> Source: https://www.trackmedia.app/blog/social-media-collaboration-tools · Last updated: 2026-10-06

# Social media collaboration tools: safe access

Social media collaboration tools should give each person a role, not a shared password. See what Meta, LinkedIn and YouTube allow and how TrackMedia fits.

*Guides · Published 2026-10-06*

Social media collaboration tools should let a team work on the same accounts without anyone sharing a password. Give every person their own login and the smallest role that does the job, and keep a draft stage between writing and publishing. Meta, LinkedIn and YouTube each have built-in roles for this, so the first step is to use them, whatever scheduling tool you add on top.

## Why is sharing a social media password a problem?

Platform terms push you away from it, and it gives you no control over who does what. Three official sources, all read on October 6, 2026:

- **Meta.** The [Meta Terms of Service](https://www.facebook.com/terms.php) (effective January 1, 2025) list, among your commitments, that you do not share your password, give access to your Facebook account to others, or transfer your account without Meta's permission. That clause sits next to the rule to create one account that is your own and use it for personal purposes, so it reads as aimed at personal accounts. The same terms mention people who post "as an admin of a Page", and Meta's Help Center describes roles for sharing Pages and other business assets (see below).
- **LinkedIn.** Section 2.2 of the [LinkedIn User Agreement](https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement) (effective November 3, 2025) says you will keep your password secret and will not share your account with anyone else. It also says you are responsible for anything that happens through your account.
- **YouTube.** YouTube's Help page on [channel permissions](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9481328?hl=en) says permissions let people manage a channel without needing access to your Google Account, and that this is safer than sharing your password or other sign-in details.

It also fails in practice: with one shared login you cannot tell who published a post, and you cannot remove one person without changing the password for everyone.

## What roles do Meta, LinkedIn and YouTube offer?

On each network, a person with the right access can add other people and choose a role for them. The figure groups the role names by main job, using only the pages named in this section.

![Grid of role names by platform. Meta Business Suite: Full control, Partial access, no read-only role named. LinkedIn Page: Super admin, Content admin, Analyst. YouTube: Owner and Manager, Editor and Editor (Limited), Viewer and Viewer (Limited). TrackMedia: Owner and Admin, Editor, Viewer.](https://www.trackmedia.app/assets/img/blog/social-media-collaboration-tools-fig1.svg)

*Role names as written on each platform's help page, grouped by main job. TrackMedia's roles are shown for comparison.*

### Meta Business Suite

Meta's Help Center page [About business portfolio and business asset permissions](https://www.facebook.com/business/help/442345745885606) says a business portfolio brings Facebook Pages, Instagram accounts and other assets together and manages who can work on them. There are two levels, full control and partial access, and they apply to the portfolio and to each asset in it.

- **Full control** can manage everything, including settings, people and assets, and can delete the portfolio.
- **Partial access** is limited to assigned assets or tasks, such as creating content. Basic access, the default when someone is added, can work only on the assets assigned to them.
- **Temporary access** gives basic access for a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 75 days, then removes the person automatically.

To give someone access to a Page in a portfolio, Meta's page [How do I give someone access to my Facebook Page?](https://www.facebook.com/business/help/152071822895768) says to open Meta Business Suite on a desktop computer, click Settings, click Pages under Profiles, select the Page, click Assign people, then choose partial access (business tools only), partial access (business tools and Facebook) or full access. You need full access to the Page or to the portfolio to do this. If your Page is not in a portfolio, Meta says its access levels are different, and we did not review that case.

### LinkedIn Pages

LinkedIn's [Page admin roles](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a541981) page (shown as last updated one year ago when we read it) lists three Page admin roles:

- **Super admin** has every Page admin permission, including adding and removing any type of admin and deactivating the Page.
- **Content admin** can create and manage Page content, including posts, boosting posts and events.
- **Analyst** can monitor the Page through analytics and only sees the Analytics tab.

LinkedIn adds that to become an admin you request access or an existing admin grants it.

### YouTube channels

YouTube's channel permissions page lists Owner, Manager, Editor, Editor (Limited), Subtitle Editor, Viewer and Viewer (Limited). The page's intro says five levels but the table lists more, so we use the table. In short, a Manager can manage permissions and delete content but cannot delete the channel. An Editor can upload and publish but cannot manage permissions or delete published content. A Viewer can view, but not edit, all channel details and can still see revenue data, while Viewer (Limited) cannot see revenue data.

The steps on that page: sign in to YouTube Studio, click Settings, click Permissions, click Invite, enter the email address, pick a role in the Access drop-down, and click Done. An invite expires after 30 days. The page also says invited users cannot use YouTube Music, the YouTube Kids app or YouTube APIs through channel permissions.

## How should you assign roles to a team?

1. **Name at least two people who can manage access.** One person leaving should not lock you out. On LinkedIn that means two Super admins, and on Meta two people with full control. YouTube's page says an Owner can't transfer ownership to other users, so give a second person the Manager role, which can manage permissions.
2. **Give writers the publishing role, not the top role.** On LinkedIn that is Content admin, on YouTube Editor, on Meta partial access for the assigned Page.
3. **Give stakeholders and clients a read-only view** where the platform has one, such as LinkedIn's Analyst or YouTube's Viewer (Limited).
4. **Time-limit contractors,** for example with Meta's temporary access, and remove people who leave.

Our guide to [managing multiple social media accounts](https://www.trackmedia.app/blog/how-to-manage-multiple-social-media-accounts) covers the same least-access idea across a whole account list.

## What should a social media collaboration tool add?

Platform roles control who can act on the network itself. A collaboration tool earns its place by adding the team layer around that:

- a login per person, with a role that limits what each person can change;
- a place for each brand or client, so access to one does not mean access to all;
- a draft stage, so a post can be written by one person and checked by another before it goes out;
- connections made through the network's own authorization, so teammates never see the network password.

## How do TrackMedia's workspaces, roles and drafts work?

TrackMedia is organized into workspaces, one per brand or client, with a workspace switcher in the app. Accounts, posts, keys and analytics do not cross between workspaces, and each person has a role per workspace. Everything below was checked in the TrackMedia code on October 6, 2026.

- **Four roles.** The Team page describes them as: Owner, everything including billing and deleting the workspace; Admin, everything except billing, including connecting accounts, managing keys and inviting people; Editor, write, schedule and publish posts (the description adds that Editors cannot change accounts or keys, which the code does not enforce, see the limits section); Viewer, read-only access to the calendar, posts and analytics.
- **Viewers are blocked from most writes.** The server refuses a Viewer on every route that declares a write scope, which covers posts, accounts, links, media, webhooks and crosspost rules, so this does not depend on which buttons the screen shows. The API key routes are an exception (see the limits section).
- **Only Owners and Admins manage people.** They can invite, change roles and remove members. Only an Owner can delete a workspace, and the service refuses to demote or remove the last Owner. Through the API, an Admin can also change or remove an Owner as long as one Owner remains; the Team page does not offer those controls on Owner rows.
- **Invites by email.** The invite dialog defaults to Editor and offers Admin, Editor and Viewer, not Owner (the API itself accepts any role, including Owner, from an Owner or Admin). An invite expires after 7 days. Pending invites are listed on the Team page.
- **Drafts.** In the [composer](https://www.trackmedia.app/#publish), Save draft keeps a post unscheduled. A post can be edited only while it is a Draft or Scheduled, and Move to drafts pulls a scheduled post back. Your [content calendar](https://www.trackmedia.app/blog/instagram-content-calendar) then shows what is planned, what is a draft and what is live.
- **Safe defaults for automation.** When you create an API key, the default policy is Drafts only: anything using that key can write and read, but what it creates stays a draft until a person schedules it. Publishing without asking ("Publish without asking") is a separate option you have to choose, and a middle option, "Create, but a human approves", also exists.
- **No shared network passwords.** A person with the right role connects an account through the network's authorization flow (in the code, Owners, Admins and Editors can). For Facebook Pages, the connector uses Meta's OAuth, and connection tokens are stored encrypted. For how Facebook's own scheduling tools differ, see [how to see and edit scheduled posts on Facebook](https://www.trackmedia.app/blog/how-to-see-and-edit-scheduled-posts-on-facebook).

## What does TrackMedia not do for teams?

Review is a habit, not a gate. A teammate can leave a post as a draft for someone else to check, but TrackMedia has no approval step that blocks an Editor from publishing (API keys have their own policy, described above), and no comment threads on posts. Agree a rule such as "writers save drafts, a named reviewer schedules", and remember that the reviewer needs at least the Editor role to schedule.

One more limit matters if you plan to rely on roles. The Team page describes Editors as unable to change accounts or keys, but the code does not enforce that. In the code we read on October 6, 2026, the server has one general role rule: Viewers are refused on routes that declare a write scope, and Owners, Admins and Editors pass it. The routes to connect, disconnect and refresh accounts and to manage webhooks use that same write scope, so an Editor is allowed to do those things. The API key routes declare no scope, so that role rule does not run on them, and a Viewer's session may also be able to create or revoke a key. We did not run any of this in a live workspace, so test it with a test Editor and a test Viewer before you rely on it.

TrackMedia's roles also do not replace the platform roles above. They decide what people can do in TrackMedia, not who can act on Meta, LinkedIn or YouTube directly.

If you want a role per person and a draft stage in front of your accounts, you can [start free at TrackMedia](https://go.trackmedia.app/signup).

## How we checked this

All pages below were opened in a browser and read on October 6, 2026. TrackMedia claims come from the repository code, not marketing copy.

- [Meta Terms of Service](https://www.facebook.com/terms.php), section 3.1 on who can use Facebook, effective January 1, 2025.
- [LinkedIn User Agreement](https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement), section 2.2, effective November 3, 2025.
- [Add or remove access to your YouTube channel with channel permissions](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9481328?hl=en), YouTube Help (computer view).
- [About business portfolio and business asset permissions in Meta Business Suite](https://www.facebook.com/business/help/442345745885606), Meta Business Help Center.
- [How do I give someone access to my Facebook Page?](https://www.facebook.com/business/help/152071822895768), Meta Business Help Center.
- [LinkedIn Page admin roles](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a541981), LinkedIn Help.

We did not verify: Meta's access levels for Pages outside a business portfolio, Instagram-specific role pages, a password-sharing rule in Instagram's Terms of Use (we did not open them), or any permissions on TikTok, X or other networks. TrackMedia's role enforcement was read in code (apps/api/src/plugins/scopes.plugin.ts, packages/core/src/types/tenant.ts, apps/api/src/modules/teams/teams.service.ts, apps/api/src/modules/apikeys/apikeys.routes.ts, apps/api/src/modules/accounts/accounts.routes.ts and apps/web/src/features/team/lib/role-descriptions.ts) and not tested in a live workspace.