Marketing Goats Post-Facebook

As some of you may be aware, Facebook has started enforcing it's ban on animal sales. This has created a great deal of stress in the goat world because a huge number of us marketed our animals through our Facebook pages (personal and business) and through the Facebook groups. I had the honor of being interviewed by Goat Journal, so I thought I would share what I wrote here as well. 

Q: How have the new policies affected you personally?

First of all, they aren’t really new policies. My understanding is that the main change is that Facebook is enforcing its ban on animal sales much more rigorously. 

I’m relatively fortunate because my farm has a strong online presence. My website attracts good (local) traffic from Google and my Facebook business page has a large number of followers. So, I’m in better shape that many of the farms out there. As long as I’m careful with my wording when I post on my Facebook page I shouldn’t have any problems with the policy. However, it has cut off a very important marketing venue for Nigerian breeders at least. Many of us rely on various Facebook groups to reach out to like-minded breeders nationwide. That’s how I learned about the availability of at least three of my most prized bucks, and that is how I was able to market does to some wonderful performance herds in Montana. 

In addition, it has made being an admin for a Facebook group much more demanding. I’m an admin in five livestock-related groups. The expectation now is that I will closely monitor all interactions. Should the group be found in violation of FB policy, it could be closed. Some of the groups that I am in (besides the ones I administer) are incredibly valuable in terms of sharing knowledge between experienced breeders. It would be a huge loss for them to be shut down. However, given the large size of the membership of some of these groups, finding and deleting all unauthorized sales posts can be challenging. There are always those members that don’t follow the rules. I don’t have the time to monitor my groups, so to avoid risking Facebook penalizing me, I’m seriously considering closing those groups and migrating them to MeWe.

Q: What will you do now? 

I’ve already completed my first step in my action plan. To avoid any action against my Facebook business page I went through all the goat groups that I participate in and deleted all sales-related posts that I could find. Hopefully I didn’t miss any. Then I did a search through my business page for sales-related posts and deleted those. This may take a while because the page has been active since 2011. I’m sure that there are posts that I’ve missed and I really can’t risk having my page shut down. Even without sales, it’s a powerful marketing tool.

Next, the purpose of my Facebook business page has shifted. My primary focus will be educational. That has always been a strong element of the page, since most of my clients are fairly new to goats, so making it my primary focus is a natural move. I will also use it to drive business to my website. 

The change has also motivated me to explore new venues for marketing. I’ve followed many of my colleagues in exploring the social media sites MeWe and FacePlay. So far I’ve found MeWe to be the more promising option. It’s still in the early stages, so while I’ve set up a business page, I’m very much in monitoring mode. This is all very time consuming. Right now I’m on summer break. I won’t be able to do much with any social media once I start back at school (I’m a teacher IRL). So, until the alternative sites reach a tipping point, my Facebook business page will continue to be my primary social media tool.

Another option that I’ve explored is Goatzz. It’s still relatively new, but very promising. I’ve set up a herd page and also posted some sales listings. I really like the thoroughness and ease of use of the “classifieds” on the site and have started using Goatzz to list all my sales animals, rather than posting them on my website. ​​

Another benefit of Goatzz is the affiliate program. This is fairly new, so it hasn’t been widely adopted by the associations, but it has the ability to link an association webpage to member listings in Goatzz. The result is that when you click on the link in the association page you see all the sales listings posted in Goatzz by members. The service is free to association members and low cost to the associations. The best example that I’ve found of a fully implemented affiliation is with the Guernsey Goat Breeders of America. When you click on the Guernsey Goat Farms link on the association page it displays the members’ farm pages. If you click on the Guernsey Goat Search link it displays all the goats that association members have entered in the Goatzz database. Goatzz is also affiliated with the Nigerian Dwarf Goat Association. However, their website was in transition, so the links aren’t live yet. However, this is a promising enough option that it motivated me to join the NDGA. I and many of my colleagues (I polled them) believe that our associations should be supporting our efforts to market our animals online. So, it was disappointing to learn that ADGA was not interested in this option. To be fair, for it to be considered, it would need to go through an intensive bureaucratic process. 

Q: If you have a livestock operation, has the change hindered your business?

It has required adjustments, but in the long-term I don't think that it will hinder my business. John F. Kennedy once said, “When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” After the dust settles, I’ve always believed that crises in business can present an opportunity to reorganize and renew an organization. The Facebook groups were an easy way to market goats, but by focusing on them I was not paying attention to other possibilities. I’m excited to see how this next chapter in my business develops.