How to Use Meta Business Suite: Manage Instagram and Facebook Activities in One Place

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Meta Business Suite is Facebook’s native social media management tool.

And it’s packed with many useful features to manage your Facebook and Instagram accounts.

You’ll even find features that are absent in traditional social media management tools.

So, what does Meta Business Suite offer your business in terms of Facebook and Instagram management?

In this guide, I’ll dive into the features and how to use Meta Business Suite.

Let’s begin.

What is Meta Business Suite and how does it work?

Meta Business Suite is a free social media management tool created by Meta. This tool lets you manage tasks for Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp Business.

You can access the Meta Business Suite on desktop and iOS and Android apps.

In the Meta Business Suite, you’ll have access to features like scheduling, planner, inbox, insights, collaboration, and ads.

To use Meta Business Suite, you need a Facebook page. Then, visit your Facebook page as an admin and click Meta Business Suite at the left sidebar.

Doing this will launch the Meta Business Suite.

If you want to manage activities on your Instagram business account, Facebook will request permission for that.

Once you set up your Facebook and Instagram accounts, you can now run many social activities right in the Meta Business Suite.

Common tasks to perform in Meta Business Suite

Here are important social media management tasks you can perform in Meta Business Suite:

Create and schedule Facebook and Instagram posts

If you manage Facebook and Instagram accounts, then you can create content for them in a single place.

To do that, click Create Post, Create Reel, or Create Story in the Meta Business Suite dashboard.

Doing this will launch the post composer. 

If your Facebook page is linked to an Instagram business account, Facebook will select both as the destination for your post.

If you want to create post for a single account, unselect the other one. 

In the next step, add the media files you want to use. So, if you want to create an Instagram carousel, you can add up to 10 files.

Then, write your social captions. Meta Business Suite lets you write separate captions for Facebook and Instagram.

For a Facebook page post, you get many options below the caption box. For example, you can add a location as well as Messenger and WhatsApp buttons to receive messages from your audience.

However, you can only run A/B tests if you remove Instagram placement. The A/B test allows you to compare variations of your Facebook post to see the best performer.

You can enter the details of your post versions.

And if you want to compare more than 2 versions, Facebook also allows that.

In case of scheduling Instagram posts, you can add a location to your post.

As you make changes to your post, you’ll see a preview at the right side of the composer.

Below the caption box, you can add a collaborator to your post. This is useful if you want to collaborate with influencers.

In the next step, you have scheduling options. These allow you to publish your posts up to a month in advance.

To schedule a post, toggle on the Set date and time option. If you want your post to go live at your audience’s most active times, click Active times below the scheduling options.

Beyond scheduling, you have the option to boost your post after publishing.

Once you complete these steps, click Publish or Schedule.

Plan Facebook and Instagram content for a month

If you want to publish content consistently, then you need to plan for a period like a week or a month.

Luckily, the Meta Business Suite Planner can serve as your Facebook content calendar and Instagram content calendar.

The Planner has both the week and month views. 

You can create and schedule posts and ads from the Planner. Facebook also shows your audience’s most active times if you want to publish a post at the time slot.

While Facebook only allows you to schedule posts 30 days in advance, you can plan even beyond that timeframe. 

If you want to plan content beyond 30 days, you can follow the post creation steps and click Finish later instead of Schedule.

Apart from the content calendar, there are other elements in the Planner. 

One of them is Goals. You can set goals to increase reach or grow followers in the next 28 days.

Once you set the goal, you’ll see it at the right side of your Planner. This can encourage you to publish more to achieve your goals.

Asides goals, you can also view moments and drafts in the Planner.

Manage content

In the Content section, you’ll see all the content pieces you’ve created for your Facebook and Instagram accounts.

These include published, scheduled, and draft posts.

You can perform a few actions here.

You can edit, duplicate, delete, or share a post to story. You can also boost a post from here.

If you want to view more insights about a specific post, click it. Facebook will show you its performance metrics, audience, and feed preview.

Apart from posts and reels, you can also view stories. Here, you’ll see active, scheduled, and archived stories.

Not just that, but you can also add stories to your Instagram Story highlights.

In the Feed and grid section, you can see your Facebook and Instagram feed and grid.

You’ll find other content types like mentions and tags and clips.

Lastly, Facebook lets you export content data if needed.

Overall, you can manage most of your content here. 

Engage audience in inbox

In the inbox section, you’ll see Messenger messages, Instagram messages, Facebook comments, and  Instagram comments.

Here, you can reply messages and comments without logging in to individual accounts.

When you click on each conversation, Facebook will show you an overview of the person you’re interacting with.

Based on your interaction, you can assign labels and write a note about the user.

You can also select a lead stage and add details about the lead. These details include contact information such as phone number, email, and residential address.

There are also icons at the top of each message to perform actions like mark as follow up, mark as not important, and move to done.

In addition, Meta lets you create messaging ads from the Inbox.

Even more, you get automations, which can save a lot of time when dealing with common inquiries.

To create an automation, click Automations at the top of the inbox. Doing this will take you to the next page where you can create your automation.

At the top of the page, you’ll see automation templates. These are for common use cases like instant reply, away message, and custom keywords.

There’s also a frequently asked questions template you can edit. If you want to create an automation from scratch, you have that option too.

These inbox features are useful if you promote products on Instagram and Facebook.

They can help you provide customer support and manage your sales pipeline.

Create ads

In the Ads section, you’ll see your ads summary and all ads.

The Ads summary provides information such as metrics for individual ads and audience insights for ads.

On the second page, you’ll see all your ads and metrics like reach, results, and amount spent.

To create an Ad, click Create ad at the top right corner of the page.

On the ad creation page, you can enter more details about your goals, schedule, duration, and more.

Remember that you can also boost already published posts.

However, to set up your ads properly, your best option may be to visit the Ads Manager.

The ads section is useful if you want to reach more of your ideal audience on Facebook and Instagram. 

View insights

Meta Business Suite has a robust insights section that provides most of the metrics you need. You’ll find metrics about your content pieces, page, and product sales.

First, an Overview section provides metrics about post performance and messaging. These metrics include impressions, reach, content interactions, and link clicks.

The Plan section shows how well you’ve performed in terms of management tasks. Then, the Results section shows how you fare compared to the goals you set.

A section I find interesting is Audience. Here, you’ll see your audience’s age and gender, top cities, and top countries. 

But beyond that, you can see potential audience. Based on your current followers, Facebook will predict the number of users you can reach on Facebook and Instagram.

And if you want to be more specific, you can use filters to define the people you want to reach. Facebook will adjust the audience size as you add filters.

This lets you understand the number of people interested in the topic you publish about. Facebook also lets you export these numbers as PNG, CSV, or PDF.

Then, Messaging shows the number of contacts that messaged your business and the number of conversations started.

Apart from that, you can see the number of orders created, approximate earnings, appointments created, and leads from messages. These metrics are especially important if you sell products on Facebook and Instagram.

The Benchmarking section compares your account metrics with similar accounts. 

If you want to take your competitor analysis further, you can add Facebook businesses in the Businesses to watch tab. This will compare metrics like the number of page likes and published content with the other businesses.

Facebook also provides analytics for your content pieces. So, you’ll see the number of reach, views, content interactions, and minutes viewed.

There are also top content by reach and top content formats. 

If you’re a content creator, you can see how much your videos have earned.

I think the Insights section alone is enough reason to use Meta Business Suite, even if you use another social media management tool.

Because you won’t find many of these metrics on traditional social media management tools.

Collaborate with other users

If you manage brand accounts on Facebook and Instagram, you may need a few team members to perform activities like creating content or responding to messages.

To achieve this, you have to add those team members to the Meta Business Suite.

To do that, click Settings at the bottom left corner of your Meta Business Suite dashboard.

On the next page, you’ll see the people in your account. Click + Invite people at the right side of the page to invite a new user.

Doing this will trigger a popup to add a new person. 

In the first step, enter the user’s email and indicate if it’s a temporary access and if the person can access AR effects. If you’re providing temporary access, select the access expiry date. Then, click Next.

On the next page, you can select more settings. Once you do that, select the business asset you want the user to manage.

Then, indicate specific actions they can take on this asset.

After this, review the invitation and send it to the user.

This feature ensures employees can collaborate to manage social media activities for your business on Facebook and Instagram.

Other tools

Beyond the tools I’ve explained in this guide, Meta Business Suite has even more tools to manage social media activities.

To access them, click All tools at the left sidebar.

Here, you’ll find tools in 5 categories:

• Engage audience
• Advertise
• Analyse and report
• Manage
• Sell products and services

You can use these tools to get even more benefits from the Meta Business Suite.

How to use Meta Business Suite mobile app

Off the top of my head, I can think of two situations you’ll need the Meta Business Suite mobile app.

One, if you capture images and videos for social media on your smartphone, using the mobile app to create or schedule posts can be the easier option.

Two, the mobile app allows you to schedule posts on the go. This means you can easily create posts once ideas drop in your mind.

For these and other benefits, Meta Business Suite has iOS and Android apps.

Create and schedule posts

To create a post, click the + button at the bottom middle of the app interface. Doing this will show the content types you can create.

Once you select a content type, Meta will launch the post composer. Here, you can enter your caption, add photo/video, and even go live.

In the caption box, you can also uncover popular hashtags by clicking the hashtag icon.

After filling in the details, click Next.

Then, select your scheduling option, boost post, and see post previews. After completing the steps, click Publish or Schedule based on your scheduling option.

On the next page, you’ll see the planner and your post in a day slot.

Reply to messages

To reply to messages, click Inbox at the bottom of the app interface.

Doing this will take you to your Instagram and Facebook messages and comments.

In each conversation, you have options like sending media, marking for follow up, or moving to done.

This lets you reply to urgent messages when your PC is out of reach.

Access the planner and content

The Planner shows the content you have lined up for each day. Here, you’ll have a calendar view for a week.

You can switch between weeks if you want.

In the Content section, you’ll see published posts, scheduled posts, and drafts.

Here, you have the option to edit, duplicate, or add a post to your story.

While the mobile app doesn’t have all the features you get on the desktop version, it lets you perform critical management tasks.

Why use Meta Business Suite?

Meta Business Suite is Meta’s social media management tool for Facebook and Instagram.

While I’ve explained its extensive features, you may ask, “What benefits does Meta Business Suite bring to my business?”

Here are 5 of them:

• Consistent content publishing: Meta Business Suite lets you schedule posts for a week at once. Not just that, you can set goals that help you publish regularly. These lead to consistent publishing and better performance.
• Effective content planning: The Meta Business Suite Planner has weekly and monthly views to help you plan your content for these periods. So, it can be your Instagram content calendar or Facebook content calendar.
• Better performance tracking: The Insights section lets you see how your organic and promoted posts and accounts perform. You can also compare your performance with similar accounts. But beyond these, Meta shows how your conversations result in generated leads and sales.
• Collaboration between team members: If you manage Facebook and Instagram accounts for a big brand, you probably work together with other people. Meta Business Suite allows you to add team members and set permissions for tasks they can do.
• Engagement with followers: With Meta Business Suite, you can respond to comments and private messages on Facebook and Instagram. Also, you can add important marketing and sales information to your conversations.

These are some reasons to consider using Meta Business Suite to manage your Instagram and Facebook accounts.

Conclusion

Meta Business Suite provides features to help you achieve Facebook and Instagram goals.

And you’ll likely find a feature that’s valuable to your business.

So, what should you do next?

Launch Meta Business Suite from your Facebook page and connect an Instagram account.

Then, try out some of the features.

Alternatively, if you want to manage social media platforms other than Facebook and Instagram, check out my list of the best social media management tools to see what other tools offer.