To help the job seekers, entrepreneurs and small businesses Facebook has announced a new program called as Community Boost. This outreach program offers business tools to the businesses and digital training for job seekers, entrepreneurs and community leaders to sharpen their social media skills by visiting 30 U.S cities in 2018.
Mark Zuckerberg wrote a post on Facebook saying, “Today we’re announcing a new program called Facebook Community Boost to help small businesses in the US grow and to help more people get the digital skills those businesses need. Since 2011, Facebook has invested more than $1 billion dollars to support small businesses. This is the next step.”
The tech giant will invest tens of millions in this program which includes cities such as Houston, St. Louis, Albuquerque, Des Moines and Greenville, South Carolina. The Facebook community boost has been appreciated by the Governors and Mayors representing the cities the company is visiting. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says that “We’re happy to welcome Facebook to Houston to boost our residents’ digital skills and make sure our vibrant community of entrepreneurs and small businesses gets more out of the internet.”
According to a research by Morning Consult, “62% percent of US small and medium-sized businesses using Facebook said having digital or social media skills is an important factor in their hiring decisions — even more important than where a candidate went to school.”
Facebook has separated the plans for the job seekers, entrepreneurs, business owners and newbies in online community which are
- If you’re looking for a job, we’ll provide training to help improve your digital and social media skills. According to the research, 62% percent of US small businesses using Facebook said having digital or social media skills is an important factor in their hiring decisions — even more important than where a candidate went to school.
- If you’re an entrepreneur, we’ll have training programs on how to use technology to turn an idea into a business or show you ways to create a free online presence using Facebook.
- If you’re a business owner we’re going to offer ways your business can expand its digital footprint and find new customers around the corner and around the globe.
- If you’re getting online for the first time or you want to support your community, we’ll provide training on digital literacy and online safety. And we’ll also help community members use technology to bring people together, with features like Events and Groups.
It’s very unlikely to see other tech companies taking time and investing a lot of money in educating the society and developing them. The people who don’t come on this list of cities can request the Community boost to visit their city by filling this form.
“One of the things I’m most proud of is that 70 million small businesses use Facebook to connect with customers. That’s 70 million people who now have access to the same tools the big guys have. Now we need to make it easier for people to start and build new businesses or find jobs and opportunities, and in the process strengthen their communities,” Zuckerberg while announcing about community boost.
Facebook mentions they have “trained more than 60,000 small businesses in the US and hundreds of thousands more around the world.” “More than 1 million small businesses have already taken advantage of Facebook’s free online learning hub to learn how to use our marketing tools.”
What do you think abou the Facebook Community boost program? Drop your thoughts in the comments!
