Facebook helping SMEs succeed in a mobile world

With 65 million pages and eight million business profiles, Facebook is undoubtedly one of the largest small-business communities in the world. And with half of the five million businesses advertising globally on the platform and creating ads on mobile devices, it’s clear that SMEs benefit from incorporating Facebook in their marketing strategy.

Facebook has recently released four new tools to help business owners to reach the right audience and speak to the most relevant consumers on their smartphones in this new mobile world:

1. Ads Manager

This app enables small businesses to easily manage their advertising campaigns and get insights on what’s working on the platform, offering them – at a glance – an update on how their Facebook pages are performing, while simultaneously reviewing and comparing up to five ads.

Using the app advertisements can be scheduled for release at a specific time and date in the future, and it also has features that help with identifying your target audience and planning your advertising budget, as well as providing a snapshot of how an ad account performed each week compared to the previous week.

2. Creative Studio

One of the most common questions Facebook gets asked by small-business owners is, “What does it take to make a great ad?” Creative studio helps them achieve this by enabling them to create mock-ups of ads and get a preview of how they will enhance experience and interaction with their marketing pages.

The mock-ups can be shared amongst a team so they can experience and play with the ads on different devices, and any necessary adjustments can then be made before the campaign is launched.

3. Blueprint

Facebook Blueprint is a global training and certification program which focuses on how businesses can market themselves on Facebook. Blueprint’s short courses provide information on the best practice for advertising on Facebook’s family of apps and services, with SME fast track a resource aimed specifically at helping small-business owners to get their businesses up and running on the platform.

There are three elements to Blueprint:

  • Blueprint eLearning – a global repository of courses and webinars on how to use Facebook marketing tools.
  • Blueprint Certification – a tool to schedule and take exams from the courses (both online and at a physical testing center) leading to a certification.
  • Blueprint Live – an in-person training program that will guide you on how to implement your Facebook and Instagram campaigns more effectively.

4. Single way to communicate with an audience

Single Inbox consolidates, and helps you manage, messages across Facebook, Messenger and Instagram in a single communications hub. This simplifies the need to oversee the sheer volume of messages across multiple paltforms by simply tapping on the conversation and your chosen channel.

This tool – available on desktop and mobile – also allows you to see the public profile of your customers to personalise your service and interactions with them.

By adopting these tools as part of their everyday activity, SME owners are more effectively able to target the right audience and reach the right consumers.

Inside Small Business