Social Media Settings

Overview

Social media provides you with the means to build, mix, and promote business engagement, conversation, and supplier- and partner-generated social content. Social media content helps build meaningful relationships across all social media platforms. It's easy to connect your partner portal with Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.

Link your social media accounts to your portal account to get access to your vendors' syndicated social media content. You can post to your social media channels from within the portal and get in-depth analytics on all of your social media efforts.

A Social Feed is a collection of social posts provided to you by your supplier for publication to your social media channels. The posts may be grouped by language, product family, industry, or other criteria, and you can subscribe to any of the topics that suit your business needs. All of this can be managed via your Social Media Settings.

There are two paths to access the Social Settings page:

• By clicking > Settings > Social Media (Admin users) or > My Settings > Social Media (other users).
• By navigating to Social Media > Social Settings, if it's available in your portal (the page may have a different name in your portal)

Important

Posting times are based on the timezone configured in your partner account's Company Profile.

Contents

Click + to expand each section.

Connecting Social Media Accounts

Social Media accounts can be connected for shared or non-shared access. A user can connect any account for which they have credentials, and that can be their own personal account or their organization's account.

Access to a social media account by other users in the organization depends on the role of the user that connected it:

• Administrators - have two options for connecting accounts:

  • Shared access (known as Company access in the portal) - a user with the Admin role in the partner account must connect an account for it to be available for use by all users in the organization that have access to social media.

    If connecting a company (shared) account, an Admin user can choose to post to a specific page. 

  • Non-shared access (known as Personal access in the portal) - a user with the Admin role in the partner account can connect an account for non-shared access, where only that user can use it.

  Admins will be able to filter by Company Posts (shared) or Your Posts (non-shared) when browsing for posts.

• Non-Administrators - Users that have access to social media, but do not have the Admin role in the partner account, can connect an account for non-shared access, which only they can use.

Follow the step-by-step instructions under each social media platform section below to learn how to connect your social media accounts to your portal account.

For information about managing social media content Manage Social Media Posts.

Note

All social posts from your users are subject to the time zone configured for your partner organization portal account. For more information, see Updating your Company Details.

Facebook

Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to create both individual and business pages. You will need a Facebook page to connect with the portal. You can add a blurb about the business, upload photos that represent your business, send messages, and keep in touch with friends, family, colleagues, and potential customers.

Be aware of these guidelines when connecting Facebook accounts:

• Personal Facebook accounts/profiles cannot be connected to the partner portal. Only Facebook pages can be connected.
• You must have Admin permission for the Facebook page you're linking to the portal.
• Only one Facebook page for Company (shared) access can be added per Facebook account login. If you wish to add more than one shared Facebook page, a new Facebook login with Admin permission to the page must be used.
• The portal detects an active Facebook session and will automatically use that. To link a new Facebook account to the portal account, you must log out of Facebook first then return to the portal to add the new Facebook account.

To link your Facebook page to your portal account, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your Social Media Settings page. 

2. If you have the Admin role in the partner account, select if you would like to add the account for Company (shared) or Personal (non-shared) access.

   

3. Click Add Account.

   

4. From the Add Account drop-down list, choose Facebook.

   Note: if there's no response from the button, you may already be connected to Facebook. The portal uses the active connection as a default. To add a new account, log out of Facebook then return to the portal.

5. Enter your Facebook credentials in the login window. 

   If you don't see the login window, check that you do not have pop-ups blocked in your browser. If you do, allow pop-ups from the portal to continue.

6. Confirm how you would like to manage your pages and access your page and app insights.
7. Click Allow Access.
8. Your account is connected and listed in the Link to Social Media Accounts area of the Social Media Settings page. You can go to the connected account by clicking the Go To icon .

9. If you have the Admin role, selected Company in Step 2, and the account you connected is associated with a company, you can have posts go to a specific page instead of your personal page. Click the linked page name next to your connected account to open the Select Company Page window, where you can choose the page to which to post.

   

X

X is a free social networking microblogging service that allows members to broadcast short posts. X members can broadcast posts and follow other users' posts using multiple platforms and devices.

To link your X account to your portal account, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your Social Media Settings page.

2. If you have the Admin role in the partner account, select if you would like to add the account for Company (shared) or Personal (non-shared) access.

   

3. Click Add Account.

   

4. From the Add Account drop-down list, choose X (Twitter).

5. Enter your X credentials in the login window. 

   If you don't see the login window, check that you do not have pop-ups blocked in your browser. If you do, allow pop-ups from the portal to continue.

6. Click Authorize App.
7. Your account is connected and listed in the Link to Social Media Accounts area of the Social Media Settings page. You can go to the connected account by clicking the Go To icon .

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social networking site designed specifically for the business community. The site allows registered members to establish and document networks of people, professional groups, and companies they know and trust professionally.

To link your LinkedIn account to your portal account, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your Social Media Settings page.

2. If you have the Admin role in the partner account, select if you would like to add the account for Company (shared) or Personal (non-shared) access.

   

   About LinkedIn Metrics

   LinkedIn does not permit the tracking of posts, clicks, likes, comments, shares, and leads for Personal (non-shared access) LinkedIn accounts connected to the portal. Only the metrics for Company (shared access) LinkedIn accounts will be captured.

3. Click Add Account.

   

4. From the Add Account drop-down list, choose LinkedIn.

5. Enter your LinkedIn credentials in the login window. 

   If you don't see the login window, check that you do not have pop-ups blocked in your browser. If you do, allow pop-ups from the portal to continue.

6. Click Allow.
7. Your account is connected and listed in the Link to Social Media Accounts area of the Social Media Settings page. You can go to the connected account by clicking the Go To icon .

8. If you have the Admin role, selected Company in Step 2, and the account you connected is associated with a company, you can have posts go to a specific page instead of your personal page. Click the linked page name next to your connected account to open the Select Company Page window, where you can choose the page to which to post.

   

Note

If you want to connect your personal LinkedIn profile/account to a Company Page that represents your organization, your profile/account must be granted Super admin access to the page.

How to Manage your Social Feed

After connecting to your social media accounts, manage the Social Feed made available by your supplier. Admin partner users can manage the feed for the Company (shared) access accounts and for Personal (non-shared) access accounts. All other partner users can only manage the feed for their Personal accounts.

The social content in the feed is classified with tags. You can select any of the tags to subscribe to content categorized with that tag, and specify the level of approval you want for posts that have that tag - require your approval before posting, or allow them to auto-publish. You must select at least one tag.

Follow these steps to personalize your Social Feed:

1. Navigate to your Social Media Settings page.

2. Select the type of subscription (Social Feed or Auto-Publish) and click Edit.

   • Social Feed (Requires Approval) - subscribe to posts tagged with the selected tags, but manually review all posts with those tags before publication. Partners will be notified when new content is available, and new posts will have a Requires Approval label in the partner portal.
   • Auto-Publish - automatically send/publish all posts tagged with the selected tags to your connected social media accounts according to their scheduled time and date. 

   Note: If you choose not to configure the subscription settings, you still have access to posts you're entitled to see. You can manage them according to your own requirements.

3. Click Edit.

4. Create a rule that defines the tag categories and tags to include in this level of subscription. Use the drop-down menus.

   For example, to create a rule that will match social posts tagged with Vertical = Maritime:

   • Drop-down 1: Vertical
   • Drop-down 2: contains
   • Drop-down 3: Maritime

   You can subscribe to multiple tags in a category, for example Vertical = Maritime OR Transportation by selecting each required value in drop-down 3 with CTRL+click. 

   As another example, to create an exception rule that will match social posts that are tagged with any value of Vertical EXCEPT Maritime:

   • Drop-down 1: Vertical
   • Drop-down 2: does not contain
   • Drop-down 3: Maritime
5. Click Add new rule to add another rule to this rule group using an AND statement. Posts must meet both rules in the rule group to be matched for the subscription.
6. Click Add new group of rules to add another rule using an OR statement. Post only need to meet the criteria of one of the rule groups to be matched for the subscription.
7. If you've got multiple rules or rule groups, click the X next to a rule/group to remove it.
8. Click Save and done. The rules you've configured are summarized under Match Rules.
9. Repeat for the other subscription level, if required.

add screenshot

When personalizing these settings, it is important to note that Social Tag settings are an OR statement. Auto-Publish takes precedence over Requires Approval. If a post includes one tag that for which you want to approve posts, and another tag that you've set to Auto-Publish, the post will auto-publish.

For example, you may have these tag settings in your portal account, as you want to check French translations of posts about your CT400 product before distributing:

Language = French - Requires Approval

Language = English - Auto-Publish

Product = CT400 - Auto-Publish

If a post is tagged with Language = French and Product = CT400, it will be auto-published as it matches one of the posting conditions.

How to Re-Authenticate a Social Media Connection

In Social Media Settings, you authorize your portal account to post to your social media accounts. It is important to re-authenticate when prompted to ensure no disruption in service.

Some social media platforms periodically require re-authentication of the connection. The time frame varies by platform. Facebook and LinkedIn require re-authentication every 60 days, for example.

When your social media account needs to be re-authenticated, you will see an alert when logging in to your Social Media Settings page. You will also receive an email notification.

Social media accounts for Company (shared) access must be re-authenticated by a partner user with the Admin role in the partner account. All partner users can re-authenticate their own Personal (non-shared access) social media accounts.

To re-authenticate social media accounts, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Social Media > Social Settings.
2. Locate the account that needs to be authenticated. It displays a Reauthenticate button.

3. Click Reauthenticate. This will connect with the social media account via API.

   The steps to re-authenticate are not the same for all social media accounts. Follow the on-screen prompts to connect your portal account to the social media account.

4. Once the social account is connected, the screen returns to portal Social Media Settings. The Reauthenticate button disappears once the account is authenticated.

Training

Related Topics

• About Social Media
• Manage Social Media Posts
• Social Media FAQs