Welcome to your go-to guide on why your social media profiles disconnect from Meltwater.
Your social profiles are connected to Meltwater with tokens that require updating regularly. A new token can be generated by reconnecting or re-authenticating your profiles within Meltwater.
Looking to connect a social profile for the first time? Check out our dedicated article on connections here.
How to reconnect your social profiles
Option 1 - Reconnect through Owned Connections
The following steps to reconnect your social profiles will be similar to the initial set up process and will require you to have administrator access to your social profiles on their native platform. E.g. Your Facebook profile is saved as an admin to your Facebook Business Profile
Select Engage from the left-hand side navigation bar
From the Engage Home Screen, you will see an area to the right titled Social Accounts
Click Manage Accounts
This will take you to the Owned Connections tab
Scroll down to the social profile to reconnect
If your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter token has Expired or been marked Invalid: Select the 'reconnect' button
Within the pop-up, follow the prompts to log into your social account. This will ask you to log into your personal profile which must be an administrator of your business profile
Review the native platform's message detailing the information shared with Meltwater Engage and select OK to confirm
Once your profile has been reconnected it will also display 'Connected' and your social media handles.
If you are reconnecting Instagram for media monitoring from the Monitored Connections page, please review our dedicated article on Instagram connections for Monitoring to ensure your hashtag and competitor tracking is fully optimized.
Option 2 - Directly from Account Picker
In both Publish and Conversations, when clicking into the account picker, you will be presented with a Reconnect button beside any currently disconnected accounts.
When you click Reconnect, you will receive a popup, following the same reconnection workflow present in Account > Social Connections (steps above). You will not leave Engage. Once the channel is reconnected, the Reconnect icon will disappear.
Why tokens expire
Updates or changes to your account settings
These can include:
Changing a password or username of a user with 'Administrator' access to your profile
Removing a user with 'Administrator' access to your profile
Revoking Meltwater's access to your social account
Social platform's Security measures
Your social media platforms can also trigger your account to be disconnected if they identify and flag certain 'suspicious' behaviors on your account. These can include:
Use of Alias usernames
Use of the same account credentials from multiple IP addresses. This frequently happens within teams that are sharing login details or multiple devices
Publishing content that gets flagged for copyright violations or other inappropriate content.
Token lifespans for each social network
Each of the social networks determines the length of time and expiration dates for their token access as a security measure. The following authentication policies for each social network will require you to reconnect your profiles are regular intervals:
Facebook and Instagram Business: Tokens for these social networks have a 60-day lifespan. Reconnection is also required if the user who connected the Facebook account no longer has Admin status or resets their password on Facebook.
LinkedIn & TikTok: Tokens have a 365-day lifespan.
Twitter, YouTube & Google Business: Do not issue tokens with expiration dates so your profile will not need to periodically be re-authenticated.
How to update your 'Connected by' user / Social Profile Admin
If the administrator of your social profiles is going to change or the colleague who connected your profiles to Engage is planning to leave your company, you'll need to update the user who has connected your profiles.
Proactively changing the user who connected your social profiles will prevent the loss of engagement data from your account if the profile was to become disconnected.
To update your 'connected by' user, you'll need to reconnect a profile that has the current status 'connected':
Select Engage from the left-hand side navigation bar
From the Engage Home Screen, you will see an area to the right titled Social Accounts
Click Manage Accounts
This will take you to the Owned Connections tab
Scroll down to the social profile to reconnect and select the three-dot options
Select Disconnect, and then follow the prompts to 'Add Account'.
Top disconnection reasons by social channel
Facebook and Instagram Business:
1. Facebook password change or security alert: This is the most common cause for your Facebook or Instagram Business profile to be disconnected. When there is a change within your account settings on the native social platform, the credentials used to initially connect your account to Meltwater no longer aligns with the records on Facebook and Instagram's side.
2. Facebook Access Revoked: All third-parties with authorized access to your Facebook account are listing within your account's Business Integrations as a connected app. If Meltwater is removed from this list it will revoke access to your account and disconnect the profile within our app.
3. Facebook's Security Checks: Should Facebook identify a potential security error with your account or an admin user's accounts, it will provide a security check upon your next login to Facebook. Triggers for these security checks can include unrecognized logins, reports of inappropriate content or copyright violations or include complete setup of two-factor authentication.
To resolve the issue and unblock your account:
Start by clearing the cookies and history in your browser.
Go to facebook.com and sign in to your Facebook account.
Follow the instructions to complete the security check provided.
After completing the security check, you’ll need to wait another 24 hours as an extra precaution before signing in to your Facebook account.
If you encounter an issue with completing the security check, you can report it to Facebook.
4. The Facebook token has reached its built-in expiration date
1. The LinkedIn token has reached its built-in 1-year expiration
2. LinkedIn Access Revoked: All third-parties with authorized access to your LinkedIn account are listing within your account's Permitted Services. If Meltwater is removed from this list it will revoke access to your account and disconnect the profile within our app.
3. Insufficient access: Your LinkedIn profile must be a Designated Admin on your business' page to allow you to connect the profile to Meltwater. If your personal profile is later removed from the Page’s Designated Admin list, the Page will disconnect from Meltwater (even if you’re still listed as another kind of Page Admin).
4. Restricted profile: LinkedIn restricts access to accounts that violate its acceptable use policies. Restrictions can be temporary or permanent, depending on the violation. Go to LinkedIn and try signing in to your account to understand why it was restricted and how long you have to wait before you can access it again
1. Locked Twitter account: When Twitter thinks an account’s security may have been compromised, it temporarily locks the account, which disconnects it from Meltwater. Accounts are locked when Twitter detects suspicious behavior that violates its Twitter Rules or Terms of Service. You will need to log into your Twitter account and follow their instructions before reconnecting your profile to Meltwater.
2. Twitter access revoked: All third-parties with authorized access to your Twitter account are listed within your account's settings as a connected app. If Meltwater is removed from this list it will revoke access to your account and disconnect the profile within our app.
3. Suspended Twitter account: Twitter restricts access to accounts that violate its acceptable use policies or may have been hacked. Go to Twitter and try signing in to your account to understand why it was suspended. Follow any other instructions provided by Twitter to verify your information and restore the account. If you are unable to un-suspend your account, you’ll need to file an appeal with Twitter. You will need to restore your Twitter account before reconnecting to Meltwater
How am I notified of disconnections?
You will receive both emails and in-app notifications.
When a Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn account, or Facebook and Instagram Paid connection is about to expire, you will receive a notification.
Emails are sent 10 days, 5 days, and 1 day before the expiration date, as well as on the day of expiration.
Twitter connections do not expire so you will never see expiration emails for those connections.
When a Facebook or Instagram monitored connection is about to expire, you will receive a notification
For Facebook, an email is sent 10 days before the day of expiration
For Instagram, emails are sent 10 days, and 1 day before the expiration date, as well as on the day of expiration.
Emails are sent to the person who connected the Monitored Profile(s). Whereas emails are sent to all users in the company where the owned connection has been made.
An opt-out for these types of emails will be available for all users.
Emails are sent when a connection has been marked ‘invalid’ based on errors returned by the native social API. This will help you avoid missing data gaps due to unforeseen connection disruptions when reconnecting.
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