Last week, Facebook Philippines made it clear that they wanted to help enterprises and in turn, help the country’s economy. “In today’s mobile world, people, and businesses in the Philippines are embracing a digital take on the spirit, a traditional value that’s core to the Filipino culture of coming together to create progress and build community.

Facebook is committed to helping the Philippines build for the future by helping businesses grow and in turn, contribute to the country’s economy and by working with local partners to help create a safe and informed community on Facebook,” said John Rubio, Country Director, Facebook Philippines, during the launch of their new office at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig last week. Various enterprises and startups were invited to the launch, including Connected Women co-founders, Gina Romero and Ruth Yu-Owen.

Education is the tool that Facebook will use to help small and medium businesses (SMBs) thrive. Through education programs, these SMBs will be given the tools to succeed, as well as efforts to further growth for large businesses as they embrace mobile strategies. Almost 87% of Filipino internet users use social networks so the Facebook Philippines team is focused on helping businesses better serve consumers, and drive growth, through social commerce and Messenger innovation.

“Businesses are embarking on the journey to digital transformation with the aim of unlocking growth opportunities and to better connect with today’s mobile-savvy Filipinos. In the Philippines alone, more than 50 million Filipinos are connected to an SMB Page on Facebook. Looking internationally, we’re also focused on helping businesses connect with the 130 million people living outside of the Philippines who are already connected to an SMB on Facebook in the Philippines. For large businesses, we also want to help them realize untapped potential across all touch points-from strategic partnership and to conversational commerce on Messenger, to hands-on workshops and education,” added John.

Building Communities

One of the key features of Facebook is that of Filipinos actively building communities online to connect with each other, share interests, and help others. People in the country have created more than one million Groups on Facebook, including those that aim to create positive social impact. There are Facebook Groups on food and popular eats, and those that are more advocacy-centered, such as political groups and animal welfare groups.  Connected Women, of course, has several groups with women who are into entrepreneurship and freelancing through the help  of technology.

#SheMeansBusiness

One of the ways that Facebook aims to empower local communities is through the women’s entrepreneurship programs. Together with Connected Women, Facebook will continue to grow the #SheMeansBusiness initiative, and work with the Department of ICT, to empower women entrepreneurs with knowledge, training, technology and a network of peers for support. Since #SheMeansBusiness launched in 2016, Facebook has launched the program in seven cities and has reached more than 500 women entrepreneurs!

“Connected Women is a community for women to share tools and best practices for tech-powered entrepreneurship and freelancing. Facebook’s tools for building communities have enabled us to launch Connected Women in 13 locations across four countries in less than eight weeks. We’ve brought over 500 women together and empowered them to build and grow local Connected Women groups centered around what is important to them. Aside from Facebook being a powerful platform to grow our global online community, we also encourage our members to use Facebook groups to launch face-to-face in their cities for networking and support,” said Gina on Connected Women at the event.

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