Onboarding a new social client in one day
Most agencies lose more money in week one than anywhere else in the relationship. Not on the work, on the waiting: for a password that does not exist, a page role nobody can grant, and a Business Manager the previous agency still controls.
What actually blocks you
3 things, every time, and all three are predictable.
The Instagram account is personal, not business. No API access at all until it is converted and linked to a Facebook Page. 5 minutes for the client, a week if nobody tells them.
Nobody knows who owns the Facebook Page. A former employee, a cousin, an agency from 2019. Until someone with admin rights grants access, nothing can be connected.
The Google listing is unverified or claimed by someone else. Verification can take days and sometimes involves a postcard. Start it on day one or it blocks the entire local programme.
None of this is difficult. It is all slow, and it only becomes slow if you discover it in week two.
The pre-flight message
Send this before the kickoff call, not after. It converts a week of back-and-forth into one reply.
Ask them to confirm, in writing:
- Which accounts exist, with the exact handle for each
- Whether Instagram is a Business or Creator account, and which Facebook Page it is linked to
- Who has admin on the Facebook Page and the Business Manager, by name
- Whether the Google Business Profile is verified, and who holds it
- Whether a Snapchat Public Profile exists, if that is in scope
- Which accounts they want us to touch, and which are off limits
That last line saves an argument later. There is always one account someone in the family runs.
Connect by permission, never by password
Do not accept a password. Not for convenience, not because the client offers.
Every platform has a proper permission model: Business Manager roles on Meta, page admin on LinkedIn, channel permissions on YouTube, manager access on Google Business. Use them. The client keeps ownership, you get access, and when the relationship ends they revoke it in one click without changing a single password.
A shared password is also a straightforward security problem, and if you handle EU clients it is one you would have to explain in a breach notification.
Every serious tool connects through the platform’s own login screen and stores a revocable token. If something asks you to type a client’s password into it, that tells you what you need to know about it.
The audit before you post anything
2 hours, before the first piece of content. It is also the best first deliverable you will ever send.
The Google listing, field by field. Hours including holidays, categories, services with prices, attributes, action links, photos from this year. Most listings are half empty and this is the highest-return hour in the whole onboarding.
Unanswered comments and reviews. There will be months of them. Clearing the backlog in week one is visible, cheap, and occasionally recovers a customer.
What actually worked before you arrived. Their best posts from the last year, before you overwrite the approach with your own. Sometimes the thing that works is the owner’s phone camera, and replacing it with polished graphics makes performance worse.
Bios, links and handles. Consistent name, working link, current description. 10 minutes, always wrong somewhere.
The first week, in order
Day one. Send the pre-flight list. Start Google verification if it is needed, because it is the only thing with a queue you cannot control.
Day two. Connect everything that can be connected. Note what is blocked and who has to unblock it, by name.
Day three. Run the audit. Send it as a short document. This is when the client decides you were worth hiring.
Day four. Clear the comment and review backlog. Agree tone for replies while you are in there.
Day five. Build 2 weeks of calendar and get it approved. 2 weeks, not a month: you do not know enough yet, and a month of content built on a wrong assumption is a month wasted.
What to write down while it is fresh
The things you will otherwise ask twice.
Who approves content and how fast they actually reply. Which topics are off limits. The one competitor they do not want mentioned. Whether the owner wants to be in photos. Which of their own past posts they liked.
Keep it in one page per client, somewhere the whole team can see. In a year it is the difference between an account anyone can cover and an account that only one person understands.
EngageDigital connects every account through the platform’s own login, never a password, and imports past posts on day one so the reporting does not start from empty. See how it works for agencies or join the early-access list.