Facebook Community Boost Launches In Saint Louis This March

ST. LOUIS, MO — Digital skills are increasingly important in the realm of business, for everyone from entry-level job candidates to small business owners. Building websites, designing mobile applications, and navigating social media can be life or death for many start-ups. But new research from Facebook, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Morning Consult, a leading public opinion and market research firm, indicates that while most managers and job candidates appreciate the importance of those skills, they don't possess them.

Facebook wants to change that, and it's starting in St. Louis.

Last November, the social network announced a new program called Facebook Community Boost designed to help small businesses grow by providing digital and social media training to job seekers and entrepreneurs in 30 cities around the country. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited St. Louis personally to announce the program, saying St. Louis would be the first city on the list. Today, he followed through on that promise. The free, five-day launch event is scheduled for March 26 to 30.

"I've visited a lot of communities this year and one theme I've found is that strong small businesses create strong communities," Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook in November. "That's because small businesses create jobs, provide services, and bring people together. A lot of small business owners end up being leaders in their communities too."

Facebook has already trained more than 60,000 businesses in the United States and hundreds of thousands more overseas through an initiative called Boost Your Business. In that program, daylong training events educate small business owners how to use tools like Business Pages, Messenger and Instagram to manage their digital presence, highlight best practices for online advertising and even teach creative storytelling techniques. Community Boost promises something similar, but tailored to local needs and on a larger scale.

"Community Boost is part of a billion-dollar investment to help small businesses grow, sell and hire, and also to help job seekers find gainful employment," said Facebook public policy research manager Laura McGorman. "We've done quite a bit of research over the last year — Facebook cares a great deal about small businesses, and we want to understand at a national, state and city level what their needs are and how we can help."

She said Facebook is using Morning Consult's research to make sure its new initiative has a real impact in the St. Louis area. That research found that while 84 percent of businesses use at least one major digital platform to reach customers, more than half of business owners still see a lack of digital literacy and the cost of internet connectivity as challenges. What's more, a digital skills gap exists among both business owners and job seekers — most people know how important digital and social media skills are to business, but very few feel they possess those skills themselves.

"We're finding that in St. Louis, the vast majority of business managers want to figure out how to make content that renders well on a smartphone, for example, and at the same time, we're learning that very few business owners feel that they actually know how to do that," McGorman explained.

St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson said she is thrilled that Facebook has chosen St. Louis to be its first stop for Community Boost. "We have a diverse small and mid-sized business community that will benefit from learning how to use Facebook technology to grow their business, hire more people and hone their digital skills.”

Other cities and dates announced today include:

• Houston, Texas — April 3 to 6
• Albuquerque, New Mexico — April 30 to May 4
• Greenville, South Carolina — May 29 to Jun 1
• Des Moines, Iowa — June 4 to 8

Facebook said it hopes to address topics like online privacy and digital banking, social media presence, digital marketing and other skills, and its training won't just focus on Facebook's own solutions, but a wide range of digital tools.

Nicole Genz is one local small business owner who fully appreciates the importance of social media to growing her business. Three years ago, she quit a full-time engineering job to turn her hobby into a furniture refurbishing company. Rescued Furnishings quickly grew from just two employees — Genz and her husband — to 10, and now has garnered more than $1 million dollars in sales. She largely credits social media and digital marketing for the rapid growth.

By the time she decided to "take the leap" and quit her engineering job, Genz already had more than 30,000 Facebook followers. "Most people open a business and nobody knows that they're there," she said. "But, I was very lucky."

Her secret? Being open and being herself.

"People want to help, and if you share who you are, people get invested," she said. "Some people will come into our store and say, 'I've been with you since the beginning, I'm so proud of you.' People want to be a part of what we're doing, and I think that's really special."

Facebook obviously thought so too. The social network reached out to Genz when planning its big announcement last November and invited her to attend. She almost deleted the email, she said. "I didn't know if it was really them. It's not everyday you get an email from Facebook."

Genz, who is entirely self-taught when it comes to social media, hopes Community Boost will provide an opportunity to continue learning how best to engage her customers and to meet other small business owners trying to grow their own communities of customers. She thinks St. Louis will particularly benefit from the program since the city's growth has lost its momentum in recent years and its population has been declining.

Genz had a piece of advice for anyone thinking of following in her footsteps and starting their own business.

"Being a small business owner is really scary, and that fear never goes away. But, I've never made a big decision like that that I regretted. I've only wished I'd done those kinds of things sooner. Until you commit 100 percent, you're never going to get out of it what you want. You have to commit to what you want your livlivelihood to be," she said.

That — and set up a Facebook page.

For more information about participating in the Facebook Community Boost or to share you're own small business story with Facebook, visit facebook.com/tellcommunityboost.

Photo: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company's Facebook Community Boost initiative in November. Seated beside him is Nicole Genz, a local small business owner. (Courtesy of Facebook)