What You Should Know About Meta Business Suite

Facebook’s rebranding last fall meant changing more than its name to Meta; it also refocused the company’s vision on the next generation of technology. As part of that change, Facebook Business Suite has become Meta Business Suite. While it offers the same products, some of the updates can make it confusing for users. (We know. We’re users. We’ve been there.)

Let’s take a deeper dive into what Meta Business Suite is, how to manage business pages in the suite, how page ownership works and how you can manage multiple businesses under a single business suite. We’ll even look at how it can help streamline your social media marketing to help you get the most out of it. That probably sounds like a lot to take in, but don’t worry — we’ll break it down into bite-size, easy-to-digest chunks for you.

What the Heck Is Meta Business Suite, Anyway?

Two of the biggest questions people initially have about Meta Business Suite are, what is it, and what can it do for me? If you were already using Facebook Business Suite, you probably have a fairly good understanding of how Meta Business Suite operates. It’s essentially a front-end management system that allows you to manage your business social media accounts across Facebook and Instagram using a single dashboard, and it has many tools designed to extend your reach and build your online presence. You can also boost posts and create ads from the suite, see all the messages from both your Facebook and Instagram accounts, and create automated posts — all in one place.

Meta Business Suite offers a preview of scheduled posts in the “Planner” tool.

Of course, analytics are a vital part of your business activity, and Meta Business Suite’s Insights tool provides a window for you to see the metrics, trends, visual reports and more. You can track how your profile is performing on Facebook and Instagram, view your reach, track your advertising’s cross-platform spend, and see what kind of engagement your organic and boosted posts are receiving. By merging all this information into one place, it’s easier for you to see which strategies are working, which posts are underperforming and where you can allocate your resources to get the best ROI.

With both a desktop and mobile version, Meta Business Suite is designed to make it easy for you to get the information you need and make the best choices for your social media content in real time.

Do I Really Need Meta Business Suite?

If you were previously using Business Manager, you’ve probably noticed that you were transitioned to Meta Business Suite. (If you didn’t notice, you should probably check your social media accounts more often.) You may be wondering if you really need all the bells and whistles that come with Meta Business Suite; after all, you might like to keep it simple, or maybe you don’t think you’re big enough to need the in-depth analytics it provides.

Even if you’re a small business, you can benefit greatly from using Meta Business Suite. You might think regular pages are fine, but keep in mind that those are designed for non-commercial use. Business Suite offers so much insight into your customers and ad performance, and it brings it all together in one place. Even if you don’t think you’ll use all the features, you could be limiting yourself by not using it. Let yourself grow into the different tools it offers — and learn to use them to grow your business.

Why Use Meta Business Suite?

There are many reasons to use Meta Business Suite, but we’ll break it down to our top five favorites:

1.  Analytics. We’ve already talked about the analytics provided by the Insights tool, but it’s worth mentioning again. Using the proper analytics is critical to competing in the online business space, and regardless of your operation’s size, you need to know what’s happening behind the scenes. Without the right tools, you’re not on the same playing field as your competitors.

Performance analytics are shared in a joint dashboard for Facebook and Instagram profiles in the Meta Business Suite. 

2. Cross-platform accessibility. The ability to work seamlessly across both Instagram and Facebook platforms saves time and ensures consistency. This also makes scheduling your posts easy, and you can schedule specific posts for one platform or both.  

3. Product tags. E-commerce has experienced incredible growth in the past two years and is projected to comprise 25% of all retail sales by 2024. One of the hottest shopping trends is the click-through shopping offered on social media. With Meta Business Suite, you can set up shopping, tag products, and make sure that you’re making it easier for customers to see and buy your products on both Instagram and Facebook.

4. Easier messaging. Meta Business Suite’s Inbox tool makes it easier and faster to respond to emails and comments; you can also set up automated responses to common questions and set your status so customers will know when to expect a delayed response. You can also search messages, comments and your inbox quickly and easily. And you don’t have to go through the Facebook platform to do this; messages can be sent through your business email account.    

5. Accessibility. We saved the best for last because this is our favorite thing about Business Suite: It allows the page owner or administrator to provide access to another person or entity. The page administrator can assign one of six roles and that will determine what kind of access each person has. That not only helps your team stay organized, but it also keeps your business accounts secure.

Let’s say you’re working with a digital marketing agency that handles all your social media marketing. You can provide them access and assign roles to your page, but you can also limit what they can see or what actions they can take. This provides you with greater security on multiple levels, including knowing that more than one person can manage your content and actions. That’s important for many reasons: It creates a fail-safe option to prevent you from being locked out of your own page, and if someone abruptly leaves the company, it ensures that someone else on the team will have access to your page.

What if I Have Multiple Businesses?

Not only does Meta Business Suite allow you to manage both Facebook and Instagram accounts, but it also lets you manage multiple businesses under the same Business Suite account. Let’s say you have a company that offers office equipment, but you’ve divided the company into three business areas: one sells higher-end computers and equipment; one sells basic, affordable computer equipment packages; and the third resells used and refurbished computers. Each of these businesses has its own name and branding, but they’re all under the same umbrella.

Meta Business Suite lets you create a page for each of these businesses, but you can manage all three through a single account. This is particularly helpful if you have a team creating social media for all three companies, as they’ll be able to access the accounts from one location.

Time to Meet Meta 

Some of Meta Business Suite’s features can take some getting used to, and there might be a slight learning curve on implementing it and making sure you’re taking advantage of all its features. But for businesses that want to enhance their presence on Facebook and Instagram, it’s important to explore it and learn how to use it to boost your brand, streamline operations and generate the important analytics that are crucial to staying competitive online.