They’re actually removing the groups
Wow, they are just deleting them without warning? POOF?
I get Facebook posts from Quarter Horse and Appaloosa Horse for Sale groups. Those people seem to have the most problems with their sale pages. I can see why. They are obsessed with breeding, especially the Appaloosa people. Ad after ad after ad for weanlings, yearlings, unbroke young horses, stallions, broodmares.
And the language in the ads! “Need gone”. “Need to make room for next years crop” Yes, they call them “crops”.
You know what? I report those ads all the time. And before you hate me, I also donate to rescues. But the breeding thing has got to stop. The AQHA and ApHA are literally “breeder’s” associations. I went to the ApHA World Show once. Part of the event is an auction. The kill buyers are there for the ones that don’t sell. Breeders take the yearlings they didn’t sell, the old broodmares, whatever. One minute it’s in a sale barn, with a sign touting all its parentage, the next minute, it’s on the way to Mexico in the most inhumane conditions to meet a cruel death.
I live in Texas. I also get the kill pen posts. Heartbreaking. There are all those horses now.
My wish is that social media such as Facebook would discriminate between sales of riding horses and breeder sales. Allowing breeder sales on Facebook is bad policy and too easily absused. Don’t get me started on puppy sales. Same thing as baby horses. Everyone wants a puppy or foal, then they don’t want it when it’s grown… If you’re a breeder and have to sell on Facebook, you need another gig.
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I can not stomach the kill pen posts or the posts on facebook about abuse to dogs that pop up. I have to look away as it disturbs me so. I didn’t even know that people in Mexico eat horses. I could not imagine.I do not know much about the AQHA and ApHA but from what little I do know they do not treat their animals very well.
How is Facebook to know how to differentiate between the sales groups though? They can not. I didn’t realize the problems that were out there, as it is not in the h/j world I am in. Very sad. Heartbreaking.
Let me correct myself, the h/j world has a set of problems all their own.
It seems to be working if you list your horse on another site and post the link to the listing on the Facebook groups.
Maybe, but to my knowledge there is no way to pay to run a horse ad so if that’s their motivation, they are missing the boat. It’s sort of frustrating how much racist and fake news stuff they allow while cracking down on horse ads. Confusing priorities.
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There is a way to pay to run a horse ad on Facebook. You boost the post and you can pay to advertise.
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I don’t moderate any of the groups. I don’t know if moderators are given notice or not
I recognize those as English words, but I have no idea what that means. Would it show up as an ad the way company ads do? (I get Betabrand, CordaRoy’s, and some non-profits, for example) Or like a Marketplace ad? Because the latter would make sense, but the former would make no sense at all.
I have joined MeWe and already recognize many from Facebook who regularly sell horses. The final straw for me was literally having five horse sales videos disappear from my PM’s right after the seller had sent them and I had asked some questions. It was a really cute horse too but the ad went poof. 😔
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The moderator of one popular group knew Facebook was watching and had marked many ads as having bad content. That was the group where the videos went poof in my PM’s.
Ugh… I don’t even like FB, now you’re telling me I have to sign up for ANOTHER social media platform in addition :(
Read somewhere that tnere is concern too many trying to dump animals or procure them for other then recreational or enjoyment purposes are abusing the free ad platform plus there has been pressure from animal rights groups. Some whacko and some legitimate complaints.
Yes after you post you can BOOST your post for a certain amount of money and a certain amount of timed and it comes up in people’s news feeds that have your same interests.
You have to have a business page to do this. You cannot boost posts from your personal profile.
Since we’re talking about paying Mark Z. more money, here’s a wild idea: Pay any one of the established equine sale sites, most of which have been around as long as & some even longer than facebook. These companies, your fellow biz owners in the equine industry, have invested (heavily) in curating an audience of actual horse shoppers, and built tools so those horse shoppers can filter ads based on actual equine criteria. We run pages on facebook (and insta & twitter & youtube) and already have well-established fan-bases. In my company’s case, we have a great track record with facebook. 20K+ fans that I regularly pay to boost posts to, just like I would pay The Plaid Horse for an ad to reach their audience. Each ad is reviewed & approved by FB, every single one.
No doubt Marketplace will eventually monetize; I’m guessing through Libra, their proposed currency. I imagine that is the major motivation behind cracking down on all the free advertising people were getting, and honestly find some of the uproar to be a bit over-the-top.
BigEq.com
ProEquest.com
Warmblood-Sales.com
ExchangeHunterJumper.com
These are all well-established web sites with loooong histories of selling show quality sport horses. I do think FB was a great gig for entry-level priced horses, but I have rarely found it to be a productive platform for horses in the mid 5 figures and up. Perhaps a lot of ping notifications, not so many signed checks.
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I hate FB (I am on record about that) but the one thing I really like on FB that is missing from all those classified websites is the ability to DM the seller. If people would link their FB page to their classified ad, that would solve the problem. But often the ad is posted by ‘Jane Smith’ and when I go to FB there’s no easy way to figure out which of the hundreds of Jane Smiths are the one with the horse I’m interested in on BigEq. I really like asking questions IN WRITING (I’ve been lied to… quite a bit) which is why I want my initial inquiry asking basic questions of the horse to be in writing. I’ve noticed sellers respond much faster to DMs than emails a lot of the time. Push notification on the phone, likely.
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If our group suddenly went poof it would be a huge loss for the horses. It would take time to re-gain the 6k+ followers we have.
Much as I resent having to add yet more admin time, we’ve started a MeWe page and an Instagram account. Still will take time to build up the audience level though.
It could literally mean the difference between a racehorse finding a private home - or not. We are in year 2 of a hay shortage and most of our horses are sold non-locally.
MeWe has a bit of a learning curve, but I’m hoping it will eventually have the same audience numbers that Facebook does now.
I have had great luck with ExchangeHunterJumper and BigEq over the years. FB was nice while it lasted but those days are over.
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That’s actually super useful information to me at this particular juncture 
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