How to Use Meta’s Applications as a Business

Facebook has come a long way since it was launched in the 2000’s, and it has grown and transformed into the largest social media entity on planet Earth, Meta. To start, let us get a grasp on the individual apps beneficial to your business that Meta has to offer:

Facebook – An all-in-one behemoth of a social media application. Abel to share and post text, photos, videos, shorts, newsletters, reviews, and even a marketplace to sell thing. Facebook is the amalgamation of everything that has made social media popular all combined into one app.

Instagram – Purchased by Facebook years ago, Instagram was originally only able to post one photo at a time. After years have gone by it has become the most used social media application on the planet and supports reel, live streams, and carousels as well as a robust messaging system.

Threads – Once Elon Musk bought Twitter and rebranded it there was a large exodus of people who could not stand Elon’s political views or crackdowns on posts that criticized him or his decision to buy Twitter. Meta launched Threads and it became the fastest growing app in internet history gaining over a hundred million users in a single day.

WhatsApp – A functioning phone and messaging application that connects people through the internet rather than a wireless phone service. Making calls and sending messages in WhatsApp is easy, free, and encrypted. Many places around the world that might not have a cellular service but have a Wi-Fi connection use this as their main form of communication with family and friends.

Messenger – Originally integrated into Facebook, Messenger has transformed into its own application used in the US, Canada, and Europe. It is remarkably like What’s app in that it allows messaging, voice calls, and even video calls. The main difference is Messenger is linked directly to your Facebook account and can be used for business pages. WhatsApp is more like a personal phone number for your own personal use.

Quest (Formerly Oculus) – This is Meta’s very own virtual reality portal. It will not be used much for making connections or advancing your business, it is mostly for gaming at home through the Metaverse hub. It will not help market your business, but it does make for a cool gift for yourself or someone else.

Creating a business page on Facebook is incredibly easy and straightforward. The demanding work comes from creating content, responding to comments, or fielding messages you get asking about your business. Try to optimize your page with updated logos, quite a few pictures of your business, and filling out the About and Business Details sections. You want your hours of operation, phone number, address, and everything else completed so when a potential customer sees your page, they can find the information they want.

Facebook has a robust advertisement system that is effective and oddly specific. You can create a focus group inside of an ad campaign that targets 30–35-year-old men who have shown an interest in dirt bikes if you wanted, and Facebook will show your ad to that demographic with surgical precision. If you have a national-level business or local-level business, Facebook offers the ability to reach out to anyone, anywhere, and anytime they use Facebook. These ads that can be created inside Facebook can utilize photos, videos, carousels, and even virtual tours through the Meta Spark feature. There are a lot of ways to approach marketing on Facebook, and they are rolling out new features every year.

While the advertisement section seems overwhelming, and it can be, it is more important as a business to focus on your followers and potential customers. Posting valuable content is the easiest way to build a rapport on Facebook. You can post pictures, videos, and even livestream straight from your business to advertise a new service, product, or unique offer. Your business page can act as a community hub for people to talk about your industry or even create polls for them to simply click once and participate.

The cherry on top is Facebook’s Marketplace. If you have an online shop or a brick and mortar store you can sell your items directly on Facebook. If you have not seen this feature yet it is very business friendly and gives you a way to sell out-of-date inventory that has taken up too much space for too long. Marketplace lets people bid on items or buy it outright, much like eBay.

Like Facebook, creating a business account is easy, though this account will require one extra step. After creating the initial account, go into the settings and change it from a personal account to a professional account. Make sure you have a profile picture or logo, and then you are ready to start posting images, videos, and carousels on your page. One widespread practice is to put your “links in bio” at the top of your Instagram page. While Instagram has an incredible reach with the most users of any social media platform, it does not have the capability to show the same level of information as Google My Business or Facebook.

This is the cool part about Instagram’s advertisement strategy, it is interconnected with Facebook on every level. You can run ads on both platforms and lead your potential customers to either or. Instagram and Facebook also let you simultaneously post on both as if they are mirrored business accounts. Post a picture on Instagram? Press one button to share it to your linked Facebook account as its own post on your wall and it will say, “posted on Instagram” below the post’s title.

Not only are the ads and pictures connected, but Meta has combined all aspects of Instagram into Facebook natively. If you post carousels, reels, videos, or anything you can post to Instagram can automatically be simultaneously uploaded to Facebook. Two birds, one stone.

The best Instagram strategy of 2024 would be Reels. Even though Reels are also on Facebook they are much more popular on Instagram. To compete with TikTok, Meta launched Reels as short-form vertical videos that can be swiped in a definite “doom scroll” and is geared towards short attention spans and encourages dopamine rushes. Creating an advertisement as a Reel and cross-posting it to YouTube is the fastest way to reach a large audience on both platforms.

Unlike Facebook, Instagram does not have a marketplace, but it does have a shop function. Businesses can set up a virtual “shop” to sell directly through a posted photo or video. It appears as a link in the description or a small caption on the picture itself and leads customers to a specific page you create in the Instagram app. It takes some time to set up this shop, but many businesses have found success in selling items through social media like this.

One last thing to mention on Instagram has the greatest potential to work with content creators and influencers. Since Instagram is the largest social media site on the planet it naturally has the most creators posting as their main source of income. Reaching out and messaging an influencer to promote your product through a review or sponsorship is another way to get your brand out in front of your core audience.

While we recommend using an actual phone line for calls and voicemails, it has been impressive how quickly WhatsApp has turned into a business-friendly phone and messaging service. You can create a business account on WhatsApp and clicking on your personal link will automatically open WhatsApp on a user’s phone and start a conversation, message, or call. Especially in the United States there are people who come from all over the world who may extensively use WhatsApp in place of a phone carrier it might be an easy option to set up and utilize, so keep this approach in mind.

The areas WhatsApp shines in are specific but depending on your business it may help to have open lines of communication with your customers. If you offer an IT service, it can be wise to keep an open forum of messages coming to you from your customers about computer or tablet troubles. Imagine getting a message about a problem from a customer and it takes you 15 seconds to write a response and solve their problem. Of course, they will come to you for any issue if you are providing such great and instant customer service.

WhatsApp also allows businesses to set up a “one-to-many” communication with a large group of people. This way you can send messages or advertisements directly to someone’s phone. We do not recommend sending advertisements every hour, but if there is a time sensitive deal occasionally, you can send out a message on WhatsApp to thousands of people instantaneously.

The largest boon Messenger can offer you is a “contact us” button on advertisements that automatically opens the app on a potential customer’s phone and can send you a message immediately. Let us say you are a lawyer, and someone saw your advertisement on Facebook or Instagram and this person wanted to ask you if you offered services in a specific style of bankruptcy. With a messenger button added to an advertisement, they can reach out instantly and you can field it right on your phone.

Messenger is used as a compliment to Facebook and Instagram, as they are all connected to the same service. Stories you post on Instagram and Facebook will also be visible to people who have open conversations with you in Messenger. Messenger is meant to accompany your advertising efforts in other Meta applications.

Threads is new and does not have the same type of marketing tools available for businesses, but it is important to create an account, claim your name, and set everything up early because it is looking like a real competitor to X (formerly Twitter). There is no advertising on Threads, no paid positions, no commercialization…yet. We predict in 2025 that we will see Threads launch advertising for businesses and brands and you want to make sure you are first in line, it is important.

Once the flood gates open and advertising is brought to Threads you will have cornered the market. You can cross-post pictures and videos from Facebook and Instagram, so you can build up a community long before you ever spend money on an advertising campaign. Even though the tools are not available yet, we here at Acclaim recommend setting your business up for success when it finally becomes available.

Some businesses have invested heavily into virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to advertise their business in a completely new way. Meta Quest is a video game console, let us be clear, it is not a social media hub. Businesses are finding ways to advertise to a niche group of avid Quest users, and that is to build virtual reality simulations of their store or to make a virtual presentation someone can watch like a 3D movie in the comfort of their own home. Building these elaborate augmented reality advertisements are out of reach for most businesses.

The Metaverse was in the media for a little under 6 months, and the sales of the Meta Quest were not spectacular by any means, but there are creative ways to use this virtual reality headset. Keep in mind, over 80% of Quest users are under the age of sixteen, so unless you are marketing to that demographic specifically this might not be the avenue for your business. Offering virtual tours of brick-and-mortar buildings, crafting virtual lectures for your customers, or creating a game they can play are all techniques businesses have been experimenting with the past few years.

Meta recently announced their newest addition to the Quest family, Orion. These are truly augmented reality headsets compressed into a pair of glasses that are only slightly heavier than a regular pair of reading glasses. These are not launched yet, but from the demos we can tell you will be able to stream games, tv shows, and watch popular streaming services. This means there will be an opportunity for advertisements in this ordeal. While we do not recommend investing heavily in AR and VR technology yet, there will come a time where that will be a real strategy for retailers and brands.

We have already mentioned how all these apps from Meta are interlocked, but there is one thing that makes utilizing all your Meta apps easier than ever, the Meta Business Suite. This is a hub where all your profiles on every platform can be managed simultaneously. You can respond to comments on Facebook, post a picture on Instagram, or send a message on WhatsApp to your customers all in one easily accessible hub.

This is where you can create a Meta-wide advertising campaign that is native to all platforms simultaneously. Once you create an ad it will automatically be optimized for whatever platform it is on, and you can modify the campaign actively in the Meta Business Suite. This option also comes with an incredibly robust analytics system that can inform you of better places to spend your advertising budget. After running an ad for a week, you can tell if Facebook or Instagram is creating more conversions, and which titles/content are performing better through A/B testing.

Lastly, we wanted to mention Facebook Blueprint, this is a series of short courses to teach you about all of Meta’s tools available to your brand or business. This is a wonderful place to point your marketer towards if they have not already done the certifications.

Just a quick rundown of all the Meta apps we talked about:

Facebook – The all-in-one social media app for everything you could want to post.

Instagram – Focused on photos and videos, it is the largest user base of any social media app.

Threads – The fastest growing app in history, while not commercialized, we think it will be soon.

WhatsApp – A communication app popular all over the world, it creates a rare opportunity to reach customers.

Messenger – The compliment app to Facebook and Instagram where automatic responses can be set for customer inquiries.

Quest – Meta’s virtual reality gaming hub. What marketing has occurred here has been creative and out-of-the-box and is where Meta intends to grow.

Getting used to these platforms, their interconnectivity, and their individual strengths will help your business successfully launch campaign ads towards your target demographics. Getting your hands dirty now will save you precious time later learning these platforms and learning the Meta Business suite functions will make it so setting up and launching ads becomes simple and effective for your business.

If you ever have any questions about Meta or any of its advertising capabilities, you can always reach out to us here at Acclaim.