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Facebook’s Business Manager is a valuable tool connecting businesses with clients quickly and efficiently. The benefits of Business Manager are clear, but it can alienate average users with just how separate it is from the rest of Facebook. Recently, Facebook explored a way to solve this issue by conducting a test which adds a shortcut on its Messenger app directly to your business messages.
According to Matt Southern of Search Engine Journal, this test was limited and only “a minimal number of Messenger users” had access to it. In an official statement in a developer community Facebook posted:
"we want to ensure that we are delivering a delightful experience for the Messenger community while delivering business results for advertisers. We are testing this with a minimal number of Messenger users and do not have plans to expand the test at this time."
Just how business friendly has Facebook been? It turns out that the site is no stranger to the business world. According to Forbes in 2015, Facebook was making “strides in its effort to attract small and medium sized businesses” reaching “more than 50 million” businesses in that year alone. Facebook is guiding their user’s business in the right direction by promoting access to their pages with an increased emphasis of social media, The social media platform’s official business site boasts that it gives users the ability to, “create separate ad accounts for every client or business.” Messenger is on the rise and could be a powerful tool for businesses looking to adapt to the digital age.
Why did Facebook feel the need to improve the navigation process? Business Manager is too complex according to multiple frustrated blog posts. The pros and cons of Facebook Business Manager are explained by SocialNicole, "it can be a complicated process to learn how to use it fully."
What's wrong with Business Manager? Business messages are received efficiently, but there's a catch. An owner will receive business specific messages, so long as they are registered under that organization’s account. However, just like any ordinary person, a business person more than likely logged into a personal account. Hypothetically, if they were under their personal account, they would need to exit it in order to get to professional matters. This in turn, complicates a seemingly convenient form of navigation.
So how is Facebook improving the situation? The new test eliminates the problem by separating business and personal messages into separate folders. The folder is indicated by the word “business” and displays when the last business notification was received. So not only is the complexity of Business Manager removed but users can go through their social and business messages in mere seconds.
With this test, navigating your business messages is easier than ever. Assuming that this test proves successful, users can go from contacting a friend to a client in the matter of a click. Will this remain a dream or will businesses wake up to a world where this is a reality? That depends on the feedback businesses give Facebook.