Facebook Small Business Boost Program

Facebook, in partnership with National Federation of Independent Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, will be rolling out Business Boost, a program offering qualified businesses with a minimum of $50 of free facebook advertising while educating and engaging small businesses on how to get more customers, build lasting connections and reach your customer’s friends.

facebook small business boost program

Facebook is promoting it’s Business Boost program in partnership with the National Federation of Independent Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Business Boost program is expected to be rolled out in efforts to promote facebook marketing solutions to small US business. According to facebook, the Business Boost program will to invest, educate, and connect with small businesses. Like LinkedIn hosting a town hall style meeting with President Obama, it appears that facebook too wants to take an active, visible role in stimulating the US economy and, let’s not be naive, drive advertising revenue.

Facebook references $10M in their Facebook Marketing Solutions – Business Boost program page . If you think about how many Google AdSense users opened their Google Adsense accounts in the last 90 days using any one of a gazillion available coupons offered by Google ranging from $25 to over $100 of free advertising to get started, $10M doesn’t seem like that much (like 200k $50 coupons that Google probably does honors each month).

What makes the facebook Business Boost program unique is their partnering with National Federation of Independent Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to roll out the program as well as tying it to some of the national economic stimulus sentiment. I think the PR around this campaign if brilliant in targeting it to “American Small Business Owners” who facebook references as the “backbone of the largest economy in the world, and at Facebook, we’re excited about helping you grow.”

The Benefits

facebook small business boost program benefits

Another aspect of the facebook business boost program that is interesting is that facebook appears to be taking a more hands on approach, claiming to engage with small businesses directly by ”hitting the road to meet small businesses like yours, so please join us when we’re in town. We’d like to share with you the benefits of using Facebook for marketing your business.” The Business Boost page indicates that schedules with and locations will be ”coming soon.”

The facebook approach of using roadshows to promote its Business Boost program could be unique if they extend beyond the obvious urban centers (NY, LA, Miami, Chicago, etc.). Hopefully facebook roadshows cover tier 2 markets such as Albany, NY area but not sure if population centers of ~1M or less are going to get any real focus from facebook in efforts to engage small businesses. We’ll see.

As a small business, why not take the $50 (minimum, hopefully some of us get more) test drive using the facebook Business Boost program? You have nothing to lose and conversions to gain! With an audience of 800M users, you can’t beat the reach and targeting opportunities that the facebook self-serve advertising program brings, with the exception of Google that is. just bear in mind that one is an audience in social context while the other is an audience in search context. By what the hay, free is free!