Facebook Inc. today introduced a new tool called Business Suite that small and medium-sized businesses can use to centrally manage their social media page centrally.

The tool has the potential to boost Facebook’s core ad business by making it easier for SMBs, which account for most of its revenue, to create targeted advertisements. 

Business Suite is delivered as a mobile app that enables companies to manage their Facebook, Messenger and Instagram pages in one centralized interface. WhatsApp is expected to join the list in the future as well. One section of the app provides a view of consumers’ recent activity on company pages, while another section has features that businesses can use to interact with those consumers. 

Business Suite includes a scheduler that makes it possible to have posts published at the hours when they will be seen by the most users. To save time, businesses can save responses to common user queries as templates so they can answer customer questions faster. They can also create reply shortcuts as a way of further speeding up responses. 

A built-in analytics dashboard allows Business Suite users to see how well their efforts are translating into customer engagement. According to Facebook, businesses can use the dashboard to identify the most well-received promotions and create ad campaigns to put them in front of more potential customers. 

Making it simpler for SMBs to create effective promotions, and thereby helping them realize a bigger return on investment, could ultimately enable Facebook to drive more ad sales. Business Suite’s analytics features also have the potential to indirectly improve the user experience for consumers by helping SMBs make their ads more relevant.

Business Suite will roll out to iOS and Android this month. Over time, Facebook plans to expand the app’s focus beyond SMBs by adding features geared toward larger companies. 

Image: Facebook