Facebook picks 12 companies for its small business accelerator

Facebook has today announced the 12 companies that have been selected from Australia and New Zealand to be part of its small business accelerator program.

Facebook received over 3000 applications for the program. The 12 companies selected are The Party People, Snowgum Australia, Bohemia for Hair, Artist Guitars, The Muscle Chef, Natural Sleep, Washington Brown, The AppVillage, Tours on Trike Melbourne, Puddleduck Vineyard, Ladies Luxury Escapes, and Michael Willem Photography.

Nick Bowditch, manager of small business, Australia and New Zealand at Facebook, told StartupSmart they were excited about the range of companies who applied.

“It was tough picking winners because the quality of entries was extremely high, but the one thing each of our winners did well was demonstrate a clear passion for wanting to improve their marketing on Facebook and address specific business challenges,” Bowditch says.

The program, announced in mid-July, is a two-day intensive workshop on how to use Facebook to best promote businesses.

“A lot of the small businesses that entered showed they had focused heavily on getting people to like their (Facebook) page and grow their fan-base,” Bowditch says.

“That’s a great start but the real benefits of using Facebook for marketing comes when you focus on developing compelling content, information or offers to drive deep engagement with fans, and in turn create sales opportunities,” Bowditch says.

The 12 businesses in the program will also receive ad credits during the workshop and three months of support from the Facebook team.

According to the latest Facebook user metrics for Australia, there are almost 10 million daily active users of Facebook, and 12 million monthly active users.