By Wesley Story
AUSTIN, Texas – If you wanted to create a small business today, your startup would have more resources available than ever before, according to Gary Briggs, chief marketing officer at Facebook.
Briggs spoke at the Moody College of Communication on Nov. 16 about the opportunities Facebook provides for small and medium-sized businesses as part of the college’s Moody Entrepreneurship Speaker Series, a lecture series dedicated to showcasing the experiences of communication professionals to encourage entrepreneurial thinking in students.
Though the lecture series was dedicated to entrepreneurialism, Briggs said his few years in the startup world ended with failed ventures. After starting an e-commerce business with two of his friends in 1999, Briggs learned some of the ups and downs of the startup experience.
“We eventually sold the business to Amazon, not for a lot,” said Briggs. “That was not a success, I would say. It turned out to be a really great experience from the standpoint of ‘I learned a ton about online marketing in that area.’ When I went into eBay, I was very comfortable with doing a lot of online deals.”
Prior to joining Facebook, Briggs served in various roles at Google Inc., eBay Inc. and PepsiCo Inc. Today, Briggs is responsible for Facebook’s consumer, product and platform marketing.
Advertising professor Mark Bunting, who also owns a Cajun restaurant, helped facilitate the discussion.
“There’s a lot of entrepreneurship taking place on the Facebook ecosystem by way of small and medium sized businesses,” said Bunting.
Bunting said he finds Facebook’s capabilities staggering, especially in regards to the platform’s tracking and targeting technologies. Facebook’s advertisements are uniquely generated to each user based on what they have searched online.
“If I want to identify people with a Louisiana heritage … I have the ability to not only find those people but track their decision journey around whether or not they come into my store,” Bunting said. “This strategy wasn’t in the hands of small businesses before.”
As of now, Briggs said there are 5 million small to medium sized American businesses advertising on Facebook and about 60 million globally. Facebook’s targeting strategy is used to help those businesses compete against larger ones.
But, according to Briggs, this trend of supporting small business ventures is not unique to Facebook, as Google, Amazon and other companies have all upped their advertising game.
Reena Patel, a nutrition junior who attended the event, said the small business opportunities discussed during the lecture give her hope for one day starting her own business.
“I’ve always known I wanted to own my own business,” Patel said. “I just didn’t realize all the existing structures that are available and were designed to help me reach that goal.”
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