What Can Meta (Facebook) Business Suite Be Used For?
Written by Emma Keene
Facebook turned Meta is one of the world’s most widely used social media platforms. With 2.9 billion monthly active users in 2021 Facebook snagged the top spot here, followed by YouTube with 2.5b, WhatsApp with 2.3b, and Instagram with 2.1b. It’s fair to say that Facebook has become part of most of our daily routines, whether it’s scrolling leisurely or using the platform for advertising purposes. In fact, the rise of Facebook and the reliance so many of us have on this social media platform has led brands to completely rethink their marketing strategy. Now millions of businesses around the world utilise Facebook as part of their paid and organic marketing strategies with undeniable success, but where is best to start? Here we will walk you through Meta Business Suite, its capabilities, and some top tips on where to access key information, so let’s get stuck in!
Navigating Meta Business Suite
Navigating a new interface is never easy, in fact, it’s darn right overwhelming at times – as a team of social media marketing experts, it’s our job to flesh out these platforms and help business owners and independent social posters alike to understand how best to utilise Facebook to drive results. Let’s dive into the 7 main tabs on Meta Business Suite:
- Home: much like the overview tab in Google Analytics and Google Ads, the “home” tab in Meta Business Suite features updates, insights and analytics of posts, ads and stories – it’s worth adding this tab to your morning checks as anything out of the ordinary will be flagged here.
- Notifications: similar to the notifications panel on your personal Facebook, the notifications tab in Business Suite houses page likes, post engagements, event sign-ups, reviews and follows.
- Planner: for those of you up in arms about scheduling platforms and being consistent on Facebook and Instagram, the planner tab may be your knight in shining armor (you can thank us later). Providing you don’t want to schedule posts on other social, platforms, we know Planner (and the content tab) will blow you away. Plan ahead with the calendar layout, with the option of weekly and monthly views, see past and future posts, schedule new posts and filter by ads, stories and organic posts along with the audience you shared the content with.
- Content: potentially one of our favourite tabs, largely due to the sheer amount you can do here! View your published, scheduled, and drafted posts and stories along with your desired metrics (columns are customisable making it a great place to see exactly what you need). This is great for reporting and helping you decide what type of content to run again, it’s often easier to see how a post is doing from the customer-facing interface through likes, comments, shares etc. however story performance is less conspicuous unless in Meta Business Suite.
The content tab also first introduces you to A/B tests, for those looking to trial a variety of posts the A/B section lets you do this, simply mock up two versions of the post you would like to test and hit schedule. Content is also a great place to view how your grid on Instagram and your page on Facebook looks, you can also see and reply to comments here too. We’re not done! The Content tab includes a “mentions & tags” section, allowing you to review Facebook and Instagram posts your business has been mentioned and tagged in and you can then share them to your story – customer engagement is made easy on Meta Business Suite.
- Insights: for those looking for the facts, the stats, and what to do about them head to the Insights tab. Set goals for your account to track your progress and help Facebook give more relevant optimisation advice, view a concise report-style breakdown of the key metrics on both platforms, reach, page and profile visits, likes and follows, ad trends and audiences broken down by gender and location – oh, and for all the agency workers out there, these are all downloadable (hallelujah). A gem in the insights tab (and something our organic team are loving right now) is the “benchmarking” tool, this allows you to input, track and compare your business’s performance and content with your competitors operating on Facebook and Instagram, total gold right?!
- Inbox: although this tab may seem self-explanatory, it holds so many more features than the standard messenger you will be used to. Not only can you respond to direct messages on both platforms, but you can also use the inbox tab to reply to comments and qualify leads, add details about the message, add activity undertaken and add labels to manage your messages e.g. new customer, important or date – a real game changer for community management.
- Ads: one that deserves its own article entirely and one we can promise will be coming, however, the Ads tab in Meta Business Suite is the key to your paid social journey. Create, manage, and track the performance of your ads across both Facebook and Instagram, view aggregated metrics, creative performance, and audience results.
- All Tools: otherwise referred to as the navigation tab or hamburger menu. Split into five sections, engage audience, manage, advertise, sell products & services, and analyse & report, all tools is where to come if you want to find any of the above, plus business information, specifics from your paid ads e.g. instant forms and event manager as well as your commerce manager, the section that allows e-commerce brands to advertise their products on Facebook.
Ready to kick start your Meta Business Suite journey?
There are a variety of functions available to businesses using Meta Business Suite, the above concisely summarises its main features but most certainly ads manager, commerce manager, and reporting capabilities warrant further exploration. For those looking for advice on paid and organic social get in touch with our team of experts today