Why Won T Facebook Let Me Add Someone

How to Add A Facebook Admin in October 2020
- What the Person Seeking Facebook Admin Access Needs to Do – Adding through Page Settings
- What the Existing Facebook Page Admin Needs To Do – Adding through Page Settings
- What the Person Seeking Facebook Admin Access Needs to Do – Adding through Business Manager
- What the Existing Facebook Page Admin Needs To Do – Adding through Business Manager
The Original Post from 2013. Does This Still Work?

UPDATE: 10/26/2020
I wrote this blog more than seven years ago, and it gets so much traffic. I figured I should probably update it because the information may not be valuable or up to date. Oops. Sorry about that.

Here's my new How to Add a Facebook Admin post, with the old post still included, just because it's probably a good idea to keep it here.

How to Add A Facebook Admin in October 2020

Facebook's business management is far from simple. You can add a Facebook admin through your page's settings or through Business Manager. And sometimes one seems to work and sometimes the other one does. I don't know why. Do you? If you do, tell me.

Here's how to add a Facebook admin through your page's settings. The very first steps should be done on the profile of the person who wants admin access. If you're the page admin and you want to add them, they have to do these things first!

What the Person Seeking Facebook Admin Access Needs to Do – Adding through Page Settings

They need to like your page.
If you're not friends with them on Facebook, have them send you their profile photo, so you know what to look for.
This person must go here: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy
Under "Your Activity" have them select "Public" for " Who can see the people, Pages and lists you follow?" (this is temporary and can be immediately turned back to private or friends)
Under "How People Find and Contact You" go to "Who can look you up using the email address you provided?" and select "Public" (again, this is temporary).
They may need to tell you what email address they use for Facebook.

What the Existing Facebook Page Admin Needs To Do – Adding through Page Settings

Go to your page, e.g. facebook.com/newwhyweb
Next, go to your settings. You can find this at the bottom of the left sidebar, or you can just enter in a URL like this: https://www.facebook.com/newwhyweb/settings/?tab=settings (insert your business page where you see newwhyweb, obvs).
Scroll down to "Page Roles" on the left sidebar, and click it.
Where it says "Assign a New Page Role" on the right, enter the name of the person (who has already liked your page), make sure you recognize their profile photo, change editor to admin, then click Add.
Alternatively, you can enter in the email address they use for Facebook and see if that works.

Did that work? If not, let's try adding a Facebook admin through Business Manager.

What the Person Seeking Facebook Admin Access Needs to Do – Adding through Business Manager

Pretty much just check all folders, including spam, of whatever email they want to use for this once you're done with the steps below.

What the Existing Facebook Page Admin Needs To Do – Adding through Business Manager

Go to business.facebook.com and select the right business.
On the left sidebar click on "Business Settings"
Under "Users" click on "People"
You'll see a blue button that says "Add." Click on that! You don't need to type anything into the box next to it, just click on "Add."
In the box that pops up, you can enter in their email address. Note: this doesn't have to be their Facebook email address. This can be a work email address or whatever they want to use.
Select the access you want them to have.
Next, you'll be able to select which Page or Pages you want them to have access to, and you'll need to AGAIN select admin access in the far right column. Scroll down for this; it's at the very bottom of the right column.
Click "Invite" and you're done!
Make sure they check their email. They will not get a Facebook notification about this, it will ONLY come to email. They need to accept the invitation or they won't have access.

I hope that helps! If you're still confused you can shoot me an email.

The Original Post from 2013. Does This Still Work?

Girl Hulk Smash Facebook! You guys. I just spent a very long time feeling frustrated (like, Hulk frustrated) that I couldn't add any admins to a Facebook page that was created without a personal account. Facebook kept telling me I didn't have permission to add anyone, no matter how many fans of that page I tried to add.

Sound familiar?

If you've tried the following and it hasn't worked, this trick may work for you: You've tried to add a new admin by name, after they've liked the page. Nothing. You've tried to add the new admin by the email address associated with their Facebook account? Nothing but a sad red error message.

Read on.

Here's what I did. There's no guarantee this will work for you, but it worked for me, like magic. When I was logged in as the business page, I added a new admin with an email address that was not associated with a Facebook account.

Then I logged out of Facebook and I went to the admin confirmation email for the new email address, I clicked on the confirmation, and I set up a new personal account. Then, I went to the business page that I was requesting admin privileges for and "liked" it.

Then! I searched for my personal profile (the one that's really me, not this new one, obviously) and added myself as a friend of my new personal account.

I logged out from the new personal account and logged back in as the business page, and for some amazing reason it let me add the new personal profile as an admin. It autofilled the form when I typed in the name. It was beautiful.

After that I logged out as the business, logged in as myself (my old self), accepted my new profile's friend request, logged out as myself, logged back in as the new profile, went to the business page as the new profile (not the business account) and I was able to add myself. Keeping up?

Facebook doesn't like for users to have more than one personal account, so after adding myself as a manager / admin I deleted the new profile as an admin, then deleted that new account altogether.

It shouldn't have taken that long, but I tried every trick out there to add new admins to that page. I've managed dozens of Facebook pages and never seen a glitch like this, so I think it's a once-in-a-blue-moon thing. If you're struggling for hours, like I did, try this trick and let me know if it works for you, too.