The impact of a Facebook on the equestrian industry is massive.
It’s evident by the number of active Facebook groups there are, along with how many members and posts there are in each.
Yet what does it take to run one and more importantly - what insights can you gain about the equestrian industry by running a regional equestrian group?
Shawna Mills is the admin of the Facebook group Southern New Hampshire Equestrians, a group with more than seven thousand active members.
In this episode, we discuss:
🐴 This episode is brought to you by Pegasus, the first modern event management system that makes it easy to host and run equestrian events. Sign up for early access at www.thepegasus.app.
Be sure to follow Pegasus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and subscribe to The Oxer, the #1 weekly newsletter for global equestrian industry happenings. 🗞️
The impact of a Facebook on the equestrian industry is massive.
It’s evident by the number of active Facebook groups there are, along with how many members and posts there are in each.
Yet what does it take to run one and more importantly - what insights can you gain about the equestrian industry by running a regional equestrian group?
Shawna Mills is the admin of the Facebook group Southern New Hampshire Equestrians, a group with more than seven thousand active members.
In this episode, we discuss:
🐴 This episode is brought to you by Pegasus, the first modern event management system that makes it easy to host and run equestrian events. Sign up for early access at www.thepegasus.app.
Be sure to follow Pegasus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and subscribe to The Oxer, the #1 weekly newsletter for global equestrian industry happenings. 🗞️
There's a situation right now where there was a bunch of horses just seized out of a barn in Vermont and the entire community has come together in arms like, okay, these horses are at this rescue, what do they need? What can we send down to them? What can we do as a community to help support the people that are now taking care of these horses that were taken away from abuse and neglect? Hi everyone, my name is Noah Levy and I'm the producer of our Pegasus podcast, hosted by our founders Sam Baines and Jed Tankle, on today's episode we are hosting Shana Mills, who's the main admin for the Southern New Hampshire equestrian's Facebook group, which has all the over 7,000 members.
Speaker 2:We talk about the unique challenges she faces as an admin, from protecting group members from spam to getting the group together in person for important causes. This episode is particularly important for the people that are taking care of these horses. So, to kick us off, do you just want to tell the audience who you are and what your group is and how you came to be the administrator?
Speaker 1:I had joined a couple different groups that were very singular, town-based, and I just wanted to have a space that was more inclusive to where I was and where a group of us were in Cheshire County and we didn't really feel like we had anywhere specifically for our. So did you start the group yourself? I solely ran it by myself until very recently. I think it was last year when my regular account got disabled because Facebook decided, while on the law hospital Wi-Fi, that I was a scammer shut my account down completely locked me out of it.
Speaker 1:I still can't get into it. I made the decision to add some more administrators so that I wouldn't lose the group. Oh no, so you said you're a hospital Wi-Fi. Yeah, I was in the hospital getting ready to have my baby when I got kicked out of my account because I was using the hospital Wi-Fi and, for whatever reason, facebook determined that was a threat and shut my account down for cyber-terrorism. Oh my God.
Speaker 4:That's a really good point, because I remember a time when people were really freaking out about selling horses through Facebook and they had to switch to the carrots and the cryptic ways to be able to display their pricing, because that goes against Facebook's rules of being able to sell quote unquote livestock on their platforms. So has that impacted your group as well the whole horse sales and being at the mercy of Facebook's really strict livestock selling rules?
Speaker 1:Most of the groups haven't been pinged yet so far. In southern New Hampshire or pleasant, but mass horse people. We can't do any kind of sales on there unless you do it from an outside source, like Equine Now, dream Horse Sales Paddock, like YouTube. So it has to be an external advertisement that you copy the link to and you can post that on Facebook. But you can't just make a Facebook post and say 3,500, whatever, and if you do that they come after you for it. But so far southern New Hampshire has not been slammed with that yet.
Speaker 3:Right, well, that's a good thing.
Speaker 1:Fingers crossed, it's only a matter of time. Now it's going to happen.
Speaker 4:Well, people still do it. I see it all the time on various Facebook groups where they're still posting the carrots and whatnot. Maybe that's just the standard loophole, and what I mean by carrots it's instead of displaying the price, it'll be two carrots, three carrots.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a challenge for the question in space because so much of the audience that your potential buyers are on Facebook. But if you run your entire group, as you said, you ran your group on Facebook and your account was closed and you couldn't risk losing your group. Or if you run your business on Facebook and all your clients that are part of the members who subscribed to your group, etc. And you get locked out of your account and you can lose your entire business overnight.
Speaker 1:It actually happened to my business page. I lost my entire business page. The pages no longer existed. Facebook still needed it, along with my account. I lost all my followers. I lost everything and I've had to start over, and in starting over, because I lost Facebook, instagram, everything that was attached to that Facebook page that they determined was a threat I had to start completely over and none of them have bounced back the way that they did before.
Speaker 3:Right, and this was all because you use the Wi-Fi in the hospital. Yep, yeah, that's the problem with Facebook there's no customer service number.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the appeal went completely unacknowledged for a full year and then they decided that it had been too long and completely shut it down. So I can't even request another hearing. I can't do anything about it.
Speaker 4:Do you know if this has happened to other admins or just other equestrian businesses that are on our second?
Speaker 1:and third accounts.
Speaker 4:Wow, I mean you're so at the mercy of Facebook. I mean, I know that the horse sale post was at least a trending issue. It sounds like it's still ongoing, but people have been able to manage it. But with that, it's just your post gets taken down. This to your point. You've got probably thousands of followers that are suddenly disrupted. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:We have to get them all back. So to basically mitigate that risk going forward, you cleverly went out and got some admins to basically help run the group with you. How did you find and recruit that help?
Speaker 1:They are all personal friends.
Speaker 3:Right Got you. So first thing I want to ask is considering you are in the position where you can see everything that happens in the group. If you have to try and explain the demographics of your group, in terms of who they are, what their situation is, how would you describe your membership?
Speaker 1:We have trainers, we have borders, we have people who just hate lessons. We have people that used to be into the horse world and have retired out of it but still follow. We have business owners, we have the service providers. It's just a very wide range of people and we all just have one common interest and it's just our little bubble at the bottom of New Hampshire.
Speaker 3:And would you say that there is one subgroup of that group that are the most active? Do you find that it is the general providers and bar owners. Right Got you. And why are they the most active? Is because they're actively trying to engage and get customers within the group? Or is it a case of just because it's their profession? Is what they do every day. They just end up being on it more often.
Speaker 1:Because we're trying to advertise, we're trying to bring new business in, we're trying to bring who we are out into the community. It's just a lot of. I have this business and I want to share it with you, and this is a perfect place for me to share it, because we all have likewise similar interests.
Speaker 4:My extended family. They're in Northern Massachusetts. I know Hamilton area is a big equestrian scene and New Hampshire is just just a little bit north of that, so is it pretty similar to Massachusetts or is it? The New Hampshire writing scene is a completely different crowd to completely different kinds of disciplines to be seen. Paint the landscape of what it's like to be in the equestrian industry in the area that you're in.
Speaker 1:We're pretty diverse. We have a mix of dressage riders, we have our gamers, the people that do barrel racing, pole bending, we have English Western pleasure. So I mean we're almost like a Heinz 50. Depending on which corner of the state that you're in, you might see more trends of hunter jumpers. On the sea coast You'll see a little bit more dressage midway through the state. It's really kind of interesting to see that New Hampshire as a whole doesn't really stick to one thing. We're all very diverse.
Speaker 4:So I'm going to go back to the New Hampshire and how do you get into it? For those that are just listening and they can't see it but John Stark equestrian team and twin bridge stable, so what are those two?
Speaker 1:So I manage twin bridge stables and the barn owner and main instructor, lisa. She runs the John Stark equestrian team and that's a high school team. They meet three times in three months and then, if they qualify for states, they go to states and it's just, it's high school kids that are able to show together as a school. It's an opportunity for them to show where a lot of them don't have that opportunity otherwise.
Speaker 4:Oh, no kidding. So is that associated with just that high school, or is it a circuit that runs across various high schools in the area?
Speaker 1:It's just the John Stark district, which I believe is and don't quote me on it Kenecker where, and I think one more other one that's escaping me.
Speaker 4:Is it similar to the intercollegiate type of circuit, but it just applies in this John Stark circle.
Speaker 1:It's only spaced off of the school. If you go to John Stark high school, middle school, you qualify for John Stark equestrian team, Whereas with IEA you have this very wide range that you can join in with.
Speaker 3:Out of interest. I mean, as one of the benefits of being the admin, are you able to promote your businesses or your opportunities and your stables within the group? For, as the admins do, you guys try to take a very hands off approach and not do that sort of thing, for lack of a better term.
Speaker 1:We still advertise our own businesses on there. We won't pin one of our own posts usually unless it's something really important that we're trying to fill, or you know, we try not to take the fact that we're an administrator to a point of okay, so we're just going to advertise and not let anybody else.
Speaker 3:So you four admins together, you guys get together and you have good principal discussions about what is the best thing for the group, how do we run this group, etc.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have a group chat and if there's something that looks kind of funny in the pending post queue, we'll shoot that off and say, hey, I'm not sure about this one. When you think about it, we've got a problem. What do we want to do about it?
Speaker 4:How often do those types of discussions occur? Is this a daily thing where you're talking to the other admins, or it happens to me once a week, once a month?
Speaker 1:For Southern New Hampshire question. We don't really have that problem very often. I'm still the more active one out of the four, but everyone just jumps on when they can. So far we haven't really had to use our group chat, but other groups that I had been on it's almost daily sometimes, but those groups are much, much bigger as well.
Speaker 4:What are some of the issues that would require someone jumping on daily? Is that they're just promoting too much and they're becoming spammy? Or it's people that shouldn't even be in that group to begin with because they have nothing to do with the equestrian industry? Or is it something more? I don't know?
Speaker 1:Spam and scam posts, suspicious members that we've realized. You know their profile looked legit, but now that they're actually posting and submitting posts they look kind of scammy or conflicts. People not getting along with each other in the comments, people just taking the opportunity to just kind of be a troll and just be rude because they're on the internet and not face to face. Sometimes we'll just pop in and just say, hey, I'm not sure about this one.
Speaker 4:Well, speaking of, because now it seems like it's easier than ever to be anonymous and bully or just say things that you wouldn't necessarily say in person or even connected to your profile. But now that they've introduced this anonymous posting mode, people truly can come across as anonymous and they can say whatever they want without any repercussion. So have you seen an increase in those types of posts in your group?
Speaker 1:In my group, yes, but generally in my group there's very few that I've had to deny and in the other groups we actually had to shut it off completely because they were using it for things as stupid as oh, I'm looking for a lease, or I'm looking for wooden fencing, like stupid things, that like really, why are you posting anonymous about that? That's a little ridiculous. Now.
Speaker 4:Why do you think they are? That is peculiar.
Speaker 1:And when I said that we were going to shut it off, I actually had people messaging me, mad at me, because how dare I abuse my power like that and censor them? And I'm, like you, do, realize Facebook's not real life, first of all. Second of all, this is my group. I get to run it. However, I want, like, not to make that sound like it's a power trip, but it's a matter of this is my group. It was here before you and it's going to be here after you. Nothing that you were going to say or do to me is not going to sway me, unless I genuinely believe that way.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And also I mean, yes, it is your group, but it sounds like between you and the other three administrators you're running in the best interest of all, which is the community, and you're not going to just accept bad practices to satiate one individual who has an opinion of how things should be done.
Speaker 4:Well, and also Facebook is a design to be this anonymous community. That's what Reddit is for.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So if you want to just have a random username without any association with your identity, then just go on Reddit and post that question. But the whole point of having the profile picture and your information and way into school is to just give that person a little bit more credibility that they aren't just some bot.
Speaker 3:So, in doing all this and you mentioned a few times different groups that you've been part of or you've been privy to the administration of, how much work do you, as the four admins, have to put in to maintain this group and keep it a great environment?
Speaker 1:It's basically a full time job where we don't ever get a break.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:You're kidding. It's relentless. I get messages at all hours of the night. Thankfully, most of them are filtered so they don't Ding in the middle of the night, but it does periodically happen, if I have enough mutual friends with them, that it'll go straight through my regular inbox and it'll be something as stupid as why has my post not been up, been approved in two days, or why has my post been declined, even though there's a little feedback button on the bottom that tells you exactly why we declined it? And then they fight with you when you tell them why expect better from New Hampshire folks.
Speaker 1:Generally, people are very like. This is what I'm thinking. There's no business hours when it's all on Facebook. Facebook never shuts down, it never closes like a business, so people don't think in their heads. Oh, you know, I have the access to message her right now, 3 am Probably isn't the best time to ask her why my post hasn't been updated in two days and how many members do you have in your group? Honestly, I haven't even looked.
Speaker 3:I've got it right here in front of me. I could tell you got seven point four thousand members.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's all right.
Speaker 3:I mean that's quite amazing. I raise that question about how much at work it is is because of the fact that people only see what you do Publicly in the group and then they only see their individual experience with you. But what most people don't really appreciate is that you and the other three admins are basically Working for free, full-time to try and keep this group to be a productive and courteous place. That's something that the group members I think really should appreciate and value because, as Jen mentioned reddit I mean, reddit has moderators and they're famously going through a problem right now but when you have these online groups and there's no administration and no moderator, they quickly turn to absolute chaos.
Speaker 1:Anonymous always brings up the worst in everyone. It is always a complete steaming Dumpster fire.
Speaker 4:So, besides the anonymous posting and spam and whatnot, have there been any other challenges with running the group?
Speaker 1:Really, for the most part, we take 10 minutes out of whatever time we've got.
Speaker 3:We'll run through, we'll deal with everything and then we're off to the next thing doing whatever with our day the work associated with running the group aside, what have you learned about the equestrian industry at large, or at least the equestrian industry in New Hampshire, that you didn't know prior to running this group, because you are in a fortunate position where you see everything? Is there anything that comes to mind that you've learned about the equestrian space that you didn't otherwise know and you don't think most people Would have the opportunity to learn because they don't sit in this position where they overlook an entire Population of people interacting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you block the admin, we can still see everything you're doing.
Speaker 4:Really okay. So they, as a member, have the ability to block you, but personally, but because they're a member of your group, I can still see them. And can you still see their profile as well?
Speaker 1:No, I can't see their profile. So, as an admin, if you're on the main page itself, if you click their name, it'll show their little it's not their commerce profile, but same idea, like they give you this little preview, like all the posts that they put in the group, all the comments they put in the group, any disciplinary action you put on them, how many posts they've submitted, how many were declined kind of a stupid random Information right there. But if I were to look at the profile itself, it would not let me ride got you, so that's what you can see them physically doing.
Speaker 3:But is there anything you've learned about the industry at large? Have you noticed that there's more and more businesses, for example, that aren't in the equestrian space directly, that are trying to sell their products in your group? Or have you noticed that trainers, for example, may have been coming more and more active because business is getting harder?
Speaker 4:or A question, events or something.
Speaker 3:Oh, they're more a question, events popping up. Is there anything you've noticed about the industry at large from being at this vantage point of being the administrator of Seven-and-a-half thousand people interacting with each other?
Speaker 1:that trainers don't get paid enough. First of all, we're having to work harder, we're having to grind harder, we're advertising ourselves. More the same with the service providers. For a perfect example, all of the PEMF practitioners like I am. It is such a saturated market that Everybody is just packing in on top of each other trying to match our prices. And there's just so many of us that if you're looking to do it as a business, it's just not possible. And that's something that you kind of see, whether it's PEMF or chiropractor or massage or Even training and boarding, jess, there's so many options that sometimes you can't guarantee that you're gonna get one client, but you're still have work just as hard at it.
Speaker 4:So you have a lot of supply. Is that specifically in this region that you're in, or are you finding that to be the case across the United States?
Speaker 1:I'm not sure about out west. A friend of mine in Texas said it's basically the same thing, but I've noticed it particularly in New England, not just New Hampshire. There'll be something that gets super popular. They watch PEMF really start coming out. I think it was five or six years ago it was about 2018-19 Somewhere around there and you saw one, and then five more would crop up the next day with machines.
Speaker 4:Wow, okay. So I haven't actually used that. Why don't currently have my own horse? And when I did, it was several years ago in PEMF. It just wasn't a thing. So, to your point it, there was definitely a time when it started to creep up and get more and more popular and seem to be prolific everywhere. So for people that are like yourself, who do this as a job, how do you get into that? Do you have, essentially, a licensing fee from the Companies that make them and then you're able to use those products and then go to different horses and sell your services as an individual? Or is it a franchising thing? How does that business work?
Speaker 1:So my particular situation. A friend of mine had one. She gave me a really great price on it so I bought it from her, but she purchased it from the parent company itself. And that's where PEMF can get kind of dangerous, because anybody could just go get a machine, say they're a practitioner and do none of the schooling. I did 10 hours of classroom online training with a OPP it's the Association of PEMF practitioners. You could do it through MagnaWib or you could do it through a OPP. I did it through a OPP only just on the fact that it was a hundred dollars versus five hundred dollars, and I have that support to log back into the parent site and go back through my classroom material, or if I need to research something or if a particular Situation has arisen, I can then log into and do the research and find the answer myself.
Speaker 4:Okay, so you have to essentially buy that equipment first. It's not like you're leasing this equipment from someone, it's. You have the ability to purchase it from certain manufacturers. It sounds like there's two popular ones, maybe there's more you buy it and then from there you have the ability to Market yourself as a professional Hopefully you are indeed one and then you are responsible for going out and getting your own clients and then performing the PEMF on. You know your clients horses, is that right?
Speaker 1:So they call that the certification. That's what you pay for. You pay for the certification, you do the classroom time and then from then on you're good to go as far as they're concerned. But a lot of people don't even do the classwork. So there are non-certified practitioners out there doing this and that can be really scary because if you use this machine wrong you can seriously injure a horse.
Speaker 4:Oh for sure. How are they able to do that? I mean, I guess the manufacturer is incentivized just to sell them, but it's a liability for them to not properly understand how to use the equipment. So is it one where they have to declare that they're not certified when they are practicing on a horse?
Speaker 1:So I don't actually know what the regulations with it is. I just know from the website that the parent company won't endorse you. They will not add you to their list of certified practitioners.
Speaker 3:Basically, you don't exist to them until you do right, you use PEMF as an example of it came onto the scene and then everyone basically went out and bought the machine and started selling their services. That's one example. Do you think this is a symptom of more the fact that it was gold rush it was just a hype cycle, everyone was excited to do it or is it more a symptom of the fact that a lot of people in the equestrian industry aren't making enough money doing what they're doing, so they're looking for anything else they can do to make money?
Speaker 1:I mean it really is both Right levels of aspect. But yeah it it really hit hard as a trend because we as practitioners saw it as a way to enhance our already very limited income.
Speaker 3:Right got you and the limited income. You said that there's just too much supply of your guys services. Do you think there's too much supply because more and more people, unless but up in New England, have been getting into the, the equestrian career? Or is it a case of the amount of riders who just Participate in equestrian experiences? Are they dropping off at? But they're dropping off, so there's less demand for the supply.
Speaker 1:That's actually a good question. I would say there's definitely supply. There's tons of supply. There's always somebody looking to do it. It is a great machine. It does beautiful things. I have a current client. I see him every week, sometimes twice a week, when he has an acute injury, and his owner and myself also remark at how incredibly more free he is since we started this, and now he's starting to get back into riding again after almost I think almost a year of being completely lame. The demand is there. There's just so many different people that are doing it that it's hard to, as well practitioner, have more than, say, one or two clients at a time.
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Speaker 3:That's P-E-M-F. But what about in the bigger picture, in terms of training services, boarding services, etc. You said that everyone's basically there's just a lot of overlap and everyone's desperate to try and compete for the limited amount of business. Is that limited amount of business because there's too many boarders, trainers, etc. Or is that a limited amount of business from your perspective because there's a drop in the amount of people looking for training, who are looking for boarding?
Speaker 1:I did notice that, as far as that front goes, that there is a lack of ability to keep and maintain a horse in the current economic crisis. Feed's going up, tax going up, travel's going up. People aren't traveling for clinics as much anymore. We're having to charge an overhead to try to get back what we're missing If everyone's starting to drop off slowly. Now that COVID is kind of I don't want to say it's going away, but it's waning down from what it started out, as in the beginning. With that, we're all finding that we are incredibly broke and can't afford all the extras that we're accustomed to through the last three years.
Speaker 3:Would you say that basically, covid brought a huge influx and then a lot of the equestrian businesses in your area and your group maybe overextended themselves, bought a bunch of staff, increased their staff etc. To account for that influx of business. Now that it's returning to pre-COVID levels you haven't got the same income to pay for all the expansion you guys have made.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, I would say that.
Speaker 3:Is it dropping below pre-COVID levels or is it back to what it was around before COVID?
Speaker 1:We still have as many lessons as ever. I don't have a lot of sail horses because no one's really buying right now. I used to be able to sell a draft horse for $10,000 in about 10, 15 minutes. It's months, two or three on one. I'm listing and I'm starting to notice how it's starting to get a little difficult now. Wow, yeah, I remember that you could have a gosh dead broke beginner safe trail horse that was 15 years old for 1,500 in 2020.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:After that you're lucky, you can touch that for less than five.
Speaker 3:So what happened? I mean, people have returned to work, but people haven't returned to work in the same way they were working before. A lot of people are working from home now. Do you believe that this drop-off is people returning to work or is this drop-off? Everyone got excited to get back into equestrian sports and then realized they didn't like it as much as they thought they did.
Speaker 1:It is a little bit like that, but also the financial aspect of it.
Speaker 1:I really had to raise less in cost to offset the cost of hay rising because we're in a pretty terrible drought right now. Well, it's either drought or it's raining too much and they can't cut it. So we're going through a situation there where we're now trucking hay in from Canada and that doesn't cost $100 a bale anymore. Now you're looking at almost 200, 250. You can't touch a small bale of first cut hay for less than $12 right now. 12 is cheap.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right. And so for you guys, in order to make the economics of your business work, you find yourself passing those costs, increasing the cost to your clients to basically be able to afford this, and you think that, generally speaking, those increases the cost of making the people who were participating in it. They were kind of one foot in, one foot out. Now they're just choosing to opt it out because it's just got a little bit too expensive for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have noticed that as well.
Speaker 4:So then, what's happening to the horses If people are taking their step back? I mean, they've bought these horses. Presumably they've bought the equipment, everything else that comes with having a horse. So are the ones that are finding themselves a bit priced out? Do they just sell their horses and walk away from it again? Or what's happening to them and the horse?
Speaker 1:We're seeing horses being sold off. They're going to auction. They're dispersing at a large level. From what I've noticed, there's a lot of sales going on right now.
Speaker 3:I'm seeing a lot of price dropping everywhere Right, and in your Facebook group, let's say, the trainers in your group. Have you noticed that you've seen trainers in your group who recently bought a horse and are now putting it up for sale? Have you noticed that churn and you can see the same kind of horses coming back, recycling back through the group as that sort of thing happens?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do see that happen a lot. Or they'll say grab this one as a project horse, but I no longer have the time for it.
Speaker 4:Sounds like it's a scary time for horses, but if someone is in the market and they do have the ability to afford riding right now, then they can probably get themselves a really great horse at a much better rate than they would have, say, gotten in 2020, 2021.
Speaker 3:Out of interest? Do you speak or are you friends with anyone who's an administrator for other Facebook groups?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm on four or five different groups that I administrate as a co-administrator, where I don't own those pages, but I'm an administrator.
Speaker 3:Right, and are you noticing that what we've been talking about so far is relatively consistent between the groups, or do you find that it fluctuates quite differently?
Speaker 1:No, it's pretty widespread right across the board about. We're all dealing with the same exact issues. Although the bigger groups you have a lot more drama to deal with and sort through too. Mine's relatively small, so there's hardly any drama at all.
Speaker 4:What are the other Facebook groups that you're an admin of?
Speaker 1:Massachusetts Horse People, horses Tech and other equipment in New Hampshire and Mass Jack Morgan Enthusiasts the Purebred Morab Association. I'm the secretary on that board but there's also a Facebook group that because I'm on the board, I'm also a co-administrator.
Speaker 4:So because there are. I mean, it's amazing. I was telling someone yesterday about this who he didn't know anything about the equestrian industries. We were just telling them about the company and what we're doing and all this stuff and he couldn't believe how big the equestrian industry is. And I was like, look in your free time, just Google equestrian or horse, just type it equestrian or horse and then you'll see all of the hundreds and thousands of Facebook groups that exist for horse, this horse, that, and even saddles. There's hundreds of different saddle groups and each group are up to. I don't know what the largest one in existence is, but I've certainly seen over a hundred thousand members in some of these groups. Like, it's quite significant Knowing that you are involved in all these different things and a lot of the conversations are a bit the same. Do you think that there are too many Facebook groups that exist or do they all have a place?
Speaker 1:Yes and no. I mean there's some groups that's like that really needed to be a group, but there's members on it, so I guess it's working. They all have a specific purpose and they all just work that way.
Speaker 3:You said, the big groups have a lot more drama in them.
Speaker 1:Why does a?
Speaker 3:bigger group have drama.
Speaker 1:They all have drama, but it's just the nature of the beast. Nobody can just get along and just stay that way. There's always somebody that's going to be mad about something. But there's bar owner bewares, border bewares. This jerk did something else to another jerk. They're both jerks. Next on five o'clock news, there's always somebody upset about something, because there's usually always somebody that is a bit of a trouble starter or a troll that will just kind of pulse the bear and see who wants to fight.
Speaker 4:I wonder if there's a science behind it where, when this Facebook group gets to be over this size, predictably there's going to be more problems. There's got to be a number. I don't know. Maybe it's over $10,000 or something, because it sounds like your New Hampshire group is lovely and there's not as much problematic behavior, but the other ones where there's still problematic behavior.
Speaker 1:But I have noticed that where we have 7,000 mass horse people deals with it almost every day. But I don't know if that's also because some people are just more spicy than others or if it's just a lack of order. I guess Because it's not from the lack of us trying. So I've got to set it down as soon as we see it. But if we don't see it right away and somebody lets us know, then sometimes it could have done better. But no one's ever happy. Somebody's always going to be upset.
Speaker 3:In some ways, you guys as the administrators, you're the tax man, so do you find that the admins probably get an outsized level of hate from the group members?
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. I've got several people that I've blocked out of my life because of things that they've done and said about me, and they will go on and on and on about how awful I am and how every group that's run by me is terrible. Because I blocked them, because they were doing something awful to me and I said, all right, I've given you plenty of chances, I'm done.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, nice. So that's the bad stuff. What is the great stuff about running the group? What do you love about it and what are some of the really positive things that you observed being an administrator for a Facebook group? About the groups and how they who act towards one another and how they help each other out.
Speaker 1:It's just a sense of community, because I've been able to build a business from this as the manager of TwinBridge. They've allowed me to just to run my own program out of it. So with the group I've been able to really grow and expand myself and I haven't been able to do even close to any of the stuff that I can do now without having to utilize those kinds of groups. And it's a great resource if you use it correctly.
Speaker 3:So that's the great experience that you've had. Is there anything else you've noticed about the members themselves, about how they are interacting, help one another? Would you say that, ultimately, the community is majoritvly helpful and supportive of one another?
Speaker 1:I would absolutely say so, because there's a situation right now where there was a bunch of horses just seized out of a barn in Vermont and the entire community has come together in arms. Okay, these horses are at this rescue. What do they need? What can we send down to them? What can we do as a community to help support the people that are now taking care of these horses that were taken away from abuse and neglect? And that's something that I see a lot is everyone comes together to help solve big problems like that.
Speaker 3:Right Out of interest, would you say that you more commonly see that proactive behavior from the people in the groups that you administer that are equestrian professionals, as opposed to people who just have horses and are members of the group?
Speaker 1:Definitely see a lot more professionals doing it. But it's kind of hard to say Certain topics bring more help for other things.
Speaker 3:What's an example of that? When you say topics, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1:There was one instance of a trainer that had gone public for things that were being done to her at a specific facility and once it came out because that person could not defend themselves legally because it was in the court already but because the work had gotten out anyway. People just from a low level, so they're not professionals, they're not trainers, they're not owners, managers or anything like that. They're just your regular border or just somebody that just rides and they're like what can we do to support this trainer? So I see it on both aspects there, where I'll see a trainer say this border needs help, what needs to happen to make this problem stop happening. Owners that goes through, let's say, medical problems like cancer and stuff like that, where they are looking at having to sell their horses, I see a lot of trainers step up and say, hey, I'm willing to help you out. I have a stall I'm not using. If you need a break, let's put them here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 4:And how long have you been working on this Facebook group?
Speaker 1:I think I created it in 2014. I think I was somewhere around 1617 then.
Speaker 4:Oh, wow, so it takes a lot of time. And Grana, there were some issues with the Wi-Fi and Facebook, but was it one where, as soon as you created it, people just flocked to it, or did certain events draw more people? What has been the overall growth trends with your group?
Speaker 1:It's kind of funny, but sometimes it's those dramatic posts or what ultimately brings people in because they all want to read it. Because most of these Facebook groups are now closed because we have so many scammers spammers where if you have a public group you are going to get an undated more with these fake accounts than if you change the group, turn it private, you don't have to join that group, but it also stops a lot of those scammers right in the tracks. There is something going on. Somebody will send a screenshot out and then everybody's joining the group because they want to read what's going on. Oh, interesting.
Speaker 4:So you can have a post, essentially get traffic if they've shared it outside of it, and then if people want to view it, then they go to your page, they go to your group, but they have to go through the process. Okay, gotcha, and yeah, with scammers. I mean, I'm sure you've noticed this, even just on Facebook Marketplace, we were trying to sell something and it was unbelievable the amount of scammers that were, and it was weird because I was the one who was selling it and yet they were all trying to get my email address and get my phone number. And then you started to realize the trends. But there were so many and this was just selling a table. So have you found that you've had to deal with a lot of this type of stuff, not only in the group but outside of it as well, with anything that you're selling in the equestrian space on Facebook?
Speaker 1:Yep, we see it for horse training and boarding and sometimes even sale horses. I'm very well versed in it because I'm so prolific online. I've seen it all, so I can recognize a lot of these because most of them it is the exact same story every single time, but it's a different scam account. One particular instance was I had this lady. She messaged me looking for boarding. She said I need to move my horse. I'm going to send you a check, for I think it was two months, and then there was something I had to send back to them and I was like wait a minute, like no, that's not how that works. You pay your board and then you move your horse in.
Speaker 4:Oh, it's interesting. Do you think that that is a scammer bot of sorts that's overseas, or do you think that that's someone here in the States who's actually trying to scam you? Because I think with my instance they had broken English. They would send screenshots of Venmo that I knew didn't exist 98% is overseas.
Speaker 3:I never would have thought. I mean, I don't know why I wouldn't have thought this, but with the couch, for example, that makes sense because it's a very generic situation A home and selling a couch, you scam them. But to go as far as to conducting an equestrian scam that is tailored to a very specific thing, such as understanding what boarding bonds are, how the conversation being related to I'm going to send you a check for the first two months that's people who have actively decided that equestrians are a target for scamming, as opposed to just seeing an ad on Facebook Marketplace. Who could be? Anyone with no context. I didn't realize. I had no idea there was such a prolific issue with people trying to scam equestrians with the specific scam.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it is a concept, because cameras think, because we have horses, that we have money.
Speaker 4:Well, so what's that, though? But you still think that most of them are overseas. You don't think that there are people here that are just trying to take advantage?
Speaker 1:There are obviously some within our country that do it, but generally, yes, it's Nigerians, it's Haitians, it's Russians, it's Indians, it's Pakistanis, and I'm not meaning that to sound racist, but you know, a lot of the time you can tell that they've used Google Translate because it is very poor English or they're using the wrong terms, or just the way that they talk to you. You can usually tell. And then a lot of the times, all you have to do is they're starting to get smart on this now. But if you go to their profile and you look at the friends group, you can usually tell what origin of the scam based on who they have in their friends list, because sometimes I'll see a name and it'll be like Jennifer, megan or something. It's almost always two first names.
Speaker 1:And I'll go to the profile and there'll be a couple of legit American looking friends on their page and a lot of the time it's because they're also fake profiles or they've managed to seal the information via the. You get an email that says oh Facebook, I need you to verify this. You log in on a fake login page and, well, now that got your account, so they bump you out of it, they steal it and then they steal some of your friends, but then they add a bunch of their own friends and when you look at that, you can actually see oh okay, this person isn't legit, because I can't even pronounce 18 of their friends Facebook names. They're using Messenger without Facebook. That's another really common one. They message you through.
Speaker 3:Instagram.
Speaker 4:Interesting. Yeah, yeah, I've seen a lot of those too, actually on Instagram. But at least there are the warning signs that if you just are a little bit attuned then you can prevent yourself from falling for one. But I'm just more shocked at the quantity of the scammers. I don't think they're that sophisticated per se, although I almost did remember, almost fell for the first one. So it was a table and it's this nice table and I had someone messaging me and the English was actually fine, but they were trying to overpay by a lot.
Speaker 1:And that's one of the things like I'll pay you this much more if you just give it to me, yeah.
Speaker 4:And I had an interesting that at the same time someone else was saying that they wanted the table and they were like don't message the other person. And then I was thinking about it. I'm like how would this person know I'm messaging another person? So it was clearly the same person doing this bidding war, trying to bring it up. But I was more just surprised because I was the seller, like I said, out of interest.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's one of the major benefits of having a really good group administrator is I imagine you work really really hard to protect the group from that as much as possible.
Speaker 1:Yep, and that is one of the reasons why it is absolutely a full time job. And if you're not prepared to do it, don't sign up as an administrator, because it's a lot. You think you catch them all and then they'll be one or two that'll sneak in because they, they have full profiles and they they'll look completely legit and then you'll find out as soon as they post something that they're a scammer.
Speaker 3:Do you ever have members of the group come to you and request your help with dealing with something like this?
Speaker 1:Yep, we'll get messages that there's real people that are not shipping things out or they've gone silent or something is going on there where it's a real person. They may not be trying to scam them, but there's definitely something going on. So I'll have to intervene and check in on both sides. And then there's people that will message me and say, hey, this is definitely a scam and I'll look at it. Yeah, yep, you're right, it's a scam.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. It's just another example of, I would say, 99.99% of people who exist in a Facebook group an active Facebook group that they have no comprehension of the amount of work that the admins put in without any real reward.
Speaker 4:It's your community and you want to maintain the integrity of it. And I suppose the benefits, if you will, of doing all of this work is because you then have a really great lead generator, so for other businesses you're able to. I mean, is that a fair statement? It's worth doing because, one, you're part of the community but two, it also can kind of help indirectly or directly with sales.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's worth it, but sometimes I just literally just make the message go away and go. It's not my problem today, because if I don't, I'm on it all day dealing with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Well, that's been, that's been very fascinating. Thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's really interesting. It makes me happy. Yeah, this has been neat. Where could people find you and enjoying your group and learn more about your businesses?
Speaker 1:So I just kind of tell everyone, one ton horsemanship on Facebook is a pretty good base level of where to catch up with me. But I have Instagram, I have TikTok. My user names are all the same as one ton Morgan. I'm always available and always got something cool coming out Awesome.
Speaker 3:Fantastic. Well, thank you very much, tony, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate you guys having me out. This has been great.
Speaker 3:Awesome, take care, have a great week.
Speaker 1:Thanks to you as well, bye, bye.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening to the latest episode of the Pegasus podcast. As you heard from our mid role, we are also releasing an equestrian event management software platform. Now it's easier than ever to host, sign up and sponsor for any equestrian event in the world, thanks to all the features of the Pegasus app. To sign up, go to our homepage at wwwthepegasusapp. That is wwwthepegasusapp. See you next time.