• by Colin Kirkland , September 16, 2021

Today, Facebook introduced a new set of products that focus primarily on the development of seamless ecommerce transactions, saving small businesses time and effort and personalizing the virtual brand-to-customer experience. 

According to a 2020 Harris poll cited by Facebook, 75% of adults around the world wish to communicate with businesses over messaging “the same way they communicate with friends & family.”

Businesses will now be able to choose any of the company's messaging platforms and Facebook will plant the chat app directly into that business’s ad, wherever a conversation is most likely to take place. 

Facebook is also making it possible for customers to start a WhatsApp chat from a business’s Instagram profile.

Soon, businesses will have the option to create ads that click to WhatsApp straight from Instagram. It will only take one tap for a user to start a conversation with a brand. 

Messenger will soon include a quote request that allows businesses to select 4-5 questions to ask consumers before they begin a conversation. Consumers will then be able to request a quote from a business on Facebook through a short questionnaire via Messenger.

In addition, Facebook plans to test paid and organic tools to help small businesses uncover and qualify leads directly on Instagram. 

With these new updates, Facebook is focusing on simplicity. The company plans to test the ability for businesses to manage emails directly through Inbox and send remarketing emails from Facebook Business Suite. 

File Manager is another new feature that is intended to help businesses “easily create, manage and post content within” Business Suite. 

Post testing will also be available in Business Suite, allowing businesses to compare multiple versions of the same post to decide which one will be the most successful in terms of consumer engagement.

Additional testing is being done on Work Accounts to ensure greater control. Businesses will be able to log in to Business Manager without needing a personal account.

These accounts can be managed by businesses on behalf of their employees, with access to enterprise-grade features like single sign-on integrations. This change is intended to give businesses more control over the security of their employees’ accounts.

Facebook expects these features will be available some time in 2022. "In an effort to support businesses with cost savings, Facebook will start allowing businesses who are based in the US and have never advertised on Facebook to access a bundle that includes a Facebook ad coupon, and free access to QuickBooks or Canva Pro (both for 3 months)," the company says.

Lastly, in an effort to “help connect people with new and relevant businesses,” there will be an expansion of Facebook Business Explore to the U.S., Australia, Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, and the U.K. 

“Today is just a step towards the future we’re building for and with businesses in this next era of personalization,” Facebook stated. “We’ll share more on this as it progresses.”