Running for office? Do this to your Facebook page right now.

Once upon a time all you needed to be successful on Facebook was time, elbow grease, and understanding of your audience. Unfortunately, Zuckerberg’s dorm room creation has moved beyond just the social network and focused more and more on pay-to-play business styles. While you still can find success posting content organically, many have turned to Facebook Ads to make up the gap and ensure larger audiences are seeing their content.

In the world of political campaigns, it’s no different. Your campaign should still be able to reach a huge number of voters without paying for ads, but you might find advertising on Facebook is a good way to find hard-to-reach voters, opening your campaign up to new audiences. Unfortunately, due to shadily purchased advertising in the 2016 election, Facebook has decided to tighten their restrictions around who can buy advertising on politically related issues. Any political campaign ads would fall under those restrictions, meaning you will be required to register before those ads are allowed to run.

Fortunately the registration process is simple. Even if you don’t plan on running any advertisements for your campaign, you should register your page to run issue ads. The new registration process can take some time to complete, so it’s better to verify your page to run political ads even if you don’t plan on running ads right now. Your strategy might change a few months down the line and it will save you time to confirm your page now.

Here’s a quick guide to get you going.

Open Your Page’s Settings and Get Authorized

Navigate to the candidate’s Facebook page and click Settings in the top right corner of the page. It should be right under your notifications.

Now on the left side of the screen you will see a column. Click Authorizations, which appears next to a key emoji.

Confirm your identity

Facebook wants to make sure you are who you say you are. To do that you’ll need to enter a U.S. based mailing address, upload pictures of a photo ID like a driver’s license and include the last four digits of your Social Security Number.

Seems excessive right? Well here’s Facebook’s justification:

We’re taking steps to increase the transparency and authenticity of ads with political content, including confirming the identity of the people who want to run these ads and requiring advertisers to include funding disclaimers.

Once you’ve uploaded your personal information, it’s time for the easiest (but longest) step.

Hurry Up and Wait

Sit back and kick your feet up, this could take a while. Facebook suggests this process could take 2-4 week. That’s right, WEEKS. This may be the age of instant messages and instant gratification, but this time Facebook is relying on snail mail to confirm you are who you say you are. They have mailed you a confirmation code, so you just have to wait until it shows up.

Until then, why not check out our candidate certification or advanced social media course to get a leg up on your competition? You can also check the status of your confirmation at www.Facebook.com/ID

Confirm your code and link accounts

Once you’ve received instructions in the mail, you’re ready to insert your confirmation code at www.Facebook.com/ID and congratulations you’re off to the races.

Congratulations, you’re officially not a Russian hacker and you can run all the political ads you want.