Facebook and Instagram are two social media channels that grow more popular daily. Facebook has 2.93 billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2022, and Instagram has 2.3 billion active users as of July 2022.

Reaching this vast audience can be challenging if you manage both business accounts separately. Thankfully, Meta Business Suite helps you to contact all these users effectively and makes your business growth reliable.

Today, we will discuss why Meta Business Suite is great for your business and how you can use it effectively to make the most out of this platform. But before we get into the tips, let’s first check out the overview.

What is Meta Business Suite?

Meta Business Suite is a free and complete tool that allows you to manage your Facebook and Instagram accounts centrally. With the Suite, you can access all tools you need to handle your accounts in a central location. Thus, it helps you to save time, connect with more people, and acquire better results.

Here are some powerful features of Meta Business Suite that you need to know:

• It has a To-Do List to enable you to focus on high-priority business tasks. You'll find this on top of the Home tab.
• Meta Business Suite unites all messages from your Instagram and Facebook accounts in the inbox tab.
• If you're receiving many notifications, you can separate them by filtering high-priority messages. By default, the Business suite focuses on notices. You'll find all this in the notifications tab.
• Meta business gives you computerized options on the best time to post. So you can publish at the right time for high reach and commitment. You'll find this data after clicking the Optimal Times button.
• Meta Business has the A/B test that allows you to create multiple forms for one post to find one that works best. A/B tests are helpful, especially when you're a beginner and don't understand your viewers' interests.

Pro Tip: Did you know you can use Dataslayer to gather all your marketing data from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and 40+ other data sources into Google Sheets, Google Data Studio, BigQuery, and many other Business Intelligence tools? Today, get started with Dataslayer and see how it can help you grow your business.

Read more: Five steps to measure your Facebook Marketing Strategy

What can you do with Meta Business Suite? 

Here are the five critical capabilities of Meta Business Suite:

• Posting: Publishing can be quite time-consuming when you have to post on each platform differently. With Meta Business Suite, you can publish simultaneously on Facebook and Instagram.
• Insights: The insights capabilities guide you on the right time to post, so your posts get the highest engagements. You find all these valuable insights in one place instead of visiting each account separately. Insights can include ad spend, engagement rate, and audience demographics.
• Advertising: you can advertise on Meta Business Suite using the Ads button on the left sidebar.
• Messaging: the inbox tab comprises all your messages from Facebook and Instagram.
• Updates: Staying up to date can be time-consuming if you switch back and forth between tabs and platforms. Meta Business Suite enables you to receive and manage all updates in a single platform.

What is the difference between Meta Business Suite and its predecessor?

Facebook Business Manager and Meta Business Suite are platforms for managing your Meta accounts. However, there still exists some critical differences between them:

• Business Manager concentrates on Ad accounts and Facebook pages, while Business Suite focuses on helping you to manage your Instagram and Facebook business accounts simultaneously.
• While Meta Business Suite is accessible on desktop and mobile apps, the Business manager is accessible only on desktops.
• And lastly, the Business manager has been in the market for a long time since 2014, while Meta introduced the Business suite in 2020. The Business Suite is a replacement for the older Business Manager.

Getting started with Meta Business Suite

First, go to your browser, access business.facebook.com, and sign in to the platform. It's not mandatory to create a business manager first. Soon, the Meta Business Manager and Facebook Business manager will be merged and become a single entity.

Once you log in successfully to the Meta Business Suite, in the top-left corner, select your account if you’ve not set it up already. So, in case you don't see your account, then follow these steps to add it:

• Click the Account button.
• From the drop-down menu, select the Business account.

After selecting the account you need, that's all you have to do. Facebook and Instagram accounts should now appear below at the top of the page below the Home tab.

You can also install Meta Business Suite app on your mobile and use it wherever you are. 

Can you use Meta Business Suite and Business Manager simultaneously?

One of the main concerns about both Business Manager and Business Suite is if it is possible to use both simultaneously. 

The two platforms were not intended for use together. Meta introduced Business Suite in 2020 to replace the older Business Management. So, once you access Meta Business Suite, you can leave out the Business Manager.

Better still, Meta grants you access to Business Manager, just in case you have any other reason to use it. You switch to Business Manager by clicking on the Help icon at the bottom of the left menu, then click Switch to Business Manager. 

Once you switch to the older tool, you won't be able to manage your scheduled content in the Business Suite. However, the posts on the new platform will publish according to your plan.

Five tips to make the most of Meta Business Suite

After we’ve discussed the two platforms above, we will dive into how you can use this powerful tool effectively to grow your business.

So, let’s dive in!

Plan, create, and distribute all your posts and stories directly to Instagram and Facebook

There are many reasons to use Meta Business Suite, but one of the primary reasons is to use it to plan, create, and manage posts and stories for both Facebook and Instagram. Thus, it saves you more time and money than if you could have done it separately.

Here are the steps to creating your posts on Meta Business Suite:

1. On your dashboard, click Create Post to add a new post or story.
2. Then, click on the drop-down arrow of Post to, and select the platform you want to publish the posts. You may post on either of the media or both.
3. Under Media, select photos and videos you want to upload. Remember, Instagram has a maximum upload of 10 items.
4. If you need to edit the media, click on the Pencil icon or remove them entirely by clicking on the bin icon.
5. The Preview tab on the right lets you see a preview on both your Instagram and Facebook feeds.
6. Next, add text under Post details and use the toggle button to customize the post for both platforms. Note that Instagram doesn't accept links. So delete the link under post details but retain it for Facebook. If you would like, you can add location details.
7. Finally, click Publish in the bottom-right corner to post.

Remember, you can save your posts as a draft or publish them on a schedule. You can find these options on the drop-down next to Publish. 

Next, add the date and time you wish to publish it and click Save. You can create a different publishing time for Facebook and Instagram.

Once done with scheduling and saving, you can click the Schedule Post button in the bottom-right corner to finish.

Pro-Tip: Choose the right time to publish your posts when most of your audiences are probably active. You can use the suggestions from the Optimal Times in the schedules.

Automate your inbox to save time

Meta Business Suite's automation tool makes your inbox management much more effortless. Normalize sending automated responses to reduce the time spent on replies.

Some examples of automatic replies are:

• Away messages: When you aren't available to reply to messages, you can let people know when you shall be back.
• Keyword replies: You can use a keyword to generate an automatic response whenever a message includes that word.
• Instant reply: This message will be sent to users who message your brand directly for the first time.
• FAQs: You may direct your users to the frequently asked questions page based on what their message entails.

You can set up automated responses in these simple steps:

1. Click on the Automated responses button next to the gear icon. Next, you can initiate an automated response for the platforms managed within the Meta Business Suite.
2. Now, you need to choose the platforms that need automated responses. You can do this under the When this happens button.
3. In the Message field, you can customize automated responses.

Get inspiration for epic content from your competitors

There is a helpful feature at the bottom of the Home Tab that most users tend to ignore because of misunderstanding it: the posts and stories from competitors. 

This feature gives you a chance to study your competitors, understand your audience better, and develop new ideas of your own. So, spend some time knowing what your competitors do as you prepare your marketing strategies to improve it.

Use insights to measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategy

Meta Business Suite has only an inbuilt option for performing social media analytics. So, you won't have to toggle between different apps to see statistics. You can view each account's performance to understand what works best.

Go to the insight dashboard to see the performance of your content over a certain period. You can sort your posts by:

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

The audience tab helps you know your audience's size and composition. You can see:

• Top Countries
• Towns and Cities
• Age and gender

The potential audience tab shows an estimate of your audience size whenever you run an ad, and your possible audience likes the top pages.

You can also set goals on the Insights Tab by clicking on the New Goal button in the upper right corner. You set the reach and audience growth goals for your business accounts.

Read more: Essential Data Sources to Monitor for Effective Marketing

Use Calendar to plan and keep track of your content

The content calendar or Planner shows you all your scheduled and published posts.

Meta Business Suite allows you to view related details of each post by clicking on them. Also, there is an option of Publish Now. Then you can go back to the homepage.

Employ Split Testing

Split testing or A/B testing is one of the most valuable tools in your collection. You have the opportunity to test and compare different versions of a post, ad, or message to determine the most influential variables. No reason not to use A/B testing because Business Suite helps you create the tests. After testing, let go of the tactics that aren't working as you adopt those that work best for you. 

Final Thoughts

Managing your Facebook and Instagram business accounts can be daunting and time-consuming. It will even be more challenging when you handle a large number of audiences or ad campaigns with a huge budget.

With Meta Business Suite, you can have a centralized control center for all your business accounts. Other Business Suite features like insights, To-Do lists, and A/B testing can help you succeed in your marketing strategies.  

We believe you can manage your Facebook and Instagram accounts more effectively using Meta Business Suite. More importantly, we hope the tips discussed in this article will help you succeed in your marketing strategies.