel disconnections for clients’ accounts and communicating best practices to prevent future disconnections.

Helping clients reconnect disconnected channels

When one of your client’s social accounts disconnect from Social Media Management, you will see a red Disconnected notice next to the channel. The user who originally connected the account will also receive an email notification and see a notification on their home dashboard in Social Media Management to reconnect the channel.

Reconnecting a channel is a quick process where a user that has login credentials to the social account will need to reauthenticate the account manually within Social Media Management’s Channel Admin settings.

Quick reconnection checklist:

• The user who is completing reauthentication for the channel must have an appropriate role on the account to authenticate, such as being an owner or Admin role to the Facebook Page to successfully complete the reauthentication step.

  Note:

  Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn have some detailed criteria for channel connections. Please visit our Facebook and Instagram authentication requirements or LinkedIn authentication requirements to prepare your clients if a reconnection is needed for these networks.

• To reconnect a disconnected channel in Social Media Management, navigate to Channel Admin settings (app.falcon.io/#/settings/channels/list). You will see a Disconnected status next to any disconnected channels. Click Reconnect next to a channel to begin the reconnection process.
  • If a client is a Social Media Management user and owns the channel, they can follow the standard reconnection process to reconnect and reauthenticate the channel themselves. Visit our Connecting Channels section in the help center to find detailed channel connection guides by network.
  • If the client is not a Social Media Management user but owns the channel, you can invite them to connect the channel. Follow the standard reconnection process and select Invite a User to Connect on step 3 of the channel connection process. This will generate an authentication link for you to send the client to authenticate their channel.
• For Facebook authentication, we recommend that the client grant the Brandwatch business integration access to all of the Facebook Pages linked to your Facebook account (even if you don’t plan to connect them all to Social Media Management). They must also enable/check all available permissions for the business integration, or else their Page will not authenticate.

Preventing channel disconnections for your clients

Your clients’ channels may become disconnected for many reasons, either from changes initiated by the native network or changes they may have made to their account(s) themselves.

Common reasons for disconnections

• Authentication token limitations
  

  Note:

  Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn enforce authentication token lifespans, meaning that your accounts can only stay connected to a third-party software like Brandwatch for a certain amount of time due to their security protocols. This is an expected disconnection for these networks. Read our full guides on Troubleshooting Facebook and Instagram Disconnection and Troubleshooting LinkedIn Disconnection to become familiar with these networks’ policies.

• Security concerns, such as dummy accounts, shared logins, two-factor authentication (2FA), and account inactivity
• Password or permission changes to the social account
• User changes to the social account or Brandwatch account
• Native network disruptions

Strategies to prevent disconnections

We also recommend reviewing our best practices for preventing disconnections so you are aware of preventative steps you can take to ease the frustration of unintended disconnections and plan for transitions that commonly cause disconnections. Planning ahead with your client can help them ensure that their workflows in Consumer Research won’t be interrupted or delayed due to disconnections that they can prevent.

• Help your clients become familiar with Meta’s authentication requirements
• Recommend that your client plan for user changes in their organization, such as transitioning ownership or designating back-up Admins for company social accounts in the event that someone a social account owner leaves.
• Encourage your clients to inform you whenever they have made changes to their social account so you or they can refresh the channel connection. Refreshing a channel is simply reauthenticating the channel connection proactively and periodically within Social Media Management before a disconnection occurs. In general, refreshing a channel connection every 3-4 months is a best practice that you may want to communicate or schedule with your client. Refreshing a channel proactively is the best way to prevent unexpected disconnections.

Contacting Support

If you or a client need to contact Support to resolve a channel disconnection, creating a HAR file from your browser can provide our team a detailed log of network activity to help you in resolving the client’s disconnection. Visit and bookmark our article on Creating a HAR File to learn about and provide this process to clients when resolving channel disconnections with our Support team.