The only option on the market, but not by preference
April 23, 2018

The only option on the market, but not by preference

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Facebook for Business

As a digital marketing agency, I manage several accounts through Facebook for Business. Not only does it hold my own company's business page and ad account, but the pages and ad accounts for several clients I represent on a daily basis. The business manager app allows me to check in on progress at a glance, as well as drilling down into each account to see metrics.
  • The business manager acts as a hub for all accounts—both business pages and ad accounts.
  • The insights feature provides a valuable look at how users interact with the page. It provides engagement stats and helps to see trends over time.
  • The most recent ad manager update leaves something to be desired. The process is a bit clunky and only seems to work in a Firefox browser.
  • It's a bit cumbersome to drill down to all the accounts managed. Rather than being able to simply select the page you want to manage, you have to click the page, then go back to the business manager, then be led to the page again. It's a fiddly process.
  • The bugs in Facebook for Business lead to a lot of wasted time either setting up ads or pages to have them glitch out and start over, or spending time chatting with customer support to figure out problems.
  • The insights tool does help create quick, easy-to-interpret reporting metrics.
I've found 3rd party tools to be much more effective in terms of reporting and post scheduling than Facebook itself. Facebook is so huge that there are many bugs to work out and never enough time. A buffer is a tool that has perfected post schedule in an efficient way. Likewise, SEMRush and Moz report on social analytics in a more robust way than Facebook.
Unfortunately, I have to recommend Facebook for Business because it's quite literally the only option, and we all know that it's imperative for businesses to have a digital presence on the platform. However, I think a lot of updates are in order for the process to truly be user-friendly.

Using Facebook for Business

1 - Our digital strategist uses this product when creating PPC ads and managing business pages.
1 - To use Facebook for Business, one would need to understand the software, be able to navigate the differences between personal pages and business pages, and know how to switch between various accounts. This person would need an understanding of social media marketing and know how to interpret measurements like the reach, engagement, impressions, etc. Ideally, this person should also understand internet advertising and be fluent with the ads manager.
  • Brand management and engagement
  • Ad management
  • Reporting on user engagement
  • We generally use it as expected.
  • We might use it as a way to educate clients on their brand reputation by making them page admins to see progress along the way rather than just at the monthly report meeting.
We have to continue using this tool in order to be effective on this marketing platform. Though there are several changes I wish we could see, the fact is that we will still need to use this product to provide customers with the information they need.

Evaluating Facebook for Business and Competitors

  • Product Features
It is the only tool on the market that will give us what we need when reporting for our clients.

Facebook for Business Support

I've had good experiences once I actually connect with a representative, but the initial ticketing process is very slow. I don't have status updates on where my support requests are in the queue, either.
ProsCons
Knowledgeable team
No escalation required
Support understands my problem
Slow Resolution
Poor followup
Problems left unsolved
Not kept informed
Difficult to get immediate help
Slow Initial Response
I recently discussed via chat an issue I was having. The representative went above and beyond to not only explain the issue, but gave me a few ways to prevent it from happening in the future. I thought his response was very helpful and I appreciated his service with my issue!

Using Facebook for Business

I find it very cumbersome to use. It is a clunky system and often times very buggy. The customer support, though helpful, is very slow to resolve issues.
ProsCons
Technical support not required
Familiar
Do not like to use
Unnecessarily complex
Difficult to use
Inconsistent
Cumbersome
  • Adding users to an account
  • Updating payment information
  • Dashboard view to see all available pages and accounts
  • Ad management
  • Requesting page access to a client
  • The hierarchical structure of accounts