going to handle this. the time is expired. >> thank, you mister chairman. facebook chief operating officer cheryl's and work spoke recently to the detroit economic club about the role of social media and helping small businesses during a pandemic. this is half an hour. >> a very special guest speaker today, cheryl sandberg is the

chief executive officer at facebook where she oversaw rooms the business operations. prior to facebook, she held executive positions at goals, the u.s. treasury, mike in the, and the world bank. she has an mba with the highest distinction from harvard business school. you already know she is also a bestselling author and the founder of lean dot org. we are so delighted that cheryl can join us today from california. let's say hello and welcome cheryl sandberg to detroit. >> i first got to visit the detroit economic club when i was a young staffer at the treasury department in the clinton presidency. now we know how old i am. it's a treat to be back. and actually, i think the big thing that got canceled for me when coronavirus happened was my trip, in person.

it's taken us to reschedule via zoom. this marks a year of coronavirus. i'm sad not to be there in person, but really happy to be there and grateful you invited me. >> the pleasure is all hours and we will have you back in person someday soon. welcome. again our moderator today is a familiar voice to all, the city beat reporter and news radio 950, where she also hosts the black business minute. she is the first black woman in radio broadcasting in the michigan journalism hall of fame. she is a great friend and let's say hello to vicky thomas. >> thank you so much, steve. it's a pleasure to be here. i'm excited to be part of the conversation today. >> it is great to have you both here. vicky, take it away. >> cheryl, welcome to detroit virtually. it was definitely great

speaking with you last weekend i am excited to continue the dialog today who with the group that has joined us virtually. let's jump right into it. i certainly don't have to tell you that the pandemic has devastated small businesses across the country, across the globe, and certainly here in detroit. how has facebook help small businesses during the challenging time in our history? >> thank you for interviewing me today and for being such a strong and supportive voice of business, of women, of all of these in detroit. we are in the middle of an unprecedented health crisis, and economic crisis, a crisis for gender and equality, and a crisis for small business. businesses around the country have been forced to close. people have had to completely rethink how they do their business, try to keep the

lights on, keeping employees, and we know small businesses are the very heart of their communities. at facebook, we are a big business. our business is small business. we have 200 million small businesses using our free tools, 10 million small businesses that rely on our advertising. our whole businesses helping small businesses. this crisis hit small businesses hard. before coronavirus, a third of u.s. small businesses had no online presence or mobile site at all. most small businesses are local. with everything shut, businesses had to pivot online. we are proud of the support we offer. it's hard to set up a mobile website or build a mobile app if you are a small business. resources are tight and you are doing what you can do. you are not a website designer. you are a baker, a yoga studio,

an artist, selling wine. but website design is probably not your thing. but on facebook, you can set up a facebook page or instagram business profile in minutes. you already know how to do. it and it's free. that's what we saw small businesses do. we focused on helping them get online and stay online. we focused on training. we trained 100 million small businesses since 2020 alone. we've trained 1 million women through our she means business. we really focused on giving support to keep the lights on. we give it 100 million dollars in grants when coronavirus first hit. 40% of that was for the united states. it was the cities where our people are. detroit was a big part of that. >> one thing facebook also did

was create programs to assist black owned small businesses. steve mentioned the black business minute. we highlight black businesses three times a week. the reason i started that is because i heard statistics that said 40 to 50% of black owned small businesses will not survive the pandemic. talk about the programs you created for those to help throw them a lifeline and why you wanted to do that? >> you are exactly right. black owned small businesses have been closing at two times the rate of other small businesses during coronavirus. those were black owned. businesses that serve communities of color, no matter who owns them, or also closing at higher rates. in addition to the hundred million dollar grant program we did when coronavirus started, we did an additional hundred million dollars for black owned small businesses, creators,

nonprofits, and the u.s. alone. of that money, 1 million of that went to the community foundation for southeast michigan. this is a community we call home. but we tried to do more. our employees really wanted to do more to help black communities and black owned small businesses. two of our employees came up with an idea we loved called by black friday. everyone knows what black friday is, the friday after thanksgiving when people start the holiday shopping. this was hashtag buy on black friday from black businesses. they give businesses an opportunity to self identify. we created a gift guide. we created a by black friday show and 15 million people tuned in. we have a really deep commitment to train black and latinx small business owners.

what really matters is what happens on the ground. since i was not able to be in detroit, i started my morning meeting with nine local detroit small businesses. eight of which are owned by women. there was one man that we were glad to have their. almost everyone there was a person of color, women of color. i heard the most amazing stories. regina runs the house in detroit. regina gains. her business was very local. her wine store was more than a store. she created in store in spirit says for people to come and buy wine. that was how the business worked. when coronavirus hit, she could have -- instagram, and she was interviewing wine makers and running cooking classes and giving people those experiences. this is what's amazing. her business is up this year.

business is up this year. what do we believe? we believe when we give small businesses the tools and assistance, they are going to survive and thrive, and that will make communities like detroit continue to thrive. >> can you share a couple other stories? we spoke to regina who was on black businessman at the past monday. listening to business owners during your roundtable this morning was incredible. can you tell us about the challenges? talk more about some of the things, local examples of detroit businesses, that facebook has helped? >> one of my favorite stories was the owner of a local company called essential's. it's all natural skin care. she called it smell goods. things that smell good that you want. her story is amazing. she was diagnosed with eczema and cronies disease and all the products didn't work for her.

she was breaking out and they had toxic things in the. she opened a successful retail store and then coronavirus hit. she had to close. so she really pivoted online and did it in a really creative way. she created a garden on facebook and has 1100 people in her community. she calls them the sunflowers. from those people, she gets her product names, talking about fragrances. what she said is that she is a sole proprietor. she was like do you like this color palette, i don't know. she said when she builds the products suggested by the group, the products are flying off the shelves faster than she can put them on. >> that's what you call listening to your customers. [laughs] >> there are customers and other local examples. a local dj was one of our grant

recipients. they used the money to keep the employees paid. his business as weddings and parties. talk about a business that's not happening in coronavirus. what he needed was cash and assistance, and we were glad to provide it. he also found a way to do business online. he created an online store and launched an online dj kava me. our goal is to work with small businesses in detroit, but it's the entrepreneur is themselves. it is writ gina, todd, who say i am not going to let this virus or economic downturn stop me. i will pivot online and find a way to keep going and i think everyone is looking forward to the world and economy returning to normal. >> you are also bringing a training program to detroit. talk a bit about that. >> that's right.

we get to announce it now. with the small business association of michigan, we are boosting facebook to detroit next week. at the beginning of last year, my team and i had a big meeting on what we would do to take our work with small business to the next level. we had a boost program where we traveled around to different cities and set up and local offices. we decided we were going to make it easier and get big trucks and to boost with facebook and drive around. then coronavirus hit. people were not coming into a small space that we brought with a truck. we have pivoted entirely online. it's totally free. you can find it on the website. please go to the website. we are providing free training and tools to small businesses in partnership with them and we are really excited to do it. >> hopefully talk to me about

your advice for a small business that doesn't handle a website and has no experience with digital marketing or advertising or others. why would you tell them? >> three things. first, you need an online presents. a third of small businesses did not have one. you can set it up for free and minutes on facebook and instagram so customers can find you. second, learning the basics of how to reach customers, it used to be that only big companies could afford big advertising and small companies suffered or had to remember the day is passing out fliers. now, for very small amounts of money, you can target and find exactly the people interested in your product. that's a lifeline for small businesses. and you keep iterating and learning. in all of this, it's the

creativity that matters. i will share one of my favorite. these are some of the things that i bought. my guess is they sold this before corona, but i'll tell you what they didn't, this box. this is a quarantine kit. it is very pretty and comes with branding. it has a face mask. no one i knew had one of these before the pandemic, right? it is all natural hand sanitizer. this is beautiful hibiscus soap. i think it shows the ingenuity of entrepreneurs and detroit. they were making soap before. they might have been making hand sanitizer. but they were not packaging up boxes quarantine kits. that's how small business owners pivot to decide what people need and then we can help them find the customers. >> great product, congratulations. >> talk about pivoting.

facebook, instagram, they have helped a lot of these companies survive. let's talk a little more about facebook, the privacy and digital ads. there has been a lot of discussion about that, proposed changes by legislators and how other tech companies could impact have facebook tracks and targets adds to users. i was talking to my news director who thought it was amazing how you can search for something and then that comes up almost immediately. can you talk about this and how it will impact small businesses? >> i'm glad to. this is so important. what i want to say first his privacy is the top priority and always has been. it's not something people always understand we explain, well but protecting the privacy of the people who could use facebook is the most important thing. eif you send me a message, it s

secure and doesn't get shared. if you wanted to oppose -- it stays in the group. if you wanted to make a public post, you are choosing to share it with everyone and protecting your privacy is the most important thing. advertising, we use data in a privacy protected way and it's critical for small businesses. this morning at my roundtable, i met a yoga studio operator in an arbor. how did she advertised? she shows her add only to people who are yoga or meditation enthusiasts living in detroit. we are using data to do that. we take the ad, show it to those people, and we don't give back anything but aggregate stats. we don't give her back a single person. >> if she can't do that, if she has to advertised to all of

detroit, she can't afford to do that. not everybody in detroit wants yoga and meditation. because she can do that, and when she pivoted online for corona and started out for yoga classes, she could advertize. it's on us to make sure we protect peoples privacy, make sure that we show the ad and don't give her back any information. it's on us to explain how this works. but if that ability of hers goes away, it doesn't hurt the biggest parts of the company. it doesn't hurt the biggest companies in the country, but it does hurt the local yoga studio. so we have to make sure that we explain and personalize that. we are launching a marketing campaign to try to explain it. good ideas deserve to be found. another example is g.o.a.t. yoga. not everyone is interested. you can find that and enable

that personalized experience to happen in a very privacy protected way. a lot of small businesses are very worried that people are trying to do the right thing and protect privacy, but it will inadvertently not protect privacy and hurt local communities. >> i want to get in a couple more questions before we run out of time. you are known as an advocate for women and you have done research on the impact of this pandemic on women owned businesses. talk a bit about that and any advice you would have for women owned businesses or women climbing the corporate ladder. >> who

are of -- businesses owned by women of color, because that's where you have all the gender and race bias, and we need to make sure we are protecting and growing the businesses that matters so much. >> here is a great untimely question to close it out. we have the women's history month. tell us about some of the women who have inspired you and the five women you are spot lighting in your gift guide. we have a link to the gift guide in the chat box. >> so many women have inspired me. certainly, our new vice president, kamala harris, from my home state, justice ruth bader ginsburg has been on

everyone's mind with the loss of her. mueller has done so much to help children. i go back to glorious dunham who was the original, one of the original, great feminists. the women who i met this morning in detroit, i will share one more story, jennifer lyle. she runs lash yummy's. it's a great story about the importance of local businesses. she makes delicious pies. she was featured twice on oprah's favorite things. it poured orders in from all over the country. but it turns out that the orders are great, but expensive to fulfill. but she needed to make the business sustainable and profitable were local customers. people who could come in and pick up where she could sell

products without shipping. after she ran a very targeted, privacy protected facebook ad, the lines were around the block. that comes back to where we start. women who inspire us, the importance of local support, local businesses, and i think people responded because they wanted to support a local business, hand because the pies are just delicious. >> excellent. everyone, please check out the link to cheryl's gift guide that features five local businesses. steve, i want to turn it back over to you. a great conversation and i pretty opportunity to chat. >> vicky, thank you for a thoughtful conversation. cheryl i would like to turn attention to some audience questions that we received from members. i want to start with a question we received about social media and its role in society.

this comes from rick. the last four years in the last presidential election signed a bright light on the role of social media and and democracies. cheryl, there are so many places to go with this. let's comment on power when it comes to social media, and truth. >> we start with elections and we will talk about time, because we could have this conversation for a long time. nothing can be more serious to all of us that elections and democracy. we have never had a pandemic where people didn't even know how they could vote. it was the perfect storm. we tried to help. we learned the lessons of protecting our democracy from foreign interference, but we really also tried to help people register. we helped register 4.5 million

people. that's the largest effort of its kind anywhere in the world. last time, we did 2 million for each of the last two elections. we put up a voter information center that 140 million americans visited. that told you was state by state, here is how i vote. where do i go? how do i vote? answering those questions so people can have their voice heard. there is real concern about the size and power of tech companies, and we understand that. we really do believe internet regulations need to be re-written. the last time most of the laws governing us were done was 25 years ago. that is a long time ago, and they need to be updated. at the same time, we, hope people understand and think about that a lot of the tech companies that are the largest in the world are american companies. that means we exist under american law. that's a pretty good place to be, because some of our largest

competitors are in china and exist under chinese law. i think it's important that we find a way to, i think, continue american leadership of the tech industry. it has been so important. make sure people understand and there are limits to the power we have, and make sure we don't see power in a way other countries don't want to. >> thanks, cheryl. let's stick with the role of social media. what is the role social media had for small businesses? what's the importance for them as compared to larger companies? >> obviously, we are used by large companies, but we are much more important for small businesses. we are why so many businesses can start, thrive, and make the pivots they need to online for

coronavirus. awhen you think about what it used to take to start a small business, you had to get a loan, raise a lot of capital, which was prohibitively hard for people, much harder for women and minorities, even harder for women of color. this is the great equalizer. online, anyone can do this in minutes. the role of data and personalized ads is critical for small businesses. it's not well understood, and that's on us. but if you take away the ability to target, under what i think is an on true promise of protecting privacy, you hurt small businesses, the local pie bakery that needs to find local customers. our job is to make sure we protect people's privacy and make sure we explain that. well i don't think we have explained it well, which is why we are having this conversation today. our job is to make sure that

the 200 million small businesses out there can continue to thrive. i think coronavirus has been an acceleration to what's online, but that was a move that was happening. they say never waste a good crisis. we need to make sure small businesses come out of the crisis not just surviving, but stronger, having their local revenue stream, stories back open, and also their online ability to reach customers and inability to thrive. we are worried about unemployment in the country and we should be, but most people don't know. this most job growth comes from small business, not large companies. they are the heart of our communities. >> thank, you cheryl. this question comes from jackie, who i know is a huge fan of yours. she says we know it's been a very stressful year for many small business owners. maybe you can share how you have dealt with and overcome stress during parts of your

career? >> it has been a hard year for everyone. there are not families out there that haven't been touched with this. early on, my fiancée's cousin passed away of coronavirus. for us, obviously, it was a shocking loss, early april of last year. we couldn't even get together to more. and so we had to find other ways of reaching out. and a work point of view, we had to send everyone home, and we were able to. we took that very seriously. we have tried to deal with that by being a company that helps hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to small businesses, and also really taking care of our employees, letting people work from home, giving them additional leave, coronavirus, leave additional money. business has to do its part. we have to do our part to protect employees and the small businesses who depend on us.

>> let's wrap this up on something positive. we have 30 seconds left. leave us with something that gives you hope for small businesses as we think we finally see a light at the end of this pandemic. >> this morning, the nine businesses and nonprofits i met with, i shared some of the stories. an amazing woman named jenny brown started a nonprofit called everybody. she has a sister with down syndrome. i learned from her that unemployment rates for people with those kinds of challenges are above 85%. she started a local business, a nonprofit, to be gainfully employed. this woman lost her only son to gun violence when he was just 24. and what did she do with that? she started something called change happens and is helping so many people locally.

i am given hope by a woman and a man, we will hopefully help more businesses in detroit. i am given hope by the fact that even if we can't be we can do for the communities of which we are a part. i am so grateful you let me pop into detroit at least virtually. steve: a huge thank you for spending time with us. we wish you the best. let us know if we can be helpful here in detroit and we look forward to hosting you in person soon. sheryl: thank you. steve: a special thank you to vicki. great to see you. sheryl: thank you, vickie. thank you for having a steve. steve: thank you, sheryl.

thanks to my team and for all of you for continuing to support us. your membership is important to us. keep the faith. hope to see you march 25 when we hostthank you, steve. thank you everyone. weeknights this month. we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span 3 tonight a look back to the mayflower and plymouth colony author michelle. marchetti coughlin discusses her book, penelope winslow plymouth colony first lady re-imagining a life about a descendant of english nobility and the wife of josiah winslow plymouth colony's governor during king philip's war in the 1670s. watch tonight beginning at 8pm eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span 3. american history tv on c-span 3

every weekend documenting america's story funding for american history tv comes from these companies who support c-span 3 as a public service. up next a conversation with the author of the book penelope winslow plymouth colony first lady re-imagining a life ms. winslow was a descendant of english nobility and the wife of josiah winslow plymouth colony's governor in the 1670s the massachusetts historical society hosted this event and provided the video. we have a special event this evening really explore the life of plymouth colony first lady penelope pelham winslow a woman of influence during the eventful years of plymouth's existence through wartime and the end of its independence. our speaker tonight is michelle marchetti coughlin. she is the author of one colonial woman's world the life and writg