Haute 100 Update: Sheryl Sandberg and Facebook Offer Free Ad Credits to Boost Small Businesses

In an attempt to draw budding entrepreneurs to Facebook and to throw a bone to the little guys, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced that the social networking site would be offering small business owners a free $50 advertising credit to boost their sales and exposure.

The ad credits will be distributed to up to 200,000 small businesses to help boost sales and engagement with the social media giant.

“Credits like that can go a long way,” said Sandberg. “For $50, most small businesses can target every single person they need to target at least once, and then they can grow their business from there.”

This move is also a way of establishing Facebook’s dominance in the social media market in the midst of increasing competition from Google+. Additionally, last month, Facebook launched an “education program” called Facebook for Business, which taught entrepreneurs to use Facebook to promote their products or brands.

Sandberg says that currently, only “hundreds of thousands” of small businesses advertise through Facebook and she hopes to increase this number while helping out small businesses in the process.

She explained, “So my dream is really simple. I think every small business should be using technology, they should be using all of the web technologies, and they should be using Facebook. So we’re not going to stop until all of them are using it to grow their business.”

Our Haute 100 list details the accomplishments of the most influential people in each of our markets. To see the entire Haute 100 San Francisco list, click here.