An Introduction to Facebook Workplace

Facebook Newsroom

Facebook has secured its position as the dominant social media platform in many parts of the world, great for creating connections between yourself, your friends and your family. Generally, Facebook are the first to bring out new and original features - apart from Stories, didn't quite take off...

Unlike other social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, Facebook have the upper-hand in terms of organisation, planning, and use for business, with features like Groups and Events. And with the recent rise and promotion of Workplace by Facebook, here's the low-down on the feature and how to get the most out of it.

What is Workplace?

Formerly known as 'Facebook at Work', Workplace is aimed at businesses and organisations and geared towards making communication in work easy and efficient. The standard features remain, like the News Feed, Groups and Messenger, as well as those for the tech-savvy, like Live, which could be used for presentations or meetings on-the-go.

Facebook Workplace is separate to your personal profile, so don't worry, those embarrassing photos from the weekend won't be available for your boss to see.

More than 1,000 organisations use Facebook Workplace, including big company names like Starbucks, Renault, Deliveroo and Viacom, and the top five countries which use the platform are India, the US, Norway, the UK and France.

Exclusive Features

Alongside the standard Facebook features which let you know what's going on, like News Feed, useful exclusive-to-Workplace features enable efficient and co-operative working within, and across businesses.

Multi-Company Groups is a popular feature, which enables companies to collaborate, share ideas and communicate with ease. An Analytics Dashboard is also available for companies to record, track and refer back to numbers/sales etc.

Pricing

As it stands, only a Premium version of Workplace is available, with a free trial available - or it's completely free for non-profits and educational institution staff. There's no fixed contract, so if it isn't being actively used, individuals or entire companies can opt out whenever they wish.

The pricing is stated on the website as "$3 per user for the first 1,000 active users, $2 per user for the next 9,000 active users and $1 for each additional active user."

A Standard Plan is in the works, which as outlined on their website, has all of the below except the Enterprise features, Admin support, and  one of the Productivity features, so it's whichever version suits the needs of your company which will determine the plan you opt for; the difference between the two is clearly shown and outlined to stop any confusion.

Facebook Workplace

So, with Facebook now recognised not just as a social media platform, but an effective and useful workplace intranet platform, many businesses are making use of the familiar platform to connect with co-workers and add a social side to the day-job.

Workplace by Facebook is great for workers who spend time out of the office on trips, meetings or for those who work from home, to keep in the loop with easy communication and connectivity to work.