Curious faces filled the Santa Clarita Activity Center on Friday to learn how social media can improve their online business presence.

Assemblyman Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, the event’s co-host, discussed the importance of making business connections through social media with about 60 or so on hand.

“Today, we’ve partnered with Facebook to hold a seminar to teach small businesses how to market through social media,” Wilk said. “It’s a new and powerful medium that has an extensive reach at a very low cost.”

Facebook, in partnership with Wilk, conducted an educational outreach in Santa Clarita to give small-business owners training so they can the most out of using Facebook and social media.

Kyle Jorgenson, who drove from Ventura to hear Facebook representatives speak to small-business owners on how to market themselves through social media Friday morning.

“I think Facebook is really cool is because you’re able to find your interest,” said Jorgenson, founder of MassRoots Media, “And then inside your interest, you’re able to engage people that are into the same things you are.”

Following Wilk’s introduction, Jordan Harp, an education and outreach manager at Facebook, instructed the audience on how to get discovered, find customers and build relationships through social media.

Assemblyman Scott Wilk

“What we’re seeing is that businesses who use social media get a social lift of really strong advocates who go into communities and explain to their friends and families why they should use a certain business on Facebook or on social media,” said Harp.

The presentation demonstrated how businesses as small as a photography studios, and as large as a chain of restaurants could get the most out of Facebook.

“When your biggest customers are your friends and family there’s a really great opportunity because they know your business so well, they wanna help you and they wanna promote it on Facebook,” said Harp.

Here’s a breakdown of how Facebook works with small business:

Facebook has more than 1 billion users, who post 3.2 billion times per day and include 13 million local businesses.

On average, there are 89 million views of California local small business pages per week.

Across the United States, there are 645 million views and more than 13 million comments on local business Facebook pages on average per week.

Approximately 70 percent of monthly active users in the United States and Canada are connected to a local business on Facebook.

– David Mariuz