Facebook Announced a $100 Million Grant Program for Small Businesses

Facebook Announced a $100 Million Grant Program for Small Businesses

Facebook Small Business Grant Program

The COVID-19 pandemic is going to get worse and troubling us in many ways. The virus still spreading into new regions at a rapid pace, which will have a major impact on many sectors and businesses. So Facebook Inc has launched a resource hub and a grant to help small-business owners manage during the coronavirus outbreak.

In a Facebook post on March 17, the company’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, says that the company will be launching a massive grant program to help small businesses who all are affected by Covid-19. Specifically, Facebook will provide $100 million in “cash and ad credits” to more than 30,000 businesses in the 30 countries where Facebook operates.

Who is Eligible for Funding 

Facebook has also created a new page where SMB owners can sign up to receive more information about when the program starts, eligibility criteria, and application acceptance details. While the site doesn’t provide an exact date when that happens and they are clear that this is more than just providing free ads on its platform. The company gives some examples of how small businesses will use these grants, like office rent, operational costs, or paying employee wages. 

Those small businesses are surely Facebook’s customers so if they overcome this business financial crisis, obviously, the world’s second-largest advertising platform has a huge incentive they can earn and again, so do we all.

In order to provide further assistance, Facebook has:

  • Launched a new Business Resource Hub, which helps to provide support for businesses to connect them to relevant tools and advice who all are affected by the coronavirus outbreak
  • Help to work on a new virtual training program to support businesses operating in altered conditions because of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
  • Create a new strategy on how it can host dedicated, virtual training sessions with businesses all over the world
  • Begun work on a new set of Facebook Blueprint materials, with a particular focus on remote work and managing remote teams.

Apply Here for Facebook Small Business Grants Program

World Health Organization Partners With TikTok on Corona Virus Information Program

World Health Organization Partners With TikTok on Corona Virus Information Program

The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a new TikTok account on last week Friday to cut the coronavirus outbreak misinformation online. WHO, a public health agency of the United Nations is working to contain the spread of the virus. 

With all social media platforms looking at how they can help their users to keep up to date with accurate information about the COVID-19 pandemic, surprisingly this week TikTok has announced a new partnership program with the World Health Organization that they can live-stream from the WHO where users will be able to ask questions to experts. Over the past few weeks TikTok has been filleded with many serious and funny memes about the novel coronavirus with some users also pretending to be infected by this. 

As per TikTok newsroom report:

“At TikTok we’re focused on supporting our users by providing accurate information and resources from public health officials, as well as continued support, encouragement, and uplifting videos that our community share wiring this challenging time. To that end, we’ve partnered with the World Health Organization (WHO) to create an informational page on TikTok that provides trustworthy information, offers tips on staying safe and preventing the spread of the virus, and dispels myths around COVID-19.” 

In WHO’s first video they wrote in the description of “We are joining [TikTok] to provide you with reliable and timely public health advice,”   

Benedetta Allegranzi, technical lead of infection prevention and control, describes the measures that people should take to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus and redirects the users to the official website for more additional information. 

The Cornoa virus information resources can be accessed via the Discover tab in the TikTok app. It’s also shows on the top results when users search for coronavirus-related topics. TikTok’s also adding a WHO website link to the page on videos which may relate to coronavirus. 

WHO also focusing on other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tencent to outbreak fighting misinformation regarding the Corona virus. 

If you’re interested to watch WHO’s Q and A season on TikTok, go to the official WHO TikTok profile and catch their live-stream at 17th march, 12 PM GMT.