Facebook is preparing to hit the road for a four-city tour to help small business owners understand how to use online tools to grow their businesses. The half-day “Boost Your Business” events, created in partnership with MailChimp, Shopify, Visa, and Zenefits, begin June 4 in San Diego and continue over the next few months in Minneapolis, Nashville, and Boston.
“We are aware of the irony that we are Facebook—a huge community of human beings—and yet we haven’t historically been good about going out and meeting people. So the strategy is to put a face to Facebook,” says Elisabeth Diana, Facebook’s corporate communications director. Facebook has more than 40 million active small business pages, an increase of about 10 million compared to last year at this time. In addition to the half-day programs, Facebook will host several two-hour “Boost Your Business” events in cities around the United States as well in Mexico, India, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and other countries.
Diana says the goal is to send participants home with “actionable tips” from both Facebook and its partners and real-world examples from one another. Each half-day session will begin with a keynote from Facebook’s director of small business, Jonathan Czaja, followed by a panel discussion among local small business leaders moderated by author and Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith. Facebook and the four partners will also host breakout sessions. Smith, who will also serve as M.C. of the event, will be available for brief individual consultations.
“I’ve said for years that there’s no amount of sophisticated technology that will ever take the place of live, in-person connecting,” Smith says. “People have different ways of learning. Facebook has its help center and video tutorials and guides, but by going on the road and actually meeting people in person the business owners can carve time out in their calendars and learn from their peers.”
The events cost $25 but include a coupon for $50 in Facebook ad credit. In 2014 Facebook hosted a series of workshops for small businesses titled "Facebook Fit."
