Evaluating account permissions for a multi-brand team

Evaluate whether a social management platform enforces your rules at the brand’s social-account level and for each action—not whether its role labels sound right. An agency writer might need to draft for Brand A, see nothing for Brand B and never publish directly for either. Test whether their effective access matches all three rules.

Build an access matrix

List people or roles down the side and brand accounts across the top.

For each intersection, specify whether the person may view, draft, schedule, approve, publish, reply, report, connect accounts or change permissions.

Include temporary staff and agencies, plus the account owner and a backup.

Adjust this example to match your own access policy.

Decide whether an approver may also publish and whether someone allowed to answer comments may edit scheduled posts. Treat viewing reports and exporting them as separate actions.

Look for access that arrives indirectly

Ask an administrator to configure the matrix, then inspect access as each role. Check the result, not just the settings page: a user may receive access through an organisation role, group, profile assignment or separate product feature.

Buffer separates Publish and Community permissions for each channel. Community access can be Full Access, View Only or No Access; a user can have Needs Approval for publishing and Full Access for comments on the same channel.

Buffer’s channel-level settings show why you should test each brand and action separately. Confirm directly that a user who should not see Brand B cannot select its channel, view its reports or access its comments.

In Buffer, adding users requires the Team plan. Team management settings are available in the web version, not the mobile app.

Sprout Social has access levels and feature settings, and a user-permissions export. Compare the export with your matrix, then verify whether it shows the brand and action detail your rules require.

Neither a role name nor an export alone proves that the platform enforces your brand separation. Check the full permission model before assigning administrative authority.

Try the transitions that matter

Ask the Brand A writer to select Brand B in the composer, open its reports, reply to its comments and export data. Each attempt should match the matrix.

In Buffer, a view-only member can see Insights metrics but cannot export them. Exporting Insights as CSV, Markdown or PDF requires Full Publish access on that channel, so test report viewing and export as distinct permissions.

Then check a promotion to approver, a temporary agency assignment and removal of that user from the platform. Confirm what happens to pending posts and approval assignments when someone leaves.

Use Sprout Social’s user-permissions export to review current permissions against the matrix. Confirm that the export includes enough detail to check each brand and action.

Ask whether an owner can review current access and investigate permission changes without reconstructing them from memory.

Review the matrix whenever brands, agencies or duties change.

Permission Requirements in Buffer for Report Export