Business Owners: Take Control of Online Assets


As a business owner, you hold the keys to the castle. Ideally, all or most of your company’s assets are in your hands at all times. That same ownership mentality is vital when it comes to online assets.

My friend’s cousin’s girlfriend’s brother set this up…

A favor can turn to a nightmare if a relationship goes sour, a personnel change occurs, or someone simply gets forgetful. It’s not rude to ask for access to online items about your company — it’s the responsible thing to do. When someone creates such a profile or account on your behalf, make sure you’re added as an administrator on the account, even if you never plan to access the account. As critical information changes over time — phone numbers, email addresses, service offerings — you’ll need the ability to log in (or grant access to others) and make changes.

I told him, “Just do your thing”.

Don’t let your tech phobia get in the way of your business objectives. You can let your more savvy associates create online assets for you. But establish expectations up front that you must have administrative control to any accounts created. And don’t shrug off login information because you don’t understand the technology that’s being used. Tuck the information away so that, in the distant future, you can pass it on to a contractor if you ever need help.

And now I don’t know how to get in…

Make it an internal policy to document login information for every online asset created on behalf of your company. That includes technical resources like domain registrars and FTP access, as well as social resources like Facebook Profiles and local business listings. Even if you’re solely responsible for online accounts, be sure to document login information and guard it like the precious asset it is.

Better check everything else!

If you don’t feel in control of all your online assets, take a moment to take stock. Contact the people who set up the accounts, and double-check the ones you’ve created yourself. It will help you protect your online property in the long run.

Important access items to consider:

  • Domain Registrar
  • FTP Access
  • Hosting Account Access
  • Website Control Panel/Content Management System login information
  • Google Analytics or other website statistics service
  • Google AdWords or other pay-per-click advertising accounts
  • Google, Yahoo! and Bing local business listings
  • Blog login information
  • Social profiles like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn
  • Profiles on review sites like Yelp
  • Profiles on social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 at 10:05 am and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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