Are you a business owner unsure whether to use Meta Business Manager or Business Suite? 

Or are you a freelancer/agency with a confused client about the difference between Meta Business Manager and Business Suite? 

• If you’re a business owner, keep reading this post to learn about the key differences between the two and choose the best option. 
• If you’re a freelancer/agency, share this article with your client and skip to the last section to learn how to access your client’s Business Manager assets in 2 clicks. 

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What is Meta Business Manager?

Meta Business Manager is Meta’s social media management platform for business owners to manage the settings of their social media profiles on various marketing channels, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, while keeping their business and personal Facebook profiles separate.  

Here’s what you can do using Meta Business Manager:

• Claim and manage Facebook and Instagram pages, WhatsApp, website domains, and other business assets.
• Review the backend settings of all your Meta assets. 
• Run paid Facebook ads and view insights to analyze the campaign’s performance.
• Add product catalogues to market your products on Facebook.
• Track audience behavior by creating trigger-based events. 

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What is Meta Business Suite?

Meta Business Suite is another tool for businesses to manage content and engagement of their Instagram and Facebook accounts in one place. Here’s what you can do using Meta Business Suite:

• Create and share content for Instagram and Facebook.
• Plan content calendar using the Scheduler tool.
• Reply to comments and DMs.

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Meta Business Suite vs. Business Manager: Feature Differences

Since both platforms share similar features, it’s easy to confuse them. But they have different purposes: 

• Meta Business Manager is for backend business settings of your Meta assets, like page settings.
• Meta Business Suite is for front-end management like content and community. 

The dashboards may look the same for beginners, but there are a few key differences you should know:

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1. Centralized Facebook Business Management

Meta Business Manager allows you to review the backend settings of all your Meta assets, such as adding partners and team members with employee and admin access, assigning Facebook page tasks, and creating ad accounts.

It’s one central hub to manage multiple business settings and ensure everything runs smoothly. 

Meta Business Suite provides minimum business settings, with most options taking you to Business Manager. 

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2. Social Media Scheduler

Business Suite is the perfect platform to create, share, and schedule content for Instagram and Facebook. You can create posts, go live, post reels, and plan your monthly content calendar.

Meta Business Manager doesn’t allow you to create and schedule posts. You can only connect your Instagram and Facebook on Business Manager, but you have to navigate to Meta Business Suite for content management. 

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3. Community Management

Business Suite also notifies you of post activity and allows you to reply to comments or DMs as a Facebook page and admin. 

Business Manager doesn’t have community management options. You can only navigate to Business Suite to reply to comments or messages. 

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4. Create/Manage Facebook Ads

Meta Business Manager allows you to add Facebook pixels to your website for accurate targeting, create a Facebook ads account, and connect to Ads Manager. 

You can create ads, manage Facebook ad creatives, create and manage custom and lookalike audiences, and review ad campaign performance on your Ads Manager account.

Meta Business Suite does provide an option to create ads, but you can only boost a post to increase its reach and can’t review detailed analytics. 

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5. Manage Ad Creative Library

You can organize all your ad creatives in one central place on Meta Business Manager. You can also sort them based on campaigns, events, months, or performance, which is impossible in Business Suite.

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6. Mobile and Desktop Website

Business Manager is only available as a website and accessible on a browser, while you can access Meta Business Suite on a desktop and also download the mobile app.

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7. Control Billing options

Only with Meta Business Manager, you can navigate to the Billing Payments option to add and remove billing methods. It lets you review payment activity for separate ad accounts. 

Business Manager also has navigation options for Commerce Manager and Events Manager, where you can add your online product catalogue and create trigger-based events to track audience activity. 

As well as that, you can: 

• Add more than one Facebook business page on the “Registrations” tab. 
• Claim your website domain on the “Brand Safety and Suitability” tab.
• Connect your apps on the “Integrations” tab. 

However, none of these settings are available on Meta Business Suite. 

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When to Use Business Manager and Business Suite?

Many business owners are confused about whether to use Business Manager or Business Suite, but they don’t realize both platforms serve different purposes and offer unique features. 

Ideally, you should use both Business Suite and Business Manager to build a strong online presence on the front end and review business settings on the back end. 

Use Meta Business Manager to:

• Connect all your Meta business assets to one central hub.
• Manage the backend settings of all your business assets.
• Create and manage ads for your business. 
• Add or manage new team members and partners to your business. 
• Add payment options and control billing settings.

Use Meta Business Suite to: 

• Create content and manage Facebook and Instagram business accounts.
• Schedule content for your Facebook and Instagram pages. 
• Respond to messages or comments.
• Track Instagram or Facebook page insights and content performance. 

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How to Switch From Meta Business Suite to Business Manager in Facebook

Now you know the difference between the two applications, you can make your life easier by automatically heading to the tool that has the functions you need.

If you're in Business Suite and for some reason need to switch over to using Business Manager, it's easy to get there.

Here's how:

1. Click Help in the bottom right corner
2. Click Go to Business Manager

And voila! You've switched between the two tools. Easy! 

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How to Switch From Meta Business Manager to Business Suite in Facebook

If you want to switch back to Business Suite from Business Maanger, you need to: 

1. Click on the hamburger menu in the top right corner
2. Click Meta Business Suite

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Access Your Client’s Business Manager Assets in 2 Clicks 

While Meta Business Manager and Business Suite are excellent tools for managing business assets, they’re not so great when giving/requesting access. 

Not only do you have to follow many steps, but you also need to know your partner’s Business Manager ID, which adds unnecessary steps and does not provide a seamless client onboarding experience. 

Leadsie simplifies giving/requesting access to Business Manager accounts in only two clicks.

Simply share your Leadsie link with your client; they assign assets, and you get access. It’s as simple as that!

It’s more secure for everyone and saves a ton of time! Give it a try with our 14-day free trial…enter your email in the box below!