Meta Business Manager Understanding roles and units
The Meta / Facebook Business Manager is not always intuitive in the “Roles & Rights” area. You should therefore remember this logic.
Roles and units in the Business Manager
In Meta Business Manager, there are a number of configuration options for commercial users. In this context, it is sometimes confusing for our customers to understand that there is more than one destination in which we can set up authorizations. You should therefore remember these three units within the Business Manager logic:
- The company
- Assets
- User
In the following sections, we will briefly explain what these terms mean.
Companies in the meta Business Manager
A company is probably the highest unit in the meta Business Manager. It is – in most cases – your company entity for which you work. This entity has a relationship to the B2B part of meta (facebook, instagram) and is a kind of bracket for people and assets.
Please note that the company or business unit is not the same as a person. People or personal Facebook profiles can create and administer companies, but you cannot connect other personal Facebook profiles to the administrator Facebook profile or activate someone on it. A company unit is required for this. Furthermore, Facebook fan pages and instagram profiles are not the same as companies. Pages and instagram profiles are assigned to a company and fall into the asset category.
Assets in the meta Business Manager
The assets unit is one of the largest categories in the meta / facebook Business Manager. It includes a range of things that are needed for daily work in the organic social and paid social area. Assets can be assigned to both a company and individuals for management purposes. An excerpt of things that are designated or regarded as assets in the Business Manager:
- Facebook Pages
- instagram profiles
- whatsapp business accounts
- meta advertising accounts
- Tracking Pixel
- Product feeds or catalogs
- Application (created and deployed within the ecosystem)
These assets should – in the best case – be assigned to the company in the first instance. A “normal” company usually has four assets assigned to it at the start of its business activities:
- A Facebook (Fan) Page
- An instagram profile
- An advertising account
- A tracking pixel (which sends data from the website or online store)
These assets from the Business Manager can then also be assigned to the people who belong to the company for administration.
Note: In newly created companies, existing pages and accounts may have to be added or claimed first. However, with the “add buttons” for the respective asset category, meta provides a relatively intuitive flow to mark the respective things as “mine”.
User in meta Business Manager
Users in the meta / facebook Business Manager are then – in most cases – real people. At best, they should have a personal facebook profile and can first be invited and marked as belonging to the company. If the invitation is accepted, the user unit is primarily there to work with the company’s assets. Typical tasks that users perform within the assets are
- create facebook / instagram posts
- Moderate comments
- Place advertisements
- Administer the company (authorize users, process payment data, …)
Somewhat confusing, but makes sense at the end: Users can have / receive different authorizations within a company! Just because a user is the administrator of the company does not mean that he/she can also carry out administrative activities within a facebook page or an advertising account.
In addition to “normal” people within a facebook company, there are also partners (users) and system users. However, as this is a starter tutorial, we will not go into further detail for the time being.