Ebonie Gipson has gained more knowledge than she ever imagined she’d receive from the corporation supporting a global social media platform.
After participating in a Facebook Community Summit the owner of I’m Building Something Consulting, LLC says she plans to use the experience to strengthen Flint’s small business ownership.
Gipson was one of about 400 people nationwide who were invited to the conference in Menlo Park, Calif. this month, based on their success in impacting communities through Facebook.
She was asked to apply for the annual summit in an e-mail she received in 2018.
“Honestly, at first, I thought it was spam,” she says, laughing.
Last November, a few months following the review of candidates, Gipson was told she’d been selected to attend. She also agreed to speak at the conference.
“I wanted to talk about how we’re overcoming crisis and how entrepreneurship is playing a part in revitalizing our city,” she says.
When Facebook builds with #FLINT. Our CEO, Ebonie Gipson was a Speaker at the Facebook Communities Summit 2019 sharing our work and community impact. #imbuildingsomething#imbuildingCOMMUNITY#imbuildingFLINT#FCS2019Thank You Imagine Nation Productions for capturing our true sentiments with this video and being a huge supporter and contributor to our work. •Thank You Café Rhema for allowing us to capture our story in your space. From our hearts, thank you for allowing us to build our business for months (some days sun up to sundown) in your Cafe’ before we had a location. You were our first office space. •Thank You FlintPrints.com for being a resource and assisting us in supporting small businesses.•Thank You Hoffman's DECO DELI & CAFE for allowing us to film and for creating the Club Med•Thank You Fix My Finance for empowering the community through finance. •Thank you to everyone we’ve had the privilege of building with. This is just the beginning!
Posted by I'm Building Something Consulting, LLC on Monday, February 18, 2019
Gipson’s organization has advised hundreds of Flint-area small business owners in creating strategies for customer service, marketing and development. I’m Building Something has also coordinated events like its Small Business Saturday holiday shopping event that helped entrepreneurs showcase their products and services with the goal to strengthen Flint’s economy. Through the Facebook Community Summit she gained exposure to initiatives that strengthened her ability to navigate Facebook’s professional users.
“They brought us in for a meet and greet. The summit itself is two days of training,” says Gipson. “It covers everything from non-profit to small business.”
Gipson says she also gained training in Facebook brand management strategies and other aspects of the platform. Another benefit of her attendance is ongoing participation in a “beta group” that will incorporate subscription service as a feature of the social media. Gipson says the service “will be a great convenience for me” because it will increase her ability to assist clients in an affordable way through online access.
The new tools will be rolled-out in Flint by month-end.
“Being the only consultant in my agency, it’s very easy to cap out because you can only take so many appointments in a day,” she adds.
“It was exciting to learn about the subscription groups because I was trying to find the next platform to help support that.”
Building tools to assist Flint-based business owners in gaining technical support and better understanding of Facebook’s benefits to them is part of the social media’s ongoing relationship with I’m Building Something Consulting, says Gipson.
The organization will use its knowledge of Facebook for “building communities through entrepreneurship,” she says.
“Yes, we are an agency,” Gipson adds, “but we are also a community resource.”
Video credit: DeAndre’ Williams / Imagine Nation Productions, LLC
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