Facebook Business Suite and How it Can Help Your Small Business Marketing

Facebook’s new Business Suite is making it easier for businesses to access tools to manage Pages, Instagram, and Messenger from one place. Keep reading to learn more about Facebook Business Suite and how you can use it to better market your small business.

What is Facebook Business Suite?

Facebook Business Suite is a new app designed to make it easier for businesses to manage in a single place their pages and profiles across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. The app, Facebook Business Suite, combines access to the business’s key updates and priorities and offers a way to draft and schedule feed posts for both Facebook and Instagram, view insights, and create ads. Facebook stated it’s initially building Facebook Business Suite with the needs of small businesses first. However, the long-term plan is to build out a set of tools that can be used by all businesses, including larger ones. It will gradually roll out during the month of September.

How to get started with this new tool

Before you can utilize Business Suite, you need to ensure that your Facebook and Instagram accounts are linked together, which means you need to make sure your Instagram is a business Instagram account. Here’s a quick overview of how to do connect Facebook and Instagram:

• Open your Facebook Page.
• Select Settings from the top menu.
• Select Instagram.
• To add an Instagram account to your Page, select Connect Account.
• Enter your Instagram account’s Username and Password, and select login.

• If you do not have an Instagram business account, you will be prompted to convert your personal account into one.

Now you’re all set! To access Business Suite on desktop, log into the Facebook account associated with your business. You’ll automatically be redirected to the tool when you visit business.facebook.com on desktop. Keep in mind that this is new and slowly being rolled out for the month of September, so you MAY have access to Business Suite right away. If you don’t, be patient; everyone is supposed to have access by the end of September. If you manage your page through the Pages app on your phone, you’ll see an option to opt into Business Suite. If you don’t have the Pages app, you can download the Facebook Business Suite app directly by searching for it in the Android or iOS app store.

Will this replace Hootsuite and other social media management platforms?

If you use Hootsuite or other social media management tools, you’ll feel at ease in Facebook Business Suite; the look, feel, and functionality are remarkably similar. However, if you’re an avid user of Hootsuite, you may not want to ditch it for this new option just yet! Hootsuite, especially the paid version, has a lot more features at this point. First, it is currently limited to Facebook and Instagram, which other social media management platforms also incorporate Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social channels. However, if you’ve never used a social media management platform, Facebook Business Suite is a great place to start with the ability to manage Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp all in one place. If you’re looking to establish a central platform for your Facebook/Instagram management, this might be the solution you’ve been looking for.

While still in its infancy, this tool looks like a solid option for social media management for small business owners. Facebook promises to roll out future features to support larger companies too, so it’s a good bet they’ll be expanding their features exponentially to make that happen. Using this tool can help your small business marketing efforts be better organized and better monitored to determine results. It’s definitely worth looking into as a viable marketing tool for your small business.