Facebook is testing a new app aimed at businesses, letting employees use news feed, groups and messaging for their work, while keeping activities separate from their personal profiles.
The new service launched on Wednesday as a test for “pilot partners”, whose employees will be able to download the Facebook at Work mobile application for iOS or Android devices, as well as using its website.
Facebook at Work will use familiar Facebook features like the news feed, groups, messages and events, but has been designed purely for use within individual companies.
Employees’ information will not be accessible to the outside world, including keeping it separate from their personal Facebook profiles.
For now, the Facebook at Work app is free-to-use, but limited to an unnamed group of companies that will trial its use.
At this stage the work version will not feature adverts, nor will it gather data about its users that could be sold on to third parties.
The move poses a challenge to LinkedIn. The work-focused social network recently announced its own plan to release a new app to help co-workers share information.
Facebook’s move also threatens other established collaboration tools targeted at businesses including Yammer – which Microsoft bought for $1.2bn (£788m) in 2012 – Jive and MangoApps.
Facebook already has about 1.4 billion people using its platform at least once a month, but it is currently blocked in some workplaces.
The firm suggested one advantage it had over rival work communication tools was that people were already familiar with the way it worked, meaning firms could save on training costs.
Many companies are keen to adopt such software because of complaints that a deluge of messages has made email a poor tool to keep in touch with.
“Facebook at Work is a separate experience that gives employees the ability to connect and collaborate efficiently using Facebook tools – many that they’re likely already using such as News Feed, Groups, messages and events,” the social network said in a statement.
“The information shared among employees is only accessible to people in the company.”
A spokeswoman added: “Internally at Facebook we’ve been using our product for years, and we’re now looking forward to the feedback from our pilot partners to create the best possible experience.”