Facebook Business Manager Explained

Have you heard about Facebook’s Business Manager and just want it explained in simple terms? Should you be using Business Manager? When don’t you need to use it?

There are a lot of misconceptions going around about the Business Manager and in this post you will learn when you should use it, how to get started using it, and some of the pitfalls with using it.

What is the Facebook Business Manager?

The Facebook Business Manager is just another way to access Pages and Advertising Accounts.  Facebook released the Business Manager in 2014 and it’s main purpose is to make Pages and Ad Accounts easier and more secure to work on for teams of people.

You can easily give different people on your team different levels of access to each Facebook Page or Ads Account in your management portfolio.  The Pages and Ads Manager and Power Editor all function the same once you access those areas, the Business Manager is just a central hub for managing the accounts.

Some people may not even realize they have transitioned over to the Business Manager but you can tell for sure by the gray bar at the top of the Page.

When you navigate to the Business Manager area your initial screen is different.  You will see all the Pages or Ads Accounts that you are given access to on the main page.

When do you need the Facebook Business Manager?

The Facebook Business Manager is best when you have a team of people working on multiple Pages or Ad Accounts.  So think Agencies, or larger businesses.

If you are a smaller business with one Facebook Page and one Facebook Ads account, you can have multiple admins to those accounts but you still may want to have a central place to control permissions.

Also note that if you are going to have an agency or person who is going to help you post and run ads, and they are using the Business Manager, you DON’T need to switch to Business Manager just because they are using it – you can just give them access to your Page and Ads account.   That way they can access your Page and Ads account as normal and they can use the Business Manager.

Things to Know Before You Get Started with Business Manager

When you get started with the Business Manager, you have to select a Page as a Primary Page for the business.  This Primary Page used to not be able to be removed from Business Manager but as of this writing, it looks like that has changed. But know that in order to request access to other assets, there must be a Primary Page.

You can change the Primary Page later for the Account but just know that the Primary Page will “stay” in your Business Manager and only be able to be accessed through the Business Manager.

The true “owner” of the company should start the process of forming the Business Manager for the company.  Then that person can give the proper Admin access to other members of the team.

There is a difference between Claiming Assets and Requesting Access to Assets.  If you need to work on someone else’s Page or Ads account, you should Request Access to those assets, not claim them to be part of your Business Manager.

Once you move a Page into the Business Manager, you will have to use the Facebook Pages App to access the Page on mobile devices.

If you are an Agency and you are using a Business Manager, in order to request access to a client’s Ads Account, they will also have to have their Ads Account in the Business Manager.  Only personal profiles can be Admins of a “standard” Ads Accounts.

Getting Started with the Business Manager

Some accounts have been prompted to migrate to the Business Manager and may have a message in their Ads Account area.  But the easiest way to migrate to Business Manager is to go directly to: http://ift.tt/NeuImi/ and scroll down to the Get Started Button.

Once you click the blue Get Started button you’ll see a pop-up box with  4 steps to getting started.

Step 1:  The first step is really more informative about who should start the Business Manager and what you need to get started.

Step 2: The second step is really just a poll about your business

Step 3:  The third step has you name your Business Manager account and claim the Primary Page.

Step 4:  The fourth step has you name how you want to access the Business Manager.  You can keep your personal profile a little more separate and log into the Business Manager differently than your personal profile on Facebook.

After you get set up they will also ask if you want to Claim an Ads Account.  This cannot be undone that I can see so be very careful about claiming Ads Accounts.  You can always request access to another Ads Account and then the owner of that Ads Account will retain the information about the ads and stats.  Learn the difference between Claiming an account and Requesting Access to an account.

Navigating the Business Manager

To access the Business Manager, you can get there from http://ift.tt/NeuImi or if you have used the same e-mail as your Facebook login, you can access the Business Manager from the dropdown menu.

Once you get there, you have an Overview of all the Pages you have access to as well as all the Ads Manager accounts.

You can request access to other Pages or Ad Accounts.

One thing that’s important to note, when you Request Access to a Page, you won’t see that Page show up in the main list until you then Assign roles to people (including yourself).

To assign roles, click on the Business Settings on the left sidebar and select Pages.

Then click on the Page from the list and select Add People.

A popup box will appear and you can select them from the list of people who are in your Business Manager and give them the appropriate level of access.  Only people at the Admin level can do this.

If you need to Add New People to your account, you can also do that from the Business Settings area by selecting the People option from the left sidebar, or you can do that from the main admin area under Add New and People on the Left sidebar.  For most people, you want to add them at the “Employee” level even if they aren’t a true employee of yours and only reserve Admin access for a few main people or just yourself.

Removing a Page from Business Manager

If you do need to remove a Page from the Business Manager, go to the Business Settings (left sidebar of your main page) and select Pages.

Navigate to that Page and select the Remove button.

If for some reason you are having an issue with this, you may try making another Page the Primary Page (or creating a new Page for the sole purpose of making that the Primary Page) and then removing the non-Primary Page.  This used to be the old method (although a silly one) of removing a Page from the Business Manager.  But it looks like Facebook has updated the Business Manager to more easily allow the removal of Primary Pages.

Final Thoughts

I used to not recommend that people use the Business Manager because of some of the difficulty with removing pages and the confusing (and non-existent) help files on Business Manager.  But Facebook has improved the Business Manager Help section quite a bit and I see a lot of improvement in the navigation.

I think the Business Manager is perfect for larger teams and agencies.  It  is also much safer for protecting Pages if people have unique logins to the Business Manager.

 

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