Facebook to launch tool to empower women entrepreneurs

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SAN FRANCISCO – To mark International Women’s Day, Facebook on Wednesday announced that it will launch a new tool that will give female entrepreneurs the power to connect with each other and share questions, advice, resources and support to help them grow their businesses.

The “Community Finder” tool is being launched under the #SheMeansBusiness programme that was established by Facebook in 2016 to support women-owned businesses.

The social media giant will also launch the “Credit Her” campaign that would help people give credit to women for their incredible contributions.

Starting on International Women’s Day on Thursday, people can also show their support to women through cards, photo frames or themed backgrounds for text posts on the platform.

Facebook also released data from 2017 on the contributions that women around the world made to their communities and said International Women’s Day was the most talked about moment last year.

“Unique to 2017, International Women’s Day was the most talked about moment of the year. It was a moment that rallied the world around empowering women, and that was just the beginning of mounting energy for women’s movements that shows no signs of slowing down in 2018,” Maxine Williams, Global Chief Diversity Officer, Facebook, said in a statement.

Facebook said that over a fourth of the total conversations about International Women’s Day on the platform were led by 18 to 24-year-old females.

“Forty per cent of active groups on Facebook were created by women, females created 70 per cent of all fundraisers on the platform and 43 per cent of Pages are women-owned,” the social media giant revealed.

Williams also shared examples where women used Groups, Pages for small business and fundraisers to make a positive impact in their communities.

“Maria leads ‘Supergirls’, a group of nearly 90,000 women in Israel in which they share deep secrets, ask personal questions or have a shoulder to cry on,” she said.

Another was Angel, who worked for the Alameda County Fair in the US. She started a Facebook Page that helped her grow following and increase ticket sales, Williams added.