First of all, let's get the obligatory joke out of the way: if you could be the business manager for Facebook on their payroll, that would be a no-brainer. Okay, let's move on now.
What I'm referring to, obviously, is the new Business Manager tool on Facebook that has replaced the old "grey page" for those who manage their own and others' Facebook pages. Agencies, I'm looking at you. If you were already using the old "grey page" tool, the answer might seem to be an obvious yes, but there are good reasons to rethink that answer.
Reasons For
Let's look at the upsides first, as most good comparisons tend to do. Plus, it won't take as long. Just sayin'. Here's what it does well.
First, it lets you use a single login but keeps your personal and business accounts separate in terms of data. That's good. Next, it gives you a single page from which you can manage multiple pages and ad accounts. It also lets you assign team members (if you have a team) their own logins and assign them whatever level of permissions each one needs to handle their responsibilities. Again, good so far.
Getting access to a new clients' Page is also easier. No more messy emails back and forth, just send the request through Business Manager, the client grants the request, and boom - you're ready to go. Wow, this sounds like a great tool!
Reasons Against
If you didn't migrate your old Pages over before February 16, you're starting from scratch, which is never as much fun as a water park. At this point you've probably already gone through that tedious process, so let's not belabor it and revisit bad memories.
With a brand-spanking new tool, which is presumably the forerunner for their new Facebook for Business platform to compete with LinkedIn (at least we guess it is), one would expect some old wrinkles to be ironed out. One would be mistaken.
You still (still!) can't schedule a shared link from another page! What kind of insanity is that? You also can't comment on Page reviews from within the tool. So, you have to log out of tool and log back in to a regular account to comment? Yep. Brilliant, right? Added an ad account (say that five times fast)? It's there - forever. As in, you can't ever delete it. Evvverrrr. Don't even ask again.
Let's not forget the obvious. If you're managing social media accounts for your business or for clients - read: not just Facebook - you've only got a small piece of the puzzle here anyway. If you're a business, I would highly recommend either hiring an agency or at least investing in a decent social media management software system. If you're an agency, this tool doesn't save you time when you have to keep logging in to every other network to do essentially the same thing over and over. But you should already know that.
Finally, the piece de resistance. This was obviously rushed out without enough testing. Even though it started rolling out last April or so. Still, people have reported losing their admin rights and even losing their pages altogether. That'll ruin your Wednesday.
The Verdict
To put it bluntly, Facebook - get your $%#+ together. Okay, if you're a business that just runs one Facebook page and no other social media accounts, go for it. Just don't forget about the losing-all-your-info possibility.
Otherwise, it doesn't quite seem ready for prime time, to be polite. That's just my opinion, maybe you've had a stellar experience so far. If you have, and you think I owe Big Mark an apology, just let me know in the comments. I'll take it under advisement.
Socialty is a full-service social media marketing and social recruiting agency in Chicago. We create content, websites, blog posts, email marketing and strategic marketing plans for small and medium size businesses. Our social recruiting team helps you attract talented candidates via social media outlets. Socialty connects you to your audience and potential employees. We'll keep you social while you carry on with your business. Keep Social and Carry On!