Small businesses get host of new tools from Facebook

Facebook has revealed a series of new tools which it has created to help small businesses get more out of their social network. The social network announced its new additions during National Small Business Week in the USA, which it celebrated in DC with the latest round of its small business training program, Boost With Facebook. Its training program is part of a wider commitment to empower one million people with digital skills by 2020.In its official announcement, the social network revealed it has around 90 million small business users – and the trio of new tools is intended to help them save time and conserve resources to focus on growth.The solutions focus on advertising, video and appointment bookings:

Automated ads: The first of the three solutions is a new automated ads feature. This, as the name suggests, is designed to give small business owners a helping hand and remove the uncertainty surrounding buying ads on Facebook. The network’s paid ads function is increasingly vital to businesses wanting to gain Facebook exposure, given the declining organic reach of business page posts.This tool will handle the decision making for the small business advertiser, creating an appropriate advert plan in a few steps. The tool will gather images from the advertiser’s business page, and offer a ‘set and forget’ option to free up time. Appointment bookings : This tool is new to both Instagram and Facebook and is specifically for service-based businesses, such as hair dressers and personal trainers. With this tool, the service business can offer appointments through the Facebook page directly and manage all bookings via the network. As well as accepting bookings, small business owners can also use it to send appointment reminders to clients and gather customer information. Video tools : It’s often said that video is the most popular content format on Facebook and that video content performs better in terms of engagement and shares than most other formats. With this in mind, Facebook has announced that it will make new creative video tools available to small business owners so it becomes quicker and simpler to create engaging and eye-catching videos to use on the social network.Facebook said, “We believe in empowering small businesses through our free and paid solutions to help more people launch and grow businesses, which translates to real impact for their communities and local economies.”As well as these three small business-focused solutions, it has also launched a small business resource hub called Facebook Boost.