Facebook Brings Community Boost Event To Denver

 
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Guest column from Facebook

This week we hosted our sixth Facebook Community Boost in Denver at The Cable Center. We brought this program to the region to help equip local businesses, entrepreneurs and job seekers with digital skills training to grow their business and be more competitive.  

It is no surprise that Denver was chosen for this innovative program. The city has a strong talent pool, a vibrant small business community and a quality of life that attracts top tier talent to the region.  

But our work in Denver won’t stop when Community Boost ends. We recently announced that Facebook will train 1 million small businesses and individuals in digital skills by 2020. Through our #BoostTogether effort, we want to help small businesses and people acquire more digital skills, so they can grow their companies and find new jobs. 

According to research conducted over the summer by Morning Consult and co-sponsored by the US Chamber of Commerce and Facebook, small businesses' use of Facebook’s services translates into new jobs and opportunities for communities across the country.  In fact, one in three US small and medium sized businesses on Facebook say they built their business on the platform; and 42% say they've hired more people due to growth since joining Facebook.

In Denver small businesses indicated that when looking to hire, more than 8 in 10 said that digital skills were important. They also see social media as critical to their success. Nearly 79% said that creating a social media presence is important to growing their business but less than 17% said their skills in this area were excellent. It is clear our region wants more training.

Our training goal will focus on a few key areas:

Expanding our in-person programs and creating more local partnerships. Here in Denver that means identifying local organizations who can help us providing training locally.

More online curriculum and a new online e-learning platform. Through Facebook Blueprint, we have nearly 80 online courses allowing people to learn at their own pace.

Later this year we will also launch, Learn with Facebook, a free online resource to provide additional training tools.

We know that we can’t achieve this goal alone. It is why we look forward to working with local Denver organizations, policymakers and others to #BoostTogether.  

Parisa Zagat leads digital skills partnerships at Facebook.