Christmas in October? SMEs get festive boost from Facebook event

Small-to-medium businesses looking for smart ways to gear up for the festive season gathered at Facebook’s Festive Bootcamp in Manila last week. Participants brushed up on their digital marketing know-how and learned about new tools and templates to save time and effort during the busiest time of the year.

The free training event which took place in 17 Facebook offices around the world over a span of 24 hours, is part of Facebook’s celebration of small businesses and the important role they play in their respective communities. Here in the Philippines, 200 Manila-based small-tomedium businesses joined the event and attended a series of seminars and workshops aimed at making running a business on Facebook easier.

“Millions of businesses across the world use our free and paid tools to run and grow their businesses everyday. We’re proud of the major role we play in helping businesses of all sizes grow and create meaningful impact in their communities,” said John Rubio, country director, Facebook Philippines. “With festive boost, we want to provide small and medium-sized businesses access to market insights and tools that can help them plan for an extended holiday season for their customers.”

The Bootcamp included courses to help businesses build their end-of-year strategy to hands-on experience with Stories School—a popular course that helps businesses understand how best to connect with customers through the Stories feature of Facebook and Instagram.

Giving small businesses a boost this festive season is part of Facebook’s commitment to helping local entrepreneurship thrive. On-going programs include:

Boost with Facebook: a suite of tools and training programs to help small businesses grow and to equip more people with the digital skills they need to compete in the digital economy

Blueprint - provides free e-learning training for businesse FbStart and SheMeansBusiness are programs to accelerate entrepreneurship, foster mentorship and celebrate diversity.

The company expects to deliver over 200 free smallbusiness trainings and workshops around the world this year.