Good news for small business owners who want to learn more about advertising on Facebook. In September of this year, Facebook will roll out their Business Boost programme in Ireland. The primary initiative of this programme is to provide business owners with the opportunity to learn about advertising on the social network. Launched in May 2012 in Britain, the company teamed up with Chambers of Commerce to deliver these workshops across the UK.

Led by Director of User Operations, Sonia Flynn, Facebook will also incentivise business by crediting their ad campaigns on the platform. Roisin Burke of the Independent.ie writes "Local businesses that have 50 'likes' on their page at sign-up stage get €25 of ad credit to spend on Facebook advertising. Those that garner another 100 'likes' during the promo period get a further €75-worth of free ads". Seems like a good deal, right?

As a rule of thumb, Facebook execs are inclined to encourage businesses to keep users within the "Facebook experience" when advertising, by directing them back to the company profile, rather than an external page. Will the Business Boost programme be restricted to advertising within the "Facebook experience", or will it support outbound links from Facebook? We'll have to wait and see! 

Image: Andrew Thornton (2012)