I would like to get some people's thoughts about running a business without using social media.
I run a mountain bike guiding/holiday business up in Norway and have done for the last five years. Over that time I've used social media a lot and gained quite a following of several thousand people over Facebook and Instagram. About 1 month ago Facebook decided to remove all my accounts without any warning, citing the violation of community guidelines. I don't post anything controversial and didn't sense any suspicious activity so it's all a mystery to me. After following the guidance they gave nothing happened and they've since permanently deleted everything.
This has left me wondering if it's really worth starting all over again for several reasons. One thing is that, like most people, I can waste huge amounts of time scrolling through social media but it also makes me wonder what's the point in it all if it can just be removed like that with no warning and no reasoning.
On the other hand I would say i'm quite savvy with social media and do make good use of it for gaining and engaging with my audience and produce some quite good content if I do say so myself. Plus living abroad my family find it good for keeping up with what I'm up to.
I must say I'm quite keen to just ditch Facebook and Instagram. Thinking about what I could do with all the extra time of not scrolling on social media and also not producing the photos/videos to post. Or would i just find something else to procrastinate with...?
The obvious thing is then how do I get my company name and activities out there? How do I communicate with people about what's going on? How do I attract new people? Is just having a website good enough? Or is is just as effective relying on 'old skool' methods of things like posters in shops, magazine articles, word of mouth, business cards etc.
I know Facebook and Instagram are not the be all and end all of advertising but it sure is an effective and easy way to do it. The question is whether it's worth ditching it to for my own mental health and productivity at the expense of the ease and amount of exposure and advertising it brings?
Are you prepared to lose all the customers who come to you via social media?
I’ve no idea but that doesn’t mean I won’t try and answer
You could try buying adverts in paper magazines instead. More costs less work
You could pay for targeted adverts. More cost less time
You could try and limit what you do with social media. Buy a work phone. Only have Facebook on the work phone. You lock the phone away when not working. Or lock Facebook out of your phone
There was an item on a TV consumer programme* a couple of weeks ago (One Show/Watchdog maybe) about FB closing business accounts with no warning and then being really unhelpful.
I wasn't watching it properly, but if there's a pattern with the FB issue there may be people who can help?
*BBC here in UK.
they’ve since permanently deleted everything.
I dont believe that for a moment. They might not be giving it to you, but i would be very surprised if their keyboard even have a delete key.
I think you might be on a loser if youre going to try and do it without facebook. as you have found, customers "friend" yout business, you get tagged in their photos, you tag them in your photos, their friends see the photos, its self perpetuating, surely.
I don’t post anything controversial and didn’t sense any suspicious activity so it’s all a mystery to me.
remove all my accounts
running multiple accounts?
Dont get me wrong, im sure they are the same as all the big bad corps, maybe the worst and arguing them is pointless. But as a small business you have no redress. i kinda assume you have to play the game?
I have already lost them, that's the point. To get them back I have to put all the work in to social media again.
The obvious answer is as you say, train mtlyself to keep it work related only. Easier said than done but not out of the question! I've trained myself into several behaviour changes recently so I'm sure it's possible.
I've searched as much as possible online and just mostly find dead ends about getting the accounts back. If you have any good links then I'll be happy to hear about them. It seems you have 30 days to do something about the account I've they suspend it then after that it's permanently deleted, I've passed those 30 days now.
By all my accounts I mean my personal one, my business one and on Instagram and Facebook. So 4 in all.
Going to be tricky with that type of business - it's all about people sharing their experiences. I'd take this approach...
Buy a work phone. Only have Facebook on the work phone. You lock the phone away when not working.
I use a fake personal account to manage my business account. No way do I want my pesky customers following me personally! 🙂
Or is is just as effective relying on ‘old skool’ methods of things like posters in shops, magazine articles, word of mouth, business cards etc.
I'm not sure if your business is mainly (semi)locals in Norway having a day or two guided riding, or if you are looking at international customers having a week long holiday.
For the latter, I'm probably in your target demographic.
Of the four things you mention, only word of mouth would reach me - and thats meaning somebody I know personally, having been on a holiday with you and personally recommending it. And if they did, and I then did a bit of research on it and found no online prescence at all, I'd be sceptical. No, you don't need to be part of the FB or Insta empire, but I'd expect a quality website instead.
I think they are a necessary part op business.
It would be like running a business pre-internet without using newspapers and magazines, you could get customers by pinning notices in the local post offices but perhaps not to the scale you need.
Interesting ayjay, that's about as relevant an answer as I could have hoped for!
In response to the first part... Originally set up for mostly international guests then Covid came and we aimed at Norwegians. This year will be the first year able to welcome back international again so I expect is going to be a bit of a mix.
Was it an actual business page you had? There's a difference between that and a personal one.
I think you should look at it a different way.
What level of income do you need for this job to be worthwhile? Can you sustain that income with repeat customers and word of mouth or do you need additional marketing to find new customers?
If you need additional marketing, are those potential customers on here, reading print publications or faffing on their phones looking for idealised insta-lifestyles?!
I'm assuming you already have a website for your business? Could it be better? Does it google well? Did the bulk of your customers find you via social media or are you just thinking your social is effective because you have/had lots of followers? You can have loads of traffic, but if they don't translate into paying customers, it's an irrelevance. I know that's obvious, but you probably need to take a really objective look at what real value social media had to you as a business before it ceased to exist before deciding whether it's worthwhile starting it up again.
Personally I'm more swayed by reliable word of mouth and a good quality website, maybe by magazine/web articles covering a particular region - Norway? I know nothing much about the mountain biking there, but a good mag feature / YouTube vid might pique my interest, but I'm a sample of one, other people will be different. Or not.
But your first question should probably be what proportion of my business did I get from social media.
What level of income do you need for this job to be worthwhile? Can you sustain that income with repeat customers and word of mouth or do you need additional marketing to find new customers?
Word of mouth 'in this day and age' happens on social media
This forum is social media.
Social media is a free tool and opens (I'd wager) a large proportion of your target market to you that you quite literally wouldn't reach any other way
I think you might be on a loser if youre going to try and do it without facebook. as you have found, customers “friend” yout business, you get tagged in their photos, you tag them in your photos, their friends see the photos, its self perpetuating, surely.
+1 this too. Again. It's how word of mouth works these days *most* of the time. Of course there will be the odd conversation over coffee on a club ride, but that's marginal
To directly answer your point re: having everything deleted. Have presence on as many platform as possible. Hedge bets. Good google reviews etc. Put the time into it. It's free! That's very odd you've had the issue.
Thinking about what I could do with all the extra time of not scrolling on social media
Not sure what this has to do with promoting your business on social media
I ditched Insta, Facebook & Twitter early last year, coming at this from the opposite side of the experience I find I’m pretty much no longer a member of my local cycling club, running club or any business that naively operates it’s communications and promotion exclusively on social media, that’s their choice, and mine so I’ve no complaints. However your experience underlines the message I tell my customers that working in this way is risky, and excludes many people, just one of our household uses Facebook, none of the teenagers or twenty somethings do.
What is your minimum viable audience and how could you reach it? A great website, enjoyable & inspirational email content to previous customers & enquiries, and ask for word of mouth support from your best advocates?
You will have to have a really good website, then get other businesses to contact potential customers.
Im using a custom motorcycle builder to do some engine work for me on an old motorcycle. He has no internet, no website, nothing. But he is so busy he is turning work away. He got that busy because his work is exhibited at big shows, he wins awards and the motorcycling press / internet / forums etc promote him.
Other than a phone number, you have to go and visit him.
So, see if you can get cycling websites / mags / forums etc to promote you.
You will have to have a really good website
You can have the world's finest website, but no one will ever find it unless it's heavily linked / referenced. If you exclude all social media then Google etc are less likely to stick you high up in the search results, so someone will have to pretty much type in your URL letter perfect to find you.
When I search for a small business, I often find that their FB page comes up 1st in Googles results and from that I find their webpage...
I find I’m pretty much no longer a member of my local cycling club, running club or any business that naively operates it’s communications and promotion exclusively on social media, that’s their choice, and mine so I’ve no complaints.
It's hardly naive using social media, it's pretty much ideal and free. Most clubs use it in some form or another. There are always a few who won't, but they're very much in the minority.
My other half runs a small and very successful company and has no social media presence. All enquiries come via word of mouth or through her website
As I don't use Facebook I wouldn't use it to source a guide or holiday company, I'd be looking for website info and word of mouth. I accept that that might be due to my demographic but I'm sure there are plenty like me
Time for a sponsored article in some magazine there is mentioned occasionally around these parts!
@footflaps the exclusively part is key, it leaves organisations vulnerable to exactly the op’s issue.
Both my local running club and cycling club are doing this, what makes it worse is the recent AGM for the cycling club was only communicated via social media, as those of us not on there found out after the event…
I'd say it's pretty much essential for your line of work.
Just use it for work and don't waste your time scrolling all day. I still use Facebook and occasionally browse Instagram but only on the desktop at work. When I stand up and walk away I'm disconnected. You soon learn not to reach for your phone every 30 seconds.
We just spent a small fortune on a private ski instructor for the kids for a week in Morzine based on word of mouth and the quality of the discussion we had with him prior to booking. It never occurred for me to check his Insta. Anyhow he was brilliant and we've booked him to guide us for few days next year, so I'd say it is possible to do it without social media but maybe your crowd is younger and more in tune with the socials
If you exclude all social media then Google etc are less likely to stick you high up in the search results, so someone will have to pretty much type in your URL letter perfect to find you.
That's pretty heavily debated. IFAIK the current thinking is that its not directly true.
(but you probably should have a business presence on social)
However, as you say if people search for you directly they have more chances to find you both via your website and facebook business page, twitter etc.
OP you don't mention if you want/need the business you lost from social, but if you do...
As stated previously, it think its a case etablishing if its a good fit for your customers.
My 20 something colleagues at work already think i'm a dinosuar for being on facebook. Perhaps facebook is on the decline or perhaps its still well used by your customer base.
Be interesting to workout why they blocked you. We've had facebook business for our brands since about 2008 i think with some pretty out there content but never run into that kind of issue.
If you can resolve that, i'd say as its free (excluding your time), you know how to do it, you say it was effective and hopefully you can re-hash some of your old content then its a no-brainer if it brings you business.
You can also use later or buffer or hootsuite (bugdet pending) etc to allow you to schedule content
You also have the option of paid advertising on these channels.
Ha sounds like your issue is like mine, booted my computer to catchup on some work and now i'm all over STW 🙂
I've been following you in Instagram for some time and though I'm not in the market for MTB trips like that anymore, I've been tempted. The trails there look so good and I've not been to Norway before. Sorry to hear of the loss of all that work.
The right social media is worth it. I grew the Torino-Nice Rally mainly on IG. There is a FB site but I don't use it much, it's just there for the riders who do use FB. You can do without FB, no problem. A good IG and website is all you need? I think you could start up you IG pretty fast and prev followers will engage and help you get back to where you were. IG is worth it, it's fast and easy, reaches most of your customers.
I must say I’m quite keen to just ditch Facebook and Instagram. Thinking about what I could do with all the extra time of not scrolling on social media and also not producing the photos/videos to post.
The photos and videos do the trails justice and I suppose it's hard to market a business like yours against the competition without them?
To be honest - the website is fine but I found your IG content sold the riding and what you do better. The site has less impact?
Why Norway? Get the big open scenery across as much as possible. Wood cabins? All the space you don't get as often in much of the Alps?
Can you get more of the trail videos onto the site?
How much is 3500NOK? Can you show prices in £ and Euro? I know I could google it but ..
Could you do overnight, longer rides out to a (stocked?) cabin and back the next day?
This is good. It deserves to be a header on the home page
The Norwegian landscape can be enticingly remote and wild, it is easy to feel like you're the only ones for miles around. That is what we want to share with you on our trips - the feeling of adventure, getting out in the back country, far from bike parks - and experiencing something a little out of your comfort zone.
Good luck!
There's no one using FB in my household, and I manage to find and book cycling holidays all over the world. In fact, I'd go as far to say that if you didn't have a proper website, I'd assume it was half-assed and not book it, plus as I'm not a FB user, using FB is a PITA. Like others have said, I know trades that have no SM presence at all, yet are so rammed with work they turn it away; the example was of all things a bloke who came to fit some coving on my wall/ceiling. So it's possible.
Either way, good luck with it.
STW could obviously help by having a sticky for guiding and coaching etc. They could even charge a set fee for it. I'd rather ads about that than expensive cars and erectile disfunction.
STW could obviously help by having a sticky for guiding and coaching etc. They could even charge a set fee for it.
+1 for this, STW could be the go to resource for developing MTB skills, guiding & riding breaks
I would expect a modern business to at least have a minimal presence on the main social media networks, even if it's just some contact details and link pointing you to the webpage. But that would be very much the minimum, and I think not developing at least some Instagram content would be shooting yourself in the foot.
You need to do the research on who your target customers are and how much weight of opinion or use of social meedja they use.
We're finding huge changes in social media at work, post pandemic and long term. It's not what it once was, and fewer of our target audience uses it.
I get much better results with a focus on Search, our Newsletter and targeted articles.
We're changing our Comms teams targets and job description this month, with a gentle move to focus on what works - not what gets likes on FB.
OP is either naive at social media promotion or very good 😉
If you can get enough work without, then crack on.
Re new customers, in order of preference for me, it would be word-of-mouth, then a website, then all the other social media faff. I can do without all the face-insta-wotsit stuff. But I am in my 40s. The youth might have other ideas.
Time for a sponsored article in some magazine there is mentioned occasionally around these parts!
Could you take STW (other paper and online publications are availible) on a freebie trip, in return for a glossy article in an edition? Pretty sure that would get your books filled for 6 months, and then after that hopefully word of mouth as an extension of the magazine related bookings
I think you'll have to bite the bullet and start it all again.
Personally, I agree with the user above saying word of mouth is most important, but I then want to check out the operation myself, read back through it's social posts and get a feel for if it suits me.
Insta and FB are perfect for this and are really cost-effective and "authentic" compared to conventional marketing.
(I work in marketing now, half my job is SM, but I'm not the world's greatest expert)
I've just watched almost the same thing as the OP unfold over in a ham radio discord I'm in, the person that runs the discord has a business building and selling antennas and parts with a large YouTube following including hosting all the build guide videos on YouTube. Then one weekend Google decided for some reason he'd broken their T&Cs and the channel was disabled, he's not been able to find out exactly why or get the channel back so is having to build it all back up.
Remember if you are not paying for something you are not the customer and you have no recourse if the service is removed.
@footflaps the exclusively part is key, it leaves organisations vulnerable to exactly the op’s issue.
For a club it's no big deal, if FB did close the site, just start a new page. All my cycling groups organise rides via Social Media - it just works.
Both my local running club and cycling club are doing this, what makes it worse is the recent AGM for the cycling club was only communicated via social media, as those of us not on there found out after the event…
Surely that's your problem not theirs. If you decide to refuse to use SM then you'll miss out on events organised via SM. That's entirely your choice. I could refuse to use electricity then complain that the world was very dark at night and wasn't being inclusive....
The youth might have other ideas.
Neither of my kids (21 and 24) are on FB. They use Insta and TicToc exclusively
Here's where I think social media works:
It makes you look busy
People assume a busy company is a good one because other people have done the due diligence and trust you
Seeing fresh pics of *happy people* of last week's tour, come up every single week, is compelling
By the virtue of how social media works, then those people share it with their audiences on their own social medias (if you proactively tag them etc). Who doesn't want to share their holiday away. Thus planting an initial seed in other people in their network, who may or may not click through to you and have a nosey.... And see you're popular and busy and have loads of fresh pics of happy customers.... And think. Oh this looks good.
It's there as a news feed. It's there for when people want to dig around and see more about you. People don't need to be members on the network to see you're busy.
It takes minutes to keep updated every few days or whatever so why not just use the free, powerful tool
Neither of my kids (21 and 24) are on FB. They use Insta and TicToc exclusively
It's not the kids who are booking and paying for the holidays.
It's their parents. Boomers dominate Facebook.
And the 21 and 24-year-old probably can't afford an MTB trip to Norway anyway.
Insta is by far the dominant channel in the MTB marketing world. FB is still worth pursuing, especially as you can easily cross-post.
It takes minutes to keep updated every few days or whatever so why not just use the free, powerful tool
Yep, I upload between 20 and 100 photos after each ride to Strava - takes a few seconds to select them and it does the rest. You can buy apps which will push photos and posts to all your SM feeds for you at scheduled times, so you don't even have to touch them - just give the tool all your account details and the content and it will make you look very busy.
Cheers for all the feedback, very useful to hear different opinions and perspectives.
Just to be clear to those asking. I could quite easily start up with social media again and if I were to solely use it for work purposes it is effective and probably does not take a huge amount of time. I also don't 'want' to loose any customers from any source.
The things is the big negative side that comes with using social media that is talked about in the media all the time. It is addictive and I end up wasting a lot of time on there, justifying it by telling myself I'm busy and do a lot so it is OK to take time out to do a mindless activity. I don't like this and I'd like to avoid it, the easiest way is by simply not using social media so my question was trying to understand how valuable people think it is.
I know plenty of poeple can just say 'just put the phone down' or 'turn it off' but we all know it is not always that easy. I think it is definitely possible to train yourself out of it though and just use it for work purposes so my plan is that. Restart the social media chanels but keep it limited to posting work content.
The thing is that I also enjoy using social media, sharing some of my activities, watching Jesse Melamed ride some ridiculously fast trails in BC, seeing what latest ridiculous place Killian Bron has taken his bike to and I feel I actually get something out of following those people/thing. This just easily crosses over into mindless crap and spending hours on there watching b**locks.
More self control required.
I am confused. Your social media is working and you are posting there.
The 'trick' I've found, having just come away from most SM personally, is to have only a business account. I follow other professionals in my field and I've decided on a rule of always posting positively, never get drawn into anything. It's on a work dedicated phone and work laptop. I just don't conflate work and personal now.
That's helped me a lot to keep off the mindless or negative SM.
5plusn8 - update: so I decided from this conversation it was worth restarting. Facebook was down but it turned out my girlfriend was also an admin and had access so managed to get me back on to it. This account is still linked to my old inaccessible Instagram which means I can't link it to any new account or use any management tools like Later or Hootsuite. There's no way to unlink it without accessing the old inaccessible Instagram account.
I started a new Instagram account and upon posting my second photo (of bikes) this was also disabled! Citing breaking community guidelines. I can only imagine this was breaking the rule of 'impersonating a person or entity' i.e. my old Any Excuse to Ride account. I did all the things suggested on the internet when making a new account to avoid this: use a phone number never linked to a FB account, a new email, a device and IP address you've never used to access fb. But seems it didn't help.
So it seems I'm stuck. Unable to make any new Instagram account with the Any Excuse to Ride details. Any good ideas anyone?
Matt - that's mostly my plan if I can get it to work! Haha.
Now when I restarted i had an empty FB account just to allow me to log in other things and send messages to family. Plus an empty Instagram following noone and it already felt much better.
If you pay for Hootsuite, their support team may be able to help direct you to unlock your Insta?
@anyexcusetoride just checking, were you previously Anus? If so was that alias used on your social media?
As far as the FB/Insta management goes you could maybe do with a social media manager if you don't want to do it yourself, I have no idea how much it costs but I could put you in touch with someone who does if you would be interested.
And the 21 and 24-year-old probably can’t afford an MTB trip to Norway anyway.
Dunno, I managed Morzine on a cadet wage at college and plenty others made it to Whistler and such. No social media then but plenty of discussions on the usual forums.
I appreciate that may not necessarily be the case 16 years later.
Ha, yes i was previously Anus on here however it was never used on my social media. I used any excuse to ride as host my personal account and on a blog then when I started my business I carried on with this name. I asked the stw mods if I could change my name here to something more respectable since I was supposed to be an adult and running a business now.
Cheers for the tip, I have someone here who could manage my social media if i decided to do that.
Haha I thought so, you've changed the site recently but I thought I saw the old logo in the thumbnail, seemed too much of a coincidence having two folk doing the same thing.
The random blocking seems really odd, usually it's down to mod bots but sometimes malicious reporting from what I understand.
Just spotted this, same company so may be relevant?
Surely that’s your problem not theirs. If you decide to refuse to use SM then you’ll miss out on events organised via SM. That’s entirely your choice. I could refuse to use electricity then complain that the world was very dark at night and wasn’t being inclusive….
If a company/club only uses FB to communicate and refuses to engage with people who don’t want to use it they are being extremely blinkered and stupid in my eyes. It’s pretty well known the downsides of FB and also that a lot of younger people simply don’t use it so their laziness is only hurting themselves.
IWIW if a business that I Google only operates on FB I immediately go somewhere else.
