We’ve been planning this for a while… and we’re thrilled to announce that Folksy Local is now officially LIVE & the groups are ready for you to join!!
The idea behind Folksy Local is to help Folksy shop owners based in the same region find each other, grow their local networks, and hopefully meet up and host in-person events too – whether that’s through local craft fairs, workshops talks or just tea-and-cake catch-ups.
We’d love to hear what you’d like to do with your Folksy Local team. We can’t wait to see how it develops. It’s very exciting!
PS. We’re still looking for extra team captains for the North East and also for Northern Ireland. Let us know if you’re interested and we can tell you more!
Very excited about Folksy Local.
I’m a Team Captain in the East of England, alongside @SashaGarrett, and we’d love Folksy sellers from the East of England - including Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk to join our Facebook group: Facebook Groups
and our Instagram page: Login • Instagram
We can’t wait to ‘meet’ lots of Local sellers!
Helen x
I have sent you an email as I am disappointed that the groups rely so heavily on being in a Facebook group. I choose not to have a facebook account for personal reasons and it feels as though that is an automatic exclusion from taking part if you don’t use Facebook. So not exactly inclusive. There are other platforms that work better for groups such as Discord.
I don’t think its a platform to do business on. I did have a business page and occasionally paid for adverts but you can find yourself spending every waking moment promoting your page and not actually doing your work.
I just know using Facebook really affected my mental health and I am better off without it.
Hi To be honest I agree with you on Facebook (& I’m one of the captains for the NW group!!) One of those necessary evils I think! I see you’re on Instagram - there is now an IG page for the West Mids group (@folksywestmidlands) if you want to give them a follow. It’s all a bit of a work in progress but I expect the groups will be sharing similar content to each platform.
I’m totally the opposite in that I am only joining in because it’s Facebook. Any other platform seems to be geared to those with mobile devices (which excludes us who choose not to have one), they are a nightmare to use from a Mac, even posting on Instagram is a faff I’d like to do without. I have found it best to make sure that Facebook is your slave and not your master.
This is so exciting. I use facebook and instagram on a daily basis and find that most of my sales come from these platforms. Facebook groups are a great way to extend my reach and I’m hoping that a new Folksy one will help. Are there any plans on making the groups public? I find that I reach a more diverse mix of people through a public group.
Hello all! I’m Amanda from @bowerbirddesigns (called bowerbirdjewellery_uk on Instagram) and I’m one of the team captains for the South West team, along with Kat @tulaandthewhale !!
Can someone tell me why we cannot create a post on the Folksy Local pages? The North West pages haven’t been active for 22 weeks and I thought I’d post something but there’s no means to do so.
The folksy local pages are run by (unpaid) volunteers who have been granted admin privileges by Folksy. For some areas the volunteers had to step down and Folksy has been unable to find any one to replace them (not sure if that is the case for the North West region or not). If you would like to become a local captain for the North West region then email support and I’m sure they will let you know all that it entails and grant you admin privileges for the Insta and FB accounts.
Or have you tried creating a post on your own account and tagging the Northwest account so that they can share your post to their feed/ stories? That would be another option if you don’t want to become a local captain.
Yes, exactly how things work will be down to each individual area and the captains.
Each area should have a Facebook group and a Facebook page. I would expect you can post in the local group (as long as you’ve joined) but there may be rules about what sort of content they allow that varies depending on the captains.
Posts made on the public pages will likely have to be made by the captains. Some Facebook pages may have community tabs where it shows posts made by others, but really things posted there rarely get seen by others. They don’t go in news feeds, anyone looking at the page won’t see it unless they specifically look for that section, and with all the changes Facebook constantly makes, the page owners might not always be notified of the posts to approve.
If the area has captains, it’s probably best to post it in the group, and ask if the captains can post the information on the main page.
I was wondering at the logic of not allowing sellers to post on there. Seems pointless. No, I don’t have time to run a facebook page. But if people were allowed to post it might keep the pages alive.
To be honest I agree with you on Facebook (& I’m one of the captains for the NW group!!) One of those necessary evils I think! I see you’re on Instagram - there is now an IG page for the West Mids group (
