How my Facebook profile got deleted and what I did to take back control (Part 1)

Do you fear losing everything on Facebook?

At this time, many people use Facebook for the following:

• Livelihood
• Business
• Connecting with friends
• Posting photos

And a whole lot more! But what if one day, you lost it all? ​

Because I did. My Facebook personal profile was disabled! I had to create a new one, recover my pages and groups, and rebuild my profile. ​

How it happened​

It was an early morning, and I went to jump on my phone and just do a quick check of a few things on my Facebook. It was weird because Facebook was asking me to log in. I don't have to log in usually because I just have it set up where I'm always logged in on my phone. 

That was the first alarm that something was wrong. When I went to log in, it actually told me “Your account has been disabled.” I quickly clicked through and tried to find a place where I could talk to someone about it. But you see, that's not so easy to do.

There was an option where I could have them review my account or what was going on to hopefully reactivate my account. I went through the procedures of putting in my email address. I even took a picture of my driver's license and uploaded it, thinking that in a few hours, days or maybe even a few weeks, I'd eventually get a response, plead my case, and get my account back. 

Instead, I got a red message instantly. It said, “This account cannot be reactivated because you have violated Facebook community rules.” 

I have no idea what that means. I don't know what I did:

• I don't post hateful things.. 
• I don't talk about politics. 
• I don't talk about religion except maybe I was at my women’s church group or something. 
• I don't bash people. 
• ​I don't talk about conspiracy theories or anything that is untrue. ​

People have warned, “Don't do business on your personal profile.” I thought about the things I have shared recently. I shared an event about the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers that I am a part of. I also did a call out for different types of people in different industries so I could connect with them. That's it. That's all I could think about. 

I ask you, what are you doing on your personal profile that could possibly get you into trouble? Facebook has a 55-page long list of rules. I haven't really read them all myself. Basically, it comes down to this: when you're in someone else's sandbox or establishment, they have the right to remove you. I guess they have a right to not tell you why either. 

My Facebook pages and Facebook Groups

While my personal Facebook profile was deleted, some of my groups and my main business page “Life Coach Diane” was still active. That was great because I have around 21,000 people liking or following that page. But my “Dynamic Women” page one was not. 

I was relieved at that and relieved that I still had my Facebook groups. However, I didn't have control of them! 

Here’s what I previously did that helped me keep my one Facebook page and most of my Facebook groups. 

For your Facebook pages: Have someone you trust to be the admin 

Make a team member, employee, social media manager, or even your partner or friend an admin on your page, as well as on your groups. That's probably why I was able to keep some of my groups and pages. I had my assistant as an admin on them. It was fabulous because all she had to do was go into my “Life Coach Diane” page and suggest that I become the admin. Then BOOM I was back in charge!

One of the women in my community told me to have multiple admins AND to check the admin status every six days. Why? Because if someone hacked in and added themselves as a new admin, after seven days of being on your account, they can delete or remove any other admins. 

Imagine someone sneakily coming onto your page, hacking in and controlling your groups, and then one day, all of a sudden, you're not the admin of the group. Then your assistant or your team members are not running the group anymore. It's just this person who is now basically taken over your page, and try proving to Facebook that it is really yours. 

We're both admins again AND I didn't lose my 21,000 followers there. 

For your Facebook Groups: Make sure you have another admin or a backup

Now as for my groups, it was quite interesting. In my groups, I had my assistant who was an admin to add me back in. She then made me admin of the groups.

Now some of the groups that I found, I didn't have her as admin because it was just my clients. I had to ask my clients to let me in again, and then I had to go into the member’s page and see who was admin to add me as one. ​

Sadly, on some of them, there was no admin. So the admin was up for grabs. If you're running a group with a whole bunch of people, (maybe not just your clients) it can be scary to think that when you are kicked off Facebook someone else could just step in and take over the group.

You want to make sure that even in some of your more private groups that you have someone else as admin, even if it is a friend or another account that you have created, just make sure you have a backup. This is how I was able to keep my business page running, even though my personal profile got deleted. That's also how I was able to gain back control of my groups. 

It was those steps that I put in place that saved me. Go check your Facebook account and make sure you have someone else as the admin or multiple people as admin for your groups and your pages. That way, you will be able to gain back control if you ever get kicked off Facebook. 

In my next blog, I will share more tips on how you can protect your Facebook account and how I rebuilt my profile. 

Read more of my related blogs here: 

1. What does your Social Media say about you?
2. How to Direct Message on Social Media Without Being Salesy
3. Hacks to Save Time with Your Social Media Posting