Tuesday was the start of Facebook Fit, a small business bootcamp hosted by the social network and travelling to locations across the country.
These small business events are part of a larger push to increase the amount of small businesses advertising on Facebook.
During a question and answer session at the first Facebook Fit event in New York, Dan Levy, the director of small business at Facebook, said that 30 million small business pages are currently active on the social network, 5 million more than they had in November.
Just liking the Facebook page of a small business doesn’t guarantee that current and potential customers will see all of the businesses posts, due to the high amount of content that users have access to. Advertising could increase the amount of people who see a small businesses Facebook posts.
Only about 1 million of the small businesses with Facebook pages are also advertising on Facebook.
The Facebook Fit events teach small business owners ways to help their businesses through Facebook advertising and other marketing, financial and legal tips. USA Today columnist and best-selling author, Rhonda Abrams and digital lifestyle expert, Mario Armstrong are joining Levy to speak at the events.
Leaders from Square, Intuit and LegalZoom are also joining Facebook for the events to teach about how their industries, products and services can be used for small businesses.
Upcoming dates include June 19 in Miami; July 10 in Chicago; July 24 in Austin, Texas and August 5 in Menlo Park, Calif.
Yesterday’s Facebook Fit event had about 850 attendees. With their $25 admission, they also received $50 in Facebook advertising.
Levy explained the difference between simply having a Facebook page for a small business and strategically using Facebook tools to meet business goals. Instead of just coming up with fun content to post, these tools aim to help with particular areas of the business, like online sales or increasing traffic.
Space is limited for the Facebook Fit events, so registration is suggested.
