Facebook offers free training for small business owners

MENLO PARK, Calif. (KGO) -- Small business owners and community members had a rare chance to visit Facebook's Menlo Park campus Monday. "Community Boost" is providing digital marketing training to help small business owners grow their business.

More than 700 small business owners participated according to Facebook.

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"The vast majority of business owners here are asking us how do they grow their business, how do they find new customers, how do they hire employees," said Dan Levy, Vice President of Small Business.

Facebook employees and success stories are sharing what they know.

Indrani Stangl of Pound Puppy rescue is one of the educators. She says the non-profit has more than 30-thousand likes on Facebook.

"We couldn't do what we do without Facebook," said Stangl.

Stangl says she notices a marked difference in the number of puppies adopted when she pays to boost her Facebook posts.

"If I boost a post for maybe 50 dollars over a week, it's 100 percent certain in terms of my past experience the dog will be adopted within that week," said Stangl.

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Those are the kinds of results Real Estate Agent Ronnie McInerney says she's hoping to get with her business facebook page.

"I started it a while back but to navigate it I wasn't really sure how to make it stand out and now I'm getting some pointers," said McInerney.

Jitu Choudhury consults startups and developers. He says he's also looking to grow his but has some concerns.

"I think a lot of personal data is exposed in the general domain, in the public domain. That's one of the reasons I don't use heavily Facebook frankly speaking," said Choudhury.

"That's one of the things I came to find out how you can protect your privacy yet do business," he continued.

This week's training includes privacy training so that small business owners understand who can see their information and where it's being used.

"If you're a business owner when you're adverstising we're respecting all the privacy issues of the people who might be seeing your ads or visiting your page," said Levy.

Facebook says it's also been auditing and removing apps that don't comply with its policies.

The next two days of Community Boost will be held at Onetta Harris Community Center in Menlo Park. Facebook also announced today a new digital marketing certificate program with two local community colleges.

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