Facebook to offer help in Denver

Denver is on a list of 30 U.S. cities where Facebook will hold Community Boost events this summer, free week-long training sessions where entrepreneurs can learn to use tools as simple as Instagram and a mobile phone to boost online buzz around their businesses.

First announced in November, the initial list of first-year destination for the program included Houston, St. Louis and Des Moines, Iowa. This week, Facebook announced eight others, including Denver.

“We chose the Denver region because it is home to many small businesses and entrepreneurs that are driving economic growth across the region,” Aneesh Raman, a member of Facebook’s global policy team, said in an email Tuesday. “At this event we will work with local partners to provide a wide range of training.”

The time, date and location of the Denver event will be announced soon, Raman said.

“There will be a number of programs and breakout sessions, some driven by what the community identifies as important to them,” she wrote. She said the St. Louis program, taking place this week, includes workshops like “Getting Business Done with Instagram” and “Getting Creative with Your Mobile Phone.”

Black Project Spontaneous and Wild Ales has relied heavily on Facebook to build its brand and reach new customers. The tiny brewery on South Broadway started as spin-off project of Former Future Brewing.

Marketing specialist Scott Davidson used Facebook data to determine the best time to boost Black Project posts on the site is Friday and Saturday between 3 and 9 p.m., when young, educated male beer drinkers are most likely to be online.

“That’s really why Facebook is so prevalent,” he said. “They are able not only to identify and target the market you are going after, they are able to get the cost per impression so low.”

But Facebook’s ability to protect the massive amount of data it keeps on users has come under fire recently.

On Sunday, Facebook placed ads in several major U.S. and British newspapers apologizing for the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The political consulting firm, which was affiliated with President Donald Trump’s successful 2016 campaign and Republican Colorado Senate campaigns in 2014, obtained Facebook user data through a quiz app on the site. The data allowed the company to create psychological voter profiles aimed at swaying voters.