A series of new tools is being rolled out by Facebook that is aimed at small and mid-sized businesses:
- An Automated Ads platform
- A video editing features
- Appointment booking capabilities
“With over 90 million small businesses on Facebook, we’re proud to play a role in helping business of all sizes grow and create jobs,” said Facebook.
Now, small businesses have a tool that will automatically create up to six different versions of an ad that can run across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and Audience Network. With this tool, advertisers will be lead through a series of questions about their business and ad goals, and then suggest call-to-action buttons, text and creative details based on the business’ Facebook Page.
Not only that, Facebook will offer ad targeting recommendations and budget suggestions based on the goal of the ad. If an advertiser sets their own budget, estimated results will be provided by Facebook. The Automated Ads platform will then optimize the ad campaign once its live to deliver the best performing ad.
Any advertiser who uses Automated Ads will receive performance reports on their campaigns that include recommendations to enhance results.
Video Editing Tools
The platform’s Ads Manager is getting three brand new editing tools:
- Automatic cropping
- Video trimming
- Image and text overlays
With these new features, new possibilities will open up for marketers and SMBs who are working with limited advertising budgets. This will make it easy to create a video ad without the resources or budget often needed to pull together creative assets for video.
Appointment Booking
Businesses using Facebook and Instagram will now have access to appointment management tools, which will allow customers to book services on the platforms. It’s possible for customers to schedule an appointment, and once the business accepts it, the online system will send reminders to the customers through Messenger or via a text.
Businesses can now manage appointments on their Pages as well: “You can customize your business’ menu of services, display availability and accept and manage all appointments directly from your business page.”
Facebook launched appointment booking capabilities via Messenger during the F8 Developer Conference last week.