Using Facebook photos to educate the world

[Rickys_Reptiles]

I'm a bit of a social media junky, not going to lie! Over the years I've noticed that a lot of Facebook pages that are reptile related are more about the admin of the page sharing their own thoughts, pictures, memes etc and the members of the page simply liking and sometimes commenting.

For years my Facebook page was mostly just me posting my own stuff and having the nearly 3,000 members simply ‘like’, comment and sometimes share my stuff.

More recently I've been encouraging members to share their own photos and stories, and also share each others stories on their personal Facebook walls. The result is turning into a really awesome page with members sharing each others photos and becoming a more cohesive community.

I've asked members to share the photos on their own walls to help spread awareness and educate their Facebook friends. Facebook is such a large opportunity for education.

I think we all need to take this step, to encourage unity amongst members rather than using Facebook as a way of marketing, selling or showing off our snakes.

Right now we all need to step back and concentrate less on our own sales, and instead concentrate a bit more on educating the general public. Exotics are not monsters.

An excerpt from a recent Facebook post:

Everyone please read this. I’d also appreciate it if you shared it, liked it and added your comments.

My name is Ricky Melamed, I love reptiles. I have a collection of Ball Pythons, and I love them all. I am not a "Big time breeder". I don't own a reptile store. I am not a certified herpetologist. I am just a simple herper and 1 of thousands of members of the Ricky’s Reptiles community, and I'm happy with that.

I love my snakes. I love this community of reptile enthusiasts that I am a part of. The members of this community need to stand together. It is important that we stand together and show the rest of the world that snakes are not monsters.

Facebook is a forum that is far larger than any other forum we have. Let’s use it to our advantage.

Please post your photos on this wall of your reptiles. I want to see them, all of them. And then I'm going to share them, and I want you to share them. I want you to ask your friends to share them and so on and so forth. No feeding photos, let’s not scare anyone away

Let’s work together, to show all of our friends, and our friends of friends that starting here. Here, at Ricky's Reptiles, we will not stand for the world talking badly about us.

We are all in this together, and I think that we will show the world that reptiles are not just a pets. They are a way of life. They bring joy to children and adults alike, and the world needs more of that right now. Joy.