How to split roles and permissions in a social media team
· 4 min read
As a team grows, the most common question becomes "who posted this?". When everyone can do everything, a flawed post can go live, content waiting for approval can be forgotten and a former employee can still access the accounts. Setting clear roles from the start prevents most of these problems.
Define roles by workflow step, not by person
Write down the steps of the work first, then who does each one. In social media, the steps are usually:
- Drafting: turning an idea, copy and visuals into a draft.
- Reviewing and approving: deciding whether the draft fits the brand, voice and goal.
- Publishing: scheduling approved content or posting it right away.
- Replying: answering comments and messages.
- Reporting: looking at results and assessing them.
- Managing: organising the team, channels and settings.
In a small team, one person can take on several steps. What matters is that at least two pairs of eyes see the content before it goes out: the person who drafts it shouldn't be the one who approves it.
The five roles in Fourdeck
- Owner: every permission, plus billing and plan management. Owns the workspace.
- Admin: can do everything, and manages the team, channels and settings.
- Publisher: creates, approves and publishes; uses the inbox and analytics.
- Editor: creates drafts and sends them for approval; can't publish.
- Viewer: views and comments.
The Free and Solo plans are single-user; adding teammates to a workspace and assigning roles opens up on the Team plan.
Permission table
| Permission | Owner | Admin | Publisher | Editor | Viewer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comment | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Create | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Tags | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Approve | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Publish | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Inbox | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Analytics | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Channels | ✓ | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Team management | ✓ | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Billing | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
The Channels permission covers connecting, reconnecting and removing social accounts. Team management and billing follow the role: the owner and admins manage the team, and only the owner handles billing.
A role is a starting point: individual permissions
Real teams don't fit a table perfectly. An editor might need to look after the inbox without being able to publish, for example. In Fourdeck you can keep a member's role and add individual permissions on top, or remove one that comes with the role.
Bringing clients into the process at an agency
If you want a client to see content and leave comments, the Viewer role is enough. If you also want to collect the client's approval inside Fourdeck, you can add just the Approve permission to the Viewer role. The client can then approve without being able to change or publish anything.
Keep each client in its own workspace. Memberships are set per workspace, so you can add a teammate only to the client workspaces they work on.
Check permissions once a month
- Remove people who have left the team or the project from the workspace.
- Take back extra permissions that were granted temporarily.
- Check that only as many people as needed can publish.
- Check who connected each channel and that the connections still work.
This check takes five minutes, but it stops the wrong person from reaching the wrong account.