Speaker 1: 0:12

All right, well, welcome back to the Vero Beach podcast. This is part two of our interview with Danielle from the Vero Beach neighborhood, and today we're going to be talking about what the day to day looks like. So, danielle, what does the day to day look like here? Is there a process that you kind of flow and go with running a Facebook?

Speaker 2: 0:29

group, I don't know that I would as successful as I have been. I would not recommend this business model because it's I don't say it's like a lightning strike, but the workload, the manual amounts of work. There's less that can be automated with how I have it set up. So I could go back. I may, may have changed a couple of things, but then I think if I went back and changed a couple of things would I be where I am now. So you kind of take the good with the bad. But like a typical day in the life of the VBN lady is up between 4 and 5 am, back on the internet, which I monitor for about two or three-ish hours. Then I go meet Jeff at Christian FM because we have a morning radio program that we do. In between those breaks I am VBNing, I'm answering messages, I'm doing that and he hates that that's too bad. And then, you know, then we kind of hit the ground running again back to VBN, answering tons of messages every day. You know people have hurts and needs and wants and they, you know, are like where do I go? I'm like a walking encyclopedia which you know, for good or bad is great. And then we have the store and so I'm here a few days a week meeting people, having meetings, doing work, working in the store, whatever that looks like, because the store has to keep going. We do have a VBAN radio podcast. It's separate, you know. Like that Jeff and I will work on in our free time and I also have a marketing company so I have to keep that afloat because I have clients who rely on me to market for them. So it definitely is a teeter-totter of a business model, Like if one goes down, everything's going down. I just keep always focusing on the people that we're helping, regardless of what hat I'm wearing that day. I think that's the most important thing. That's kind of what keeps you going. But that's a typical day.

Speaker 2: 2:13

The work on VBN is insane. It's about 4,000 posts a month. It is between 50 and 70,000 comments every month and we do go through every single one of those comments. So if someone says something crazy like you, agree with that, I don't agree with that. But sometimes I'm right there and sometimes it takes me a couple of days to get there because you're only looking singularly at a comment that you don't like. I'm looking in totality at 10,000 other comments between the time that you saw that comment the time I can get to it.

Speaker 2: 2:39

So we always ask people to report to admin. That's always important for us. It goes into a different queue. Only we can see it. No one knows that you reported it and that helps us get there immediately. So whether I don't want to bother you, please bother me, Like that's. The best thing you can do is report to admin, not to Facebook.

Speaker 2: 2:53

So sometimes posts will sit in the queue for a couple of hours.

Speaker 2: 2:56

We usually get to them pretty quickly, but they do sit in the queue for a couple hours because sometimes people say crazy things and so we need to verify what it is that you're saying and on those a couple handful of times that things look legitimate or whatever, and we put them through and we find out that they're not legitimate, the person who has lied gets kicked from the page.

Speaker 2: 3:13

We contact the business, we put up a courtesy post for them, because I'm not into people lying. That just doesn't work for me. So I don't lie. I don't expect you to lie around me, near me, in my presence, on my page, in my business, in my store, like take a hike. So it's really important. There has to be accountability. I think the internet doesn't allow for that anymore, and I think that's why people get sometimes full of funny money, because they have to be held accountable for what they're saying, and in the VBN space that means you're going to tell the truth or you're going to not be participating in what we're doing here Now just let everybody know if you're listening.

Speaker 1: 3:44

don't go run your phone's not ringing.

Speaker 2: 3:46

I'm sorry. Remember we're in the store.

Speaker 1: 3:48

That's part of this podcast.

Speaker 2: 3:49

It's probably Google.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Trust me, it's always Google, it's never anyone on the other end of the line. We've had to edit out way worse sounds than a telephone ringing? Do you use any kind of like tools for like helping to maintain this, because you have to so? Do you approve every post before it goes on, every post before it goes through?

Speaker 2: 4:06

Facebook has enabled, like they have AI helpers and whatnot. I'm not interested in that, because what AI thinks should be happening on VPN is not what should actually be happening on VPN, and so it's really important to me to be as hands-on as possible and know what's occurring. We do use some of the features, like we have keywords, so if you use the F word, it's not nine times out of 10, facebook is going to catch that and it's going to not even allow you to post it the other times it posts, but then I can see where it's been pulled. So that is very helpful. You know, some of those like dirtier words or you know, like snake?

Speaker 2: 4:39

Yes, for you, we'll add snake to that Sorry everyone but politics, any of the trigger words your president, their president, like, whatever it is we have those. This way, it just helps us get to a little bit more quickly sometimes, sometimes, and so we can see what the conversation is that's occurring. So because something in there, even if Facebook doesn't catch it all, we'll catch something, and then I can go back and find where that is. Because the last thing I want to be viewed as someone who's not consistent, because we are painfully consistent, and so it's important to me that the page is curated appropriately and that people understand that we're reputable and trustworthy and consistent.

Speaker 3: 5:18

So when there are posts about crimes or situations like that, like law enforcement situations, do you have to verify that?

Speaker 2: 5:25

as well, absolutely Usually the sheriff's office, felsmere Police, fair Beach Police Department. I work really nicely with all of the agencies and they usually have already sometimes already posted, so we can go on that If people have pictures, that is the proof, right, so I don't have to worry about double checking. It's a picture of a police car at this corner, that's what they're saying, and so we we allow some of those. There's deductive reasoning in approving some of the more critical posts. Yeah, we definitely work with as many agencies and businesses as possible, and it's good for them as well, because VBN is a machine, it is an information machine, and so they want the information to be out there as clear and correct as we do, and so it's a nice partnering.

Speaker 1: 6:07

On the Facebook group itself. Do you allow just image posts and text posts, or do you allow videos?

Speaker 2: 6:13

We do. We do allow videos. We do watch every second of a video that you submit. First I watch it for content, then I turn the volume up to some insane level and I listen for any words in the background like that are. If there's a foul word, like we just don't approve it. It is a lot of work. So if you submit a five minute video, you have wasted 15 minutes of my life because we go over it and over it, make sure everything is fine. But that that's the job. We could just approve stuff. But I think that people have come to expect a certain level of of of information and I think it's really important that we're we're going over those things every time.

Speaker 1: 6:47

That's what I love about doing a podcast like this is really helping the community know how much work is going into this as well, that's a lot Like you think about. Hey, if I post a five minute video, you're not thinking that you're watching it for 15 minutes Right. Yeah, I mean there's 74,000 people on there, so don't everybody post a five minute video.

Speaker 2: 7:07

Do not submit videos, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:09

Otherwise you guys are helping me watch all of those videos videos, yeah, otherwise you guys are helping me watch all of those videos. Shauna just volunteered, that's right.

Speaker 2: 7:15

No, it is a lot of work, and I think a lot of people are, because that's how Facebook works. They want you to keep your face in their book, and they'll do that any which way possible. It's good for them, it's good for their app, it's good for their advertisers, and I think people don't understand I don't use the word manipulation. It is marketing on the highest level you can possibly market. That's what Facebook has locked down, and people are so susceptible to it.

Speaker 2: 7:35

I think that they really believe that this shouldn't be in my feed. I don't want to see this and, like you, are still on an app that doesn't belong to you. Right, they've curated the content so you stay on it, but every once in a while, they're going to throw you a fastball, and they want that. They want that drama, they want the dopamine hit. They want all of that because then you stay in, stay in, stay in, you bring other people in. That is how it works, and so it's really important that some things on VPN will give you a dopamine hit, but they have to be truthful and they have to be accurate.

Speaker 1: 8:09

And so we have to make.

Speaker 2: 8:10

There are different tells. So the old spam profiles there's very few of those left Now. They're using AI, they're very advanced, they absolutely look real, and so there's a couple tells that we use to, you know, kind of vet through all of those. So I would say, like if Facebook was going to remove profiles from VBN that were not real profiles, I am highly confident it would be an incredibly low number. But there are other pages locally and I have reached out to them. You guys have like 10,000 spam profiles, because they have literally tens of thousands of spam profiles and they lay dormant, lay dormant until they're not dormant, but once one gets in it's like a parade of them that comes in if they're not locked down appropriately.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Now I'm going to ask you some questions on the business side of it too. First off, let's talk about fake profiles. To grow this, did you do any kind of advertisements to join the group? No, Okay, Because I know a lot of businesses that have went that route.

Speaker 2: 9:05

Like paid for advertisements, Paid for yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:07

And paid for followers, yeah. And then what happens is they've built this huge audience that are a lot of fake accounts, sure. So I had a feeling that that wasn't the case with your group, because there's so much engagement and you could tell that they're real. Yeah, they're real people. So I think that's really an important piece to look at, when even other people are looking at other groups Go look at the profiles.

Speaker 2: 9:28

What's happening here?

Speaker 1: 10:08

Get an idea of what's going on. Is there any like plan or game plan or concerns about what happens if this goes away? Because, like you said, it is somebody else's property. It's like a lease property. So what are your thoughts about that?

Speaker 2: 10:25

Yeah, I think there's always talk anytime there's a presidential election. I think this comes up about what can control social media. You know the big tech has over whatever, but I'm also very confident that the guys at the top are saying whatever they need to say to whoever they need to say it to, back and forth. So I'm really not worried that Facebook is going to go down. That being said, it is a piece of technology that can be hacked, manipulated, whatever it may be. So it always is always a concern, but I think, until that point, as we just continue to do like the good work you know and not worry about it, we do have a separate website, vrbchneighborhoodcom, that you can go to, and we're starting to build that up and out, but there's no chat feature yet built into that, so we will eventually get there.

Speaker 1: 11:03

That's always a good plan to always have like something of your own. I think that's good insight too.

Speaker 2: 11:14

Like you said, you have this faith that they're doing what they need to do to keep things going as well, because they don't want it to close down. No, they just have a lot of advertisers and a lot of people who have a lot of money on the line, and so I'm fairly confident that they're going to maintain.

Speaker 1: 11:22

What advice would you give to someone that maybe is starting a community-focused Facebook group Run?

Speaker 2: 11:29

I guess it depends on what their goals are, but my knee-jerk, absolutely do not do that. Also, maintain all of your intellectual property, whatever that looks like In Florida it's a little bit more difficult to stay hidden when you maintain that, but whatever it looks like trademarks, registrations, sunbiz I highly recommend that you do. I've done that with all of my things. Like I own VBN, I own VBN. So these are things that are important to your business model. And then be prepared.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Be prepared for all kinds of stuff stuff that you wouldn't even dream of having to deal with, I would say and surround yourself with a really solid team and a team of people who think like you for cohesion, but also don't think like you for dynamic, right. So it's really important that, like Mike and I are basically work very well together, more like a yin and yang kind of team, right? So we do think very, very similarly. We're able to deduce certain situations and know exactly who we're talking to before they know that we're talking to them. But we also are on two different ends of the religious spectrum, the political spectrum, the. You know so, and so I think that's very, very important. It's definitely those are the kind of like the top three or four that I would recommend to people if they wanted to do this. Really good advice.

Speaker 1: 12:47

Yeah, and I do.

Speaker 3: 12:48

I like the advice run too because I really think about what you're doing.

Speaker 1: 12:53

There's a lot. There's a lot to it.

Speaker 2: 12:54

There's a lot a lot of responsibility too. If you want to do it well, yeah. And again, it depends on what your goals are. But if you're looking to do something similar to what we are doing, you really need to be introspective in terms of do you enjoy family time? Do you like?

Speaker 3: 13:10

holidays, Do you you?

Speaker 2: 13:11

know these are different things. I mean my family. You know I shout out to Shannon Peruta earlier because she's a saint, but you know my family also. Like there's not a minute that goes by that I'm not working on something VBN related. I don't have to be in the VBN queues to be thinking, planning on the phone in a meeting. You know whatever about all kinds of stuff. And it goes further than that because it's so impactful. It's also is it business consulting? Is it people who are just like, listen, we just need help. How do we, you know? And so it's phone call after phone call. So there really is a lot, a lot to it. So it really just depends on what your goals are. But for universal advice, those are my top three or four.

Speaker 1: 13:52

And I love that you're really leaning into the goals, because I think that's so important, because you can just you can waste a lot of time just doing digital and not without having a goal in mind. You don't know if you're heading in the right direction, of what you're doing is working Right, if it's not working or if it's working against you. You know what are your goals.

Speaker 2: 14:04

Going forward. I always have like a list of things I want to do and I've had that ongoing probably for about 10 years now. So the store has been on the list for a very long time, but it's just in the last I guess it was last November we opened. So it's one of those things where you hope, wait and pray Right and and these are the things that, um, I'm always a full believer in it has to be the right thing at the right time.

Speaker 2: 14:26

There are some things on my list that other businesses have rolled out. I'm like, oh man, that is so good and like, and then I just cross it off my list, you know, because some things you can make your own but some things just look like copying at that point and so and I'm not into that so we would just cross that off the list. But then there are some things that you know come to fruition when they're supposed to. If I had rushed the store, if I had rushed the podcast, or if I had rushed the marketing company, it wouldn't work how it's working. It has to be the right thing at the right time.

Speaker 2: 14:53

So I think when people look at VBN they go, oh, this is VBN empire, you know kind of thing, and I didn't go from 2017 to 2025 as king of my own empire. Right, like it's a lot of heartache, a lot of crying, a lot of yelling, a lot of planning, a lot of work, a lot of financial investment and all those things. Now you're seeing the fruit of all of that labor, but I would definitely recommend to people that not only do they have goals, but realistic goals. Be willing to take things off your list that you really thought that were going to work, because maybe it's just not time for that. Back to your original question, which is I definitely have a bunch of things on the list which I'll keep to myself currently.

Speaker 2: 15:31

But, they're very big and they're very fun and I think that people really like them as they roll out. Currently we're focused mainly on continuing the VBN mission. My marketing company and now the store is a very big component.

Speaker 1: 15:43

I love it. I didn't know the store was as new as it is, so that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 15:47

So congratulations on that milestone, thank you.

Speaker 1: 15:53

You know we get asked that question often with the podcast. Sometimes I think people feel like we have like a hidden agenda. Like what is it Like? Why are you doing this for free? Yeah, yeah, like what is it like? Why are you doing this for free? Yeah, yeah, we were like praying, like what? What is it here that's really unique about this area? And it was one sunday morning, it was 2 am. I woke up and I'm like the vero beach podcast and then I was like myverobeachcom. There's no way that's available. And it was everything was available.

Speaker 3: 16:14

Like what the heck?

Speaker 1: 16:15

yeah, I'm like okay, I'm buying everything, and then it's like the thought came to me like meet your neighbors and support local. I was like what does it take to get something trademarked? Because I think we should probably get meet your neighbors, support local. And so we've started going on that process, learning about it and and we've had so much support from the community. But we have had people ask us like when we sit down, like what's your real agenda here? And I know people are getting to know us too Sure, and I'm like to be honest with you, the right now we don't like this isn't to support us Our business does that but this is really to help us meet our neighbors and support local. It's a way for us to help support the local business as we get to meet our neighbors and help others.

Speaker 2: 16:51

So it's a wild question too that people would would ask it's like? It's like it's free, it's like quiet? For Vero Beach neighborhood endorsed beside before the store VBN endorses my marketing company. That was the only thing that monetized, and so a lot of people really struggle to understand, like why would you be doing all of this work and not getting paid for it? And there's other people that are like how dare you make money from Facebook? And I go I don't make money from Facebook. I make money from local businesses that I market for, like every other marketing company.

Speaker 1: 17:19

There's a lot of zero stuff you have to do.

Speaker 2: 17:22

Yeah, and because you want to build your brand. But in the meantime, if you're helping people, you need to meet people. Really, that is so enriching. I think that there's some people that really don't kind of fully understand how great that is. Besides it being great for your brand, it's great for your person, it's great for the community. So I love that people are engaging with you with your podcast.

Speaker 3: 17:40

So I was going to say too is part of it is selfish on my part. I love local businesses. I love a different experience than something you're going to get with, like, a national chain. So I don't want these businesses to go away. Whatever I can do to support them, that's because I want them to be around.

Speaker 1: 17:55

And I figured if we could do a podcast to help support she wouldn't spend as much money.

Speaker 2: 18:00

But that's really not here all the time. It's not really working out for me on that side, so it's actually backfired yeah it's backfired.

Speaker 1: 18:06

Now she's getting to find all these wonderful places.

Speaker 3: 18:08

And she's like I'm going to go buy this. I'm like, all right, now I know a lot more places to go, so that support that donate the podcast.

Speaker 1: 18:14

You know, support the podcast for $3 a month isn't just paying, let's just clarify that Well hey, this has been a great episode. I'm excited to get into part three, where we're going to talk about why Vero Beach and what you love about Vero Beach. So, everybody, if you've enjoyed the episode, make sure you guys click, follow, leave us a review. Your feedback actually helps more people find the podcast, your local podcast and it helps support our local podcast. So with that we will catch you in part three.