Facebook announced today that there are now 40 million active small business pages on the site. With that announcement Facebook also mentioned that they will be launching more support for small businesses, through the Boost Your Business program and an online chat platform.
From Facebook’s blog post:
“We’re hitting the road again to talk to small businesses around the world about ways they can grow their business. And this year we’re going even bigger. The 2015 Boost Your Business program is comprised of both half-day and 2-hour pop-up events, each focused on bringing small businesses together to share best practices and hear about the latest marketing strategies and tools.
For this year’s half-day Boost Your Business events in the US, we’re partnering with Facebook marketing pro Mari Smith, as well asMailChimp, Shopify, Visa and Zenefits to add their expertise and guidance to the program. We’ll be visiting San Diego, Minneapolis, Nashville and Boston.”
It has been impossible for page owners to interact directly with Facebook and that is why they created a dedicated chat line where marketers can chat with someone from Facebook. Here’s the insert from Facebook’s blog:
“Businesses that advertise on Facebook now have access to one-on-one support through live online chat. By clicking “Get Help” on the Facebook for Business website, advertisers can chat and screen share with a trained Ads Specialist to get quick answers to their Facebook advertising questions.”
The live chat will only be available for desktop users (not mobile) at this time and it will be rolling out in the U.S, U.K, and Ireland, with a wider rollout planned in the future. Facebook also stated that it will be testing mobile chat and more phone chat features for page owners in the future.
