How to Use Meta Business Suite (Formerly Facebook Business Suite)

Businesses spend nearly 113 billion dollars on advertising across Meta (formerly Facebook) platforms.

Why? Because it works!

Plus, Meta offers great tools that make it easy to manage and track your accounts.

None of them are more important or powerful than Meta Business Suite, formerly called Facebook Business Suite.

It’s designed to iron out the time-sucking road bumps in social media management and make it easier for businesses to run their Instagram and Facebook profiles.

Below, I’ll cover everything you need to know about Meta Business Suite. We’ll unpack what it is, everything you can do with the tool, how it can benefit your business, and a quick walkthrough on how to set up your account.

Meta Business Suite: Key Facts

• Meta Business Suite is an all-in-one social media tool that helps you manage your Facebook and Instagram accounts.
• It’s a more comprehensive and flexible tool than Meta Business Manager.
• You can generate some pretty impressive insights from the platform, including how to improve ad spend, how to increase engagement, and who your audience really is.
• Meta Business Suite is packed with useful tools, including a unified inbox, a content calendar, a social post creation and scheduling tool, and online forms.

What Is Meta Business Suite and How Does It Work?

Meta Business Suite is a free platform that allows you to manage your Facebook and Instagram accounts (including ad campaigns) from one easy-to-use dashboard. It also comes with loads of tools that make it easy to grow your social following and generate leads.

Given the huge reach of Facebook (it has over 3 billion monthly active users) there’s no reason you shouldn’t be using this platform to improve your social reach, build brand awareness, and make sales.

All you need to do is link up your accounts, and you’ll have instant access to a dashboard that lets you do the following:

• Create a to-do list of notifications to manage
• Check insights on your performance and audience growth
• Create or see recent posts or stories
• Create or manage recent ads
• See your content calendar
• View content inspiration
• Communicate via a unified inbox
• Access the Commerce Manager
• Check Business Suite updates

That’s only the tip of the iceberg.

There’s an entire “more tools” section with other features to play around with, including:

• Appointments
• Ad manager
• Events manager
• Instant forms

The best part? It’s free and available on mobile and desktop.

That’s right, there’s a Meta Business Suite mobile app that allows you to manage your business accounts from your mobile device. Everything you can do on desktop, you can also do on mobile, including monitoring your account activity, managing your inbox, and even getting audience insights.

Meta Business Suite vs. Meta Business Manager

There are two ways of managing your accounts: Meta Business Manager and Meta Business Suite. It’s easy to get confused between the two, so let me take a second to clear things up.

Meta Business Suite is the all-in-one social media management tool I describe above.

Meta Business Manager is a back-end tool used to manage access to and the functionality of your business accounts

Okay, so what are the actual differences between the two?

First, they work slightly differently. Meta Business Manager lets you manage your Meta business accounts separately from your personal account. But you can’t toggle easily between accounts like you can in Meta Business Suite.

Second, the platforms let you do slightly different things. On Meta Business Manager, you can access Meta Business Settings where you can assign user roles, request access, and collaborate with your team. You can’t use the platform to plan content or create campaigns.

Finally, Meta Business Manager only lets you manage your accounts on desktops and laptops. Unlike Meta Business Suite, there’s no handy mobile app.

What Insights Can You Generate Using Meta Business Suite?

There are plenty of reasons to use Meta Business Suite. Most importantly, the platform makes it easy to monitor and manage your business accounts and campaigns across Meta’s social and messenger networks.

But it also lets you uncover some fascinating and powerful insights. These include:

• Ad spend: You can track your ad spend across all Meta platforms. Based on how well you’re performing, you can adjust your spend accordingly. For example, if you’re spending a lot on Instagram ads but see via other insights that the ads aren’t performing well, you can redirect your budget towards the Meta platforms you’re more successful on.
• Engagement: Meta Business Suite lets you see your organic and boosted content engagement. You can see what content performs best and use that to inform your future strategies and the content you publish on social media.
• Audience demographics: With Business Suite, you can see data about the users who interact with your profile and content. For example, you can see where they’re from, their other interests, their age, and more. You can use this information to continue creating content that targets your existing users, or adjust your strategies if your content isn’t reaching the right audience.

Understanding these insights—alongside the ones you get from Audience Insights—can help you plan a better Facebook strategy, so take the time to explore this tool.

How to Use Meta Business Suite

Have I convinced you of the importance of using Meta Business Suite? Great! Here’s how you can get started with the platform.

Step 1: Create a Meta Business Account

Go to the log-in page and select “Create an Account.” You’ll be prompted to log in to your Facebook account or create a new account.

Step 2: Fill in Your Contact Information

Enter your full name, business email address, birthday, phone number, and password. This information won’t be shared with your followers. Facebook will only use it to contact you.

Step 3: Select Your Facebook and Instagram Accounts

The Facebook and Instagram accounts you own are available for you to claim. If you’re managing an account someone else owns, you won’t be able to select it.

To select an Instagram account, it needs to be converted to a business or creator account. If you try to select a personal account, Facebook will ask you to switch before continuing the setup process.

Step 4: Add People to Your Business Account

Next, select your page admins. Enter their email address and assign each contact as an employee (limited access) or business admin (full access).

If you’re running your accounts solo, you can skip this step.

Step 5: Review Your Business Account

Once you’re happy and you’ve clicked confirm, Facebook will take you to your dashboard overview, and you can start using all the tools inside the platform.

Before you rush off and explore the tools I describe below, just spend a moment making sure all the account details are set up correctly.

Tools to Use in Meta Business Suite

Do you want to learn more about the tools inside Meta Business Suite? Let’s take a deep dive and look at what you can do with the platform and how it can benefit your business.

Monitor Your Inbox

Are comments one of your biggest time sucks? Do you constantly find yourself hopping between apps on your phone or getting inundated with notifications on your desktop?

According to research, over 20 percent of entrepreneurs spend more than 7 hours a day on business-related social media, with the average entrepreneur spending over half the working day on it. 

With Meta Business Suite’s Inbox, you can drastically reduce that time by managing your Instagram and Facebook comments in one place. Pop the kettle on, make some coffee, block out 30 minutes in your calendar, and respond to everything at once.

What about direct messages (DMs)? You’ll find that here, too. Got the Facebook chat plugin on your website? You can manage all your messages here as well.

Sick of replying to the same question every single day? Business Suite lets you create automated replies for your frequently asked questions.

You can also manage conversations with specific people and create labels, giving it a bit of a CRM feel.

How’s that for efficiency?

Explore Meta Insights

Many social media tools exist for Facebook and Instagram analytics, but few compare the platform’s built-in option.

With Business Suite, you can see the latest statistics and insights for all your accounts.

Gone are the days of toggling between the different apps or going in and out of individual posts. On the Insights dashboard, you can see an overview of how your content is performing over a specific period, and sort your posts by:

• Reach
• Likes and reactions
• Comments
• Shares
• Results
• Cost per result
• Link clicks
• Recent content

One of the most interesting features of Insights is the Audience section. It breaks down your current audience for both platforms, and you can see at a glance:

• Age and gender
• Towns and cities
• Top countries

There’s also a potential audience tab. It details your estimated audience size if you run an ad and the top pages liked by your potential audience.

Create Posts and Stories

Are you using apps like Later or Planoly to create and schedule posts? Business Suite lets you do this for free.

That’s not all. Meta Business Suite actually helps you create better content.

If you go to the Planner section on your dashboard, you’ll see a calendar view of your past and upcoming posts. On the right-hand side of the dashboard, you’ll see suggested moments or events to address like back to school and other holidays.

Click on Content type, and you can filter to see specific types of content, such as posts, stories, or ads.

Meta also recommends a time when your audience is most likely to be online.

Click on Create, and you can start creating a new post or story.

The hashtag tool is one of my favorite features in the New post box. It shows you which hashtags are trending, the number of posts using a tag, and lets you save your favorites for later.

Plus, it shows hashtag results for each platform and gives you recommendations based on what you’ve already selected. You can also add a feeling/activity, create A/B tests, and preview your posts.

While in create mode, you can put together your Instagram and Facebook posts at the same time. Switch between the different tabs; you can see exactly how your post will look on the two platforms.

Stories work the same. Upload up to 10 photos or videos at once and schedule them when you’re done.

Create Appointments for Your Business

Remember those extra options I spoke about earlier? One of the most important features of an online business is the appointment scheduler.

Click on the All Tools button in the left sidebar, then click Sell products and services.

Here, you can book appointments, manage orders, and list services on your page.

If you’re running a service-based business, take advantage of Facebook’s capabilities and empower your audience to book directly through the platform.

When people don’t need to log onto another site to complete the process, you’re removing an extra step and making it that much easier to close a sale.

The result? A boost in your bottom line!

Generate Leads With Instant Forms

Does your business rely heavily on lead generation? Meta’s Instant Forms can help you leverage Facebook and Instagram to drive more leads.

What are Instant Forms? Think of it as a mini CRM system. When you create an ad and set your objective to find leads, you can create custom forms users can fill out without leaving the platform.

Again, you’re removing the obstacle of trying to get them to go from one website to another. Thus, improving your chances of someone filling out the form and requesting a callback.

When you create a form, Facebook offers different options depending on your lead generation goal.

For example, you can create a “more volume” form (a quick option) or a “higher intent” form, which adds an extra step for users to review their information before submitting).

To access this tool, head to All tools and then look for Advertise. You’ll see an option for Instant forms.

Building Your First Meta Business Suite Campaign

One of the best things about Meta Business Suite is that you can create Meta ad campaigns without having to open the Ad Manager. Better still, you can keep track of your ad performance on the platform, too. 

If you already have ads set up, click on the Ads icon in the left sidebar (it looks like a megaphone), and you’ll see:

• Reach
• Post engagement
• Link clicks
• Page likes

Switch between the different filter views to see your results over the last 90, 60, 30, and 7 days.

If you don’t have ads set up, then let’s break down how to create your first campaign.

Start by clicking the blue Advertise button in the top right-hand corner or click Get started.

First, you’ll need to select your ad goal. You can choose from the following options:

I’m going to click Get more website visitors.

Now comes the fun part. Design your ad by adding an image, a headline, and a description. You can also change the button CTA and add a URL to your website.

Turn on automatic adjustments if you want Facebook to tweak your ad for each viewer. For example, the platform might adjust the brightness or show the original aspect ratio if it thinks the ad will perform better.

Scroll down to select your audience or create a new one, choose a placement, and set your campaign budget and duration.

When you’re done, click on Promote now for your ad to go into review.

And that’s it! You’ve just created your first campaign.

FAQs

Conclusion

Meta Business Suite is the perfect tool for creators, business owners, and entrepreneurs looking to streamline and improve their marketing on Facebook and Instagram.

The platform provides everything you need to monitor your growth, stay on top of audience messages, schedule content, create ads, and so much more.

Even if you use other social media management tools for your other profiles, it’s well worth checking out Meta Business Suite to see if it provides a more effective method of managing your Facebook and Instagram accounts.  

What are your thoughts on Meta Business Suite? Are you going to use it to manage your Facebook and Instagram accounts?