Facebook and Instagram want to build and empower communities, which is why they are committed to helping small businesses grow. As more users turn to their phones to make new discoveries, small businesses need a strong mobile strategy. Facebook is the mobile solution for 65 million businesses with Pages, and 8 million with Profiles on Instagram.
It’s no secret – when small businesses succeed, communities thrive.
With more than 5 million active advertisers on Facebook, there is a need to provide solutions for businesses so customers can learn more about their products, visit websites, download an app, or even send messages. Facebook is proud of its online community of small businesses, and wants to make connecting with customers as easy as possible.
With Facebook and Instagram, small businesses can:
Save time and see what’s working
With the Ads Manager App, you can manage your ads and get insights in just a few taps. They have even updated the app to optimize your time.
At a glance, you can see how ads for your Pages are performing, or see a snapshot of how your ad account performed this week compared to the previous week. And the improved navigation allows you easily switch between your accounts and Pages. You’ve even got the ability to select up to five ads and compare them side by side.
Facebook is also committed to helping you improve the performance of your ads. The app now recommends actions you can take to increase ad performance – and makes it easy for you to do so in one click. For example, you will be notified when a high performing ad (compared to your other similar ads) is about to end, you will also be given a one – click option to extend the schedule for another one, three or seven days.
You’ll receive notifications for relevant interests to add to your targeting in order to increase an active ad’s performance, along with a one – click option to add suggested interests to your targeting criteria. Facebook will also send notifications about recently – ended, high-performing ads and give you a one-click option to duplicate the ads.
Get creative
Facebook has created Mobile Studio, a new way to show businesses how easy it is to create great ads using only a mobile device.
All businesses can improve their creative, and ultimately, the efficacy of their ads with mobile apps and tools – and with Mobile Studio, you’ll learn to do these things in minutes. Don’t miss these important tips to help you bring your businesses to life without eating up time, energy or resources.
Learn new skills
Blueprint eLearning courses give you the power to learn best practices for advertising on Facebook’s family of apps and services at your own pace.
The online education platform is available in ten languages and today more than 1 million unique users, half being small businesses, use Blueprint.
Some top courses include, Facebook Terminology to A/B Testing, to Successful Campaigns Best Practices and addition of new courses each month. About 2.5 million eLearning courses have been taken by people across more than 150 countries, and 50% of total course enrollments are taken by small or medium business owners and employees.
Communicate with customers
Responding to your customers quickly is key to delivering good customer service but it can be hard to keep up with the volume of communications coming in. In November 2016, Facebook announced a single inbox to manage communications across Facebook, Messenger and Instagram within the Pages Manager App. Today, the company is expanding these capabilities to desktop.
Find new customers, near and far
Facebook has made it easier to run global campaigns from anywhere and have new solutions that help businesses connect with new customers:
- International Lookalikes can help businesses find new people that look like their best customers in other countries.
- Worldwide/Global Region targeting can help businesses set up a global campaign and find efficient conversions.
- Country Snapshots and Insights Playbook can help businesses create customized campaigns in each country.
Learn from likeminded business owners
Facebook relies on small businesses to help the company learn better ways to help businesses grow, which is why it created the Facebook Small Business Council. Today, Facebook is set to launch a site dedicated to its council in the US.
This new site features stories of dedication, passion, and resilience from more than 40 businesses across a variety of industries and geographies, but who share a common belief in the importance of serving their customers, their communities and each other.
Facebook has created small business councils in the US, India, Brazil and Germany – and plan to announce councils in more countries later this year.
