Facebook Business Suite It is the bogeyman of Managers, or of those of us who are dedicated to online marketing in general. The one that was born as a tool to overcome the problems of the old Facebook Business Manager (who wasn’t the bogeyman, he was Godzilla) has solved some of those problems… at the cost of creating new ones. to make it more accessible for small businesses that want to manage all of their Facebook properties (that is, Facebook, Instagram, and supposedly soon WhatsApp Business) from one place. First of all, a great idea. In practice, erm… that’s it.
Facebook has never been an excessively business-friendly social network. What I just wrote is an understatement, since in reality Facebook is as friendly to companies (which are its main source of income via ads) as a brick. Literally. Sit in front of a brick and try to make it your friend. Try to get him to explain to you what it means to be a brick, to tell you what brickwork is, or brickwork.
Does he answer you? Nope? Well, something like that happens with Facebook Business Suite.
Before I jump into the nitty-gritty and try to unravel the basics of Facebook Business Suite, I want to make it clear that I’m not a Facebook hater or anything like that. I am one of those who think that that changed the world as we know it, even if it has its dark and unpleasant side. I have it too.
I am aware that managing a social network with more than 2,700 million users in the world does not have to be exactly easy, especially when those users do not pay for it (not with money, they do pay with data that, in many cases, is more valuable than money) but I sincerely believe that Facebook should seriously consider a sensible way to make things easier for millions of advertisers that are the basis of your business.
There are three things that those of us who work daily with Facebook as a tool drive us crazy, make us break out in rashes or directly plunge us into the most abject terror:
1. The mania of introducing changes without prior notice
Or of spending months warning of changes that never occur. Is it so difficult, so complicated that those of us who manage accounts in Facebook Business Suite receive an email, a , a miserable notification that warns us that some of the functions are no longer where they were before? Well are like the Padrón peppers, which Some bite and others don’t.
On both Company Pages and Facebook Business Suite, sometimes you’re notified of changes and sometimes not. Why? Who knows, don’t look at me. I’ve already given up trying to make sense of it.
2. The help that doesn’t help you
Practical cases (raise your hands by those who feel identified): from entering the configuration of a page and finding that things are not where they were before and wasting a quarter of an hour looking for them to the abstruse error messages that redirect you to a help page where things that no longer exist are explained or redirect you to a second help page where you find a link that redirects you to the first help page.
Not to mention the redirects to user forums where wow! that topic is empty, Facebook’s “help” seems to have been designed to make you feel like a bloody idiot.
3. Lack of communication and automated responses
Try to get someone from Facebook to reply to you when you have a problem or get error messages requires arming yourself with patience, insist because the first two or three responses you will receive are automated, cross your fingers, entrust yourself to the saint/god/spirit of your choice and… wait.
Those of us who manage advertising on Facebook live the dangerous side of life: While you have a customer on the other end of the phone and you have to explain that you have no idea which of Facebook’s policies their ad is not in compliance with, or why they’ve had their ad account suspended for no apparent reason, or why Facebook will not let you sell a turtle-shaped jewel in the Facebook Shop claiming that animals cannot be sold, You claim via form 7 times and get the same automatic response. And then, without warning, you find the problem solved in 15 days.
So while I live without living in myself and such a high life I hope I die because I don’t die, I am going to tell you, if I am able, how to survive in the dark world of Facebook Business Suite.
Facebook Business Suite Basic Guide
Facebook Business Suite is the application to manage all aspects of a business related to Facebook, namely:
- Facebook business page (one or more)
- Instagram business account(s)
- WhatsApp Business accounts. They can be added, but at the moment you cannot manage them from here yet. It is assumed that if they are there it is because something more can be done with them than just seeing that they exist.
- ad accounts and management of campaigns in Facebook Ads
- Facebook and Instagram Shops through Commerce Manager, a section within Facebook Business Suite that suddenly appears if you want to create a store on Facebook and/or Instagram. It’s scary, at least to me the first 800 times.
- People who manage the Business Suite account (which do not have to be the same as those that manage the page)
- Information about your business, including tax information and, very important, EU VAT number. Keep in mind that Facebook invoices its advertising from Ireland and that it can only issue you invoices without VAT if you are registered in the Registry of Intra-Community Operators of the Tax Agency. In that case, your VAT number will be your CIF or NIF with the ES prefix in front. If you have not completed this procedure, Facebook will NOT issue you valid invoices that you can include in your VAT return. This is the information that will be used to bill you for the advertising you do on Facebook Ads.
- Generation of different types of reports and statistics about your posts and advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
- Post, view posts, and schedule posts on all Facebook and Instagram accounts you add to Business Suite.
- Various additional security-related featuressuch as verifying that the domain of your website is yours, the inclusion of the Facebook pixel on your website and others that I am not going to stop at.
It should be noted that Facebook Business Suite has a different access to the usual Facebook, either by downloading the Business Suite application on your mobile or by accessing it through the web if you are on a computer.
So far relatively simple.
The complicated thing comes because Facebook Business Suite is designed to handle multiple different assetsunderstanding as “active” Facebook pages, advertising accounts, Facebook and Instagram Shops… even if they are from different owners.
Something very convenient if you are an agency, but a sudoku if you only want to manage the accounts of the same owner. I’m not going to make a tutorial because a) I don’t think I’m capable of not missing anything and b) you have dozens of them and you just have to search on Google. The idea of this post is to warn you about the trickier parts that you have to pay attention to.
The beginning of Business Suite
Let’s go by parts. To get started, the beginning of Business Suite when you manage multiple company pages and ad accounts it looks like this (the strikethroughs are to respect the confidentiality of my clients):
As you can see, the advertising accounts and Facebook pages that have been given access to this Business Suite appear. But it’s not all there is if you click on “Business settings”, you will see much more:
You will see that in the left column all the things that can be added appear (or request permission to manage) in Facebook Business Suite. Stay with the image (I repeat, this post is NOT a tutorial) because we will refer to it several times.
Issues relevant to your survival in Business Suite
Ok, now let’s talk about practical things you need to consider about Facebook Business Suite:
1. It is more than possible that you have a Business Suite account and do not know it
And it would not be unusual for you to have more than one. It turns out that if you create an advertising account on Facebook (something that is a necessary step to be able to publish an ad or promote a publication on Facebook and / or Instagram, you are automatically creating a Business Suite account without anyone telling you about it.
The same thing happens if you create a store. To find out if you have already created an account, you have to enter Facebook Business Suite while previously logged into your Facebook account, and you will see if you have one, several or none (in which case you will be asked to create one). Those accounts are identified as “businesses”.
2. A Facebook Business Suite business has people running it
And these people must have a personal profile on Facebook. At least one administrator (can be several) and other roles can be created. From the “Business configuration” section of the menu you will see that we can add more people to manage the account.
But nooooo, Facebook wasn’t going to make it SO easy for us.
Once people have been added, they must be assigned the assets they can manage. That is to say: you can have, for example, 10 pages, 7 advertising accounts and 5 people in your Business Suite, and not all people will be able to access everything. In fact, each person will only be able to see and interact with the assets that an administrator assignsand this will define your role and, therefore, what you can or cannot do with that Facebook page, Instagram account, store, product catalog or whatever.
This structure is clearly intended for marketing agencies, but not so much for individual companies and is the source of a lot of headaches for the innocent novice user. Also, if that innocent user consults the roles assigned to the page in their Facebook page configuration, these people DO NOT appear if they are not previously administrators (or another role) of the page. Easy, right? <— Ironic mode ON.
To make it even easier, Facebook refers to Business Suite on some sites by that name and on others by the old name “Business Manager.” It turns out that Business Manager, that SO easy platform, is now part of the Business Suite so, in practice, they are talking about the same thing. This is especially bloody in the event that you want to resort to the help pages of Facebook, where I wish you much, much luck, because you are going to need it.
3. The Facebook Business Suite mobile app replaces the old “Facebook Pages” app, which was renamed without notice when it was updated a few months ago, but it doesn’t have the same features as the desktop version.
To finish messing it up, Facebook Ads advertising campaigns are managed on the mobile from a specific Facebook Ads app. My advice so your head doesn’t explode: forget about managing all this from your mobile and do it from a computer.
4. From a Facebook Business Suite account you can claim ownership of a Facebook page.
Another source of teeth grinding: If the admin of that Page and the Business admin…
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