Reconnect a social account

Hootsuite connects to your social accounts using tokens from each social network. When tokens expire, your social accounts need to be reconnected, or re-authenticated. To learn more, see Why social accounts disconnect.

When a social account is disconnected, scheduled posts will fail to publish, streams won’t load, and analytics data will not be collected for that account. To identify a disconnected account, see the section How to identify a disconnected account.

Before you begin

To reconnect a social account, make sure you have:

• Credentials (email and password) for the social account.
  Facebook groups can only be reconnected with the credentials that were initially used to add the group to Hootsuite.
• Facebook Admin permissions for the Page if reconnecting a Facebook Page.
• Permissions in Hootsuite to reconnect the social account:
  • Team, Business, and Enterprise plan members in a Hootsuite organization must have super admin, admin, or advanced social network permissions to reconnect a social account.

If you don’t have permissions to reconnect a social account, you will see the last user who connected the account when you select Reconnect social accounts.

Pages, profiles, and groups added to Hootsuite with the same social account credentials can be reconnected at the same time (instead of one by one). So if a user has Hootsuite permissions to reconnect at least one Page, group, or profile associated with the same social account credentials, they will all reconnect.

Reconnect a social account

1. Go to My profile , and then select Reconnect social accounts to display your disconnected accounts.
   
2. Select Reconnect to enter the social account credentials (username and password) and re-authorize the connection to Hootsuite.

How to identify a disconnected account

When a social account is disconnected, you or your team members are alerted in the following ways:

Reconnect banner- A reconnect banner appears in Hootsuite. If you close the banner but the connection is not resolved, it will reappear after 24 hours.

Account alert- A yellow alert icon appears on your profile picture.

Email notification- An email notification is sent to the last user who successfully connected or reconnected the social account to Hootsuite, or to an admin who owns that social account. Follow the instructions in the email to see the affected accounts and take action.

Planner alert- Posts scheduled to publish to a disconnected social account display a warning. Until the social account is reconnected, these posts will fail to publish. Open the scheduled post, and then select Reconnect.

Composer alert - If you select a disconnected social account when creating or editing a post, you'll be prompted to reconnect it before scheduling or publishing. If you don't have permissions to reconnect that account, you can save your post as a draft.

Stream interruption- Streams powered by disconnected social accounts are flagged.

Social networks and teams alert- Select My profile, and then select Social networks and teams. Disconnected social accounts are indicated with a red exclamation mark.

Proactively reconnect a social account

Reconnecting a social account proactively, before Hootsuite has triggered disconnection alerts, is a common troubleshooting step. Refreshing an account’s connection ensures that it’s up-to-date and has the newest permissions required to complete certain actions in Hootsuite.

Proactively reconnect a private account

1. Go to My profile, and then select Social networks and teams.
   
2. Under Private social accounts, select the disconnected account (or the account that has been problematic).
3. Select the Profile Settings tab, and then select Connect with [social network].
   
4. Enter your social account credentials, and then sign in.
   The social network may display additional permission prompts. Approve the prompts to complete the reconnection.
5. Instagram - Select Sign in to Facebook and authorize the associated Facebook Page so that full functionality remains enabled for your business profile. To learn more, see Add an Instagram account.

Proactively reconnect an organization's account as a Team, Business, or Enterprise plan member

Team, Business, and Enterprise members of a Hootsuite organization can use the following steps to reconnect an organization's social account. Make sure you have all the permissions required to reconnect the account. See the section, Before you begin.

1. Go to My profile, and then select Social networks and teams.
   
2. Select Social Networks.
   
3. Select the disconnected account, select the Profile Settings tab, and then select Connect with [social network].
4. Enter your social account credentials, and sign in.
   The social network may request additional permission. Approve the requests to complete the reconnection.
5. Instagram - Select Sign in to Facebook and authorize the associated Facebook Page so that full functionality remains enabled for your business profile. To learn more, see Add an Instagram account.