Meta has announced the launch of online resource centre ‘Grow Your Business Hub’, for small businesses to help find relevant information, tools, and solutions curated to cater to their business goals.

Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: The one thing that today’s businesses – big or small – would agree about social media is the access it provides enabling them to sell not just local but global markets. And this was what Sandeep Bhushan, Director and Head of Global Marketing Solutions, Meta India, stressed upon while launching Meta India’s two new digital tools for small businesses, Grow Your Business Hub and Grow Your Business Playbook, today during a virtual event. The Hub is a one-stop shop for businesses to find relevant information, tools, and resources curated to cater to the business goals. And the Playbook would help early-stage businesses start their journey on Meta apps and will have a wide array of creative guidance from best practices on how to choose profile pictures to creating the first post.

“I feel the things that businesses need, not just in India but globally, are an equal amount of access to all kinds of businesses, with capabilities and training and also access to working capital. We are launching the ‘Grow Your Business’ program to enable these businesses to have digital capabilities in India through our set of training and enabling products and thereafter take their business to global markets,” Sandeep Bhushan told Financial Express Online on the sidelines of the event.

The newly launched initiative by Meta is dedicated to the growth of India’s small businesses. It is important for the newer and smaller businesses to keep their marketing game on point in order to stand against the bigger brands and in sight of their target consumers. And for this, digital skilling is important. “One can get access but to understand how to win in each of these dimensions, we have launched this skilling program, for the Indian market. Whether one is just starting or scaling up, there’s a different learning and enablement part that we are trying to take care of through the Grow Your Business initiative,” Bhushan added.

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In addition, the firm also announced the launch of ‘Grow Your Business Playbook’ which essentially features a wide array of creative guidance from best practices on how to choose profile pictures to creating the first post. The Playbook is an eight-week workbook to get creative on Meta and Instagram.

Through the newly launched Grow Your Business Hub, Meta is bringing all its apps and services for SMEs together at one place to help these businesses easily access these tools for their growth. “For instance, WhatsApp business app is what we built for small businesses and today it is being used by 15 million of them and this is a very significant penetration. We want all our other tools to be used to facilitate such growth,” he added.

Some of the programs launched as part of this initiative are Boost with Facebook (a flagship learning series to help bring offline businesses online and leverage the power of social media), Advertiser Bootcamp Programme (the programme offers advanced training to businesses in the form of masterclasses, webinars and live training), Online Learning Guide (trains entrepreneurs to build a business online, attracting audience, building communities, etc), Manage Partners Program (provides 90 days free marketing support to businesses).

Meta claims to have 200 million businesses (mostly small businesses) using its tools to connect with customers, with a significant share of it being Indian SMBs and 300 million people following small businesses on its apps in India. Meta India, this August, had started offering working capital loans to SMEs in partnership with India-based fin-tech player Indifi.