The Community Boost program is a series of free seminars and workshops designed to help small businesses, entrepreneurs and job seekers that will take place in Baltimore from November 12 – 14, 2018.

Facebook announced its Community Boost program last November, committing to visit U.S. cities with free training and workshops to help attendees grow their business and develop new digital skills needed to compete in today's economy by more effectively using Facebook as a tool to market and grown their small businesses.

The Baltimore Community Boost will be the only event in all of Maryland. Those interested in attending can sign up about a month ahead of the event. The Community Boost location is still to be announced.

“We're inspired by what small businesses have been able to do using Facebook, but we want to do more—particularly for those who are transitioning to careers that require digital skills,” said Doug Frisbie, Global Marketing Director of Small Business for Facebook. “Small businesses everywhere are using social media to grow and create new opportunities in their communities, so we’re bringing our training program to Baltimore to help local entrepreneurs learn those skills.”

More info on Facebook Community Boost: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/community-boost-new-us-cities/

Maryland's demand for digital skills:

Facebook found that more than 8 in 10 small businesses in MD looking to hire employees ranked digital skills as important.

Facebook has committed to train one million small businesses and job seekers by 2020. As part of this initiative, the company will be visiting 50 U.S. cities in 2018 with Community Boost. You can learn more about Community Boost, here: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/training-1-million-people-and-small-business-owners-across-the-us-by-2020/

In addition, research conducted by Morning Consult and co-sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Facebook found the following in Maryland:

• 65% of SMBs in Maryland surveyed agree that Facebook is an essential tool for their business
• 38% of SMBs surveyed in Maryland say that Facebook has helped them hire additional employees to work at their business
• 65% of SMBs surveyed in Maryland believe that Facebook allows them to find customers in other cities, states or countries
• 81% of SMBs surveyed in Maryland believe an individual’s digital and social media skills are important when hiring, more than those who think where an individual went to school is important