In its never-ending quest to make life easier for social media marketers, the crew at Facebook has released the Facebook Business Manager, a tool for digital marketing professionals who work with multiple Facebook pages and ad accounts.
In this article, we’ll go over Facebook Business Manager and provide a brief tutorial about how to use it.
Why Use Facebook Business Manager?
The key question before adopting any new tool is: how will this benefit me or my business?
Facebook Business Manager provides its users with the ability to manage multiple Facebook pages and ad accounts for marketing purposes. It’s a tool that streamlines social media marketing among employees, teams, and business partners. It does that by allowing owners of Facebook assets to grant specific management rights to other users.
For example, Sally has a personal Facebook account. She’s also a digital marketing professional who started her own online business. Sally has many clients who would like to let her manage Facebook marketing on behalf of their businesses. So, here’s what happens:
- Sally creates a Facebook Business Manager account
- Sally’s clients each create a Facebook Business Manager account
- Sally’s clients give Sally administrative rights to their Facebook pages and Ad Manager accounts
- Sally can now post updates on her clients’ pages and advertise for them
- Neither Sally nor any of her clients are required to be friends on Facebook to make any of this happen
Facebook Business Manager also offers users the ability to assign specific rights to team members. For example, Sally might want to delegate the responsibility of creating ads to someone else. In that case, she’d add a user to Facebook Business Manager and give that person advertiser rights for a specific ad account. She can also assign a person administrative rights to a particular page, giving that person the authority to manage ad account settings, payment methods, and account spending limits.
In a nutshell, Facebook Business Manager allows Facebook users to create professional, rather than personal, relationships on Facebook. The tool allows teams to work together on Facebook for marketing purposes.
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s dive into using Facebook Business Manager.
Creating an Account
Head on over to the Facebook Business Manager home page and click on the “Create Account” button. Go through the process of creating your business account.
Since this is your first time creating an account, you’ll have no business assets. You can add an asset by simply using the “Add New,” “Claim Assets,” or “Request Access” menu options.
If you select “Add New,” you’ll go through a process of creating an asset (such as a page or app) similar to what you might have done in the past when you created a similar asset.
If you select “Claim Assets,” you’ll need to provide some information about the asset that you want to claim. If it’s a page, you just need to type in the name. If you’re the administrator of the page, then Facebook Business Manager will automatically grant access.
If you want to claim an ad account, you’ll need to know the ID of the account. Just go to your Facebook Ads Manager page and you’ll see the account number in the URL next to the “act=” request parameter. Plug that in and, once again, if you’re already the owner of the asset, Facebook Business Manager will grant you access within the tool.
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If you want to claim an app, you’ll need to know the ID of the app. That’s easy to find at your Facebook Developers page. There, you’ll see a list of all your apps with the ID right next to each one. Again, just plug in the app ID and you should be given immediate access.
If you select “Request Access,” then your request to have access to the asset will be forwarded to the administrator of that asset for approval. Keep in mind that Facebook might limit the number of assets you can request access to until some of them have been approved.
The Overview
Once you’ve added all your assets, refresh the main page on Facebook Business Manager. You’ll be presented with a dashboard-like screen that provides you with analytics for all the assets that you manage. For pages, you’ll see information like post reach and page engagement. For ad accounts, you’ll see information like the total spend and number of ad impressions.
Now, you can use the very important “Business Settings” menu option on the left-hand sidebar to see specific information about the various assets that you manage.
Pages
Click on “Pages” from the “Business Settings” fly-out menu and you’ll see information about the pages that you manage. You can click on the pages to see even more detail and options associated with the page.
On the “Pages” screen, you can click on the “View History” to provide you with information about when the page was added to Facebook Business Manager and when users were added as specific roles. You can also click the “Add People” and “Assign Partner” buttons to grant rights to the page.
It’s worth noting here the difference between people and partners according to Facebook Business Manager.
- People – are generally employees within the company who are added by their email address.
- Partners – are usually agencies or contractors outside of the company who are added by their Facebook Business Manager ID.
There’s a link under the name of the page that you can click on as well. That will take you to a place that should be familiar: the actual Facebook page. From there, you can perform administrative responsibilities and post updates to your heart’s content. However, the top bar makes it clear that you’re still working within the framework of Facebook Business Manager.
Simply closing the window takes you back to the Facebook Business Manager tool, where you can resume easily managing other Facebook pages and ad accounts.
Ad Accounts
When you click on “Ad Accounts” from the “Business Settings” fly-out menu, you’ll once again see a list of assets that you own with the ability to manage each one. In fact, the screen looks strikingly familiar to the “Pages” screen.
Here, you’ll have the ability to view assigned people and partners. You can also assign other Facebook users roles associated with managing the ads. You can also click the “View History” button to see a running history of when people and partners were assigned roles for the ad account.
You also have the option to view your ad account in Ads Manager or in the Power Editor. Further, you can edit payment methods from the Ad Accounts screen.
Apps
When you click on “Apps” from the “Business Settings” fly-out menu, you’ll see a list of apps presented in a screen that looks just like the “Ad Accounts” and “Pages” screens.
From the “Apps” page, you can assign a partner or ad account to your apps. You can also get a quick assessment of which partners and ad accounts have been assigned to specific apps.
Pixels
If you select “Pixels” from the “Business Settings” fly-out menu, you’ll see a screen that gives you a list of pixels associated with each ad account.
The catch here, of course, is that you must have the new Facebook pixel for your ad account. Otherwise, you’ll see a message that you don’t have any pixels yet.
If you do have pixels, though, you’ll be able to edit associated partners and ad accounts for each pixel using the “Pixels” screen.
Product Catalogs
If you’re interested in using Facebook for more direct e-commerce, you’ll likely find the Product Catalogs section helpful. You access it by clicking on “Product Catalogs” from the “Business Settings” fly-out menu.
Once again, you must have access to a product catalog to see anything on the “Product Catalogs” screen. Otherwise, you’ll just get a message that says you don’t have any product catalogs. Fortunately, that message will be followed by a drop-down giving you the opportunity to add or claim a product catalog.
For the product catalogs that you do have, though, you’ll be able to assign people or partners specific roles for that catalog, add a feed to the catalog, and/or associate sources to it.
Adding People
When you want to assign people to manage assets, click on the “Add New” menu option of the left-hand sidebar from the main page of Facebook Business Manager. Then, select “People” from the fly-out menu that appears.
On the next screen, enter the email address of the person you’d like to add. Then, select the appropriate option to add the person as an employee or admin.
Once you’ve clicked “Add People,” you’ll be prompted to check boxes next to the assets that you want those people to manage. You’ll also be able to assign roles to each person. You can select the option to “Learn About Roles” if you want to learn more about the roles specific to each asset.
Once you’ve added people, you can just select “People” from the “Business Settings” fly-out menu to view the people that you’ve added. From there, you can edit, remove, and update each person as necessary.
Assigning Partners
You can’t assign partners to assets the same way that you assign them to people from the “Add New” menu option on the front page. Instead, you go to the specific type of asset that you want to assign to a partner and then click the “Add Partner” button, found in the upper, right-hand corner of the screen.
For example, if you want assign a partner to a Facebook page, click on “Business Settings” from the left-hand sidebar on the main Facebook Business Manager page. Then, select “Pages” from the fly-out menu that appears. On the next screen, you’ll see an “Assign Partner” button in the upper, right-hand corner. Click on that button to assign a partner to the appropriate page.
For this process, you’ll need your partner’s Facebook Business Manager ID. You’ll also have to specify the role for the partner, such as Page Admin, Page Editor, Page Moderator, Page Advertiser, and/or Page Analyst.
To view all your partners at a glance, just click on the “Business Settings” menu option on the left-hand sidebar of the main Facebook Business Manager page. Then, select “Partners” from the fly-out menu that appears.
Projects
If you’ve been browsing around in Facebook Business Manager thus far, you might have noticed some references to “Projects” here and there. Those reference might have prompted you to ask: “What are projects?”
Projects are useful if you’re managing a lot of Facebook assets for a number of clients and/or partners. That way, you can organize a subset of assets under one category, helpfully called a “Project.”
To add a project, click on “Business Settings” on the left-hand sidebar of the main Facebook Business Manager page. Then, select “Projects” from the fly-out menu that appears.
Once you’re taken to the new screen, simply click on the “Create New Project” button and add the appropriate pages, ad accounts, and other assets to that project.
Wrapping It Up
Facebook Business Manager is an invaluable tool for people who manage multiple pages and ad accounts. It’s a great way to get a bird’s-eye view of analytics relevant to multiple Facebook assets. It’s also perfect for teams with members that have different responsibilities when it comes to managing Facebook resources. If you haven’t yet looked at Facebook Business Manager as a way to streamline Facebook marketing, give it a test run today and decide if it’s best for you.
