We recently connected with Connie Bally and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Connie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission the drives your brand?

I have had the distinct opportunity to study how important to our selves, our households and our communities to become financial secure, having spent a career in finance that spanned 32 years. For some reason we, as a society, decided it was preferred to marginalize ourselves..to embrace a belief that limitation was noble. I’ve never understood that. I’ve seen first hand how much can be done with having resources such as contributions which lead to advancements in science and technology, to enriching our children with premium education, memorable vacations and comfortable surroundings. The key component of all of this is hard work and a strong sense of community.

Fort Worth Foodies was borne from an idea I had while sitting at a red light in 2017. Having been an empty nester and watching as the restaurant scene in Fort Worth was booming, I decided to start a group to meet a few people that I could go out to dinner with a couple of times a month. It didn’t take long, maybe a few days, to see that it was a popular concept. I noticed there were 400-500 people in such a short amount of time and knew I had something. I love business and bringing people together so this immediately caught my attention. When we reached about 4,000 members, which took about 8 months, I decided to give it structure. The easiest decision to make but the most difficult to defend is to not have Fort Worth Foodies as a ‘review’ site. We are pro-commerce and pro-consumerism and are on the restaurants side when it comes to a disappointing customer experience. We feel it should be handled internally, with the General Manager, at the time. What people, sadly, don’t quite get is leaving a bad ‘review’ on social media kills jobs and hurts the people most who can afford it the least, which are the hourly wage workers and wait staff. A negative ‘review’ keeps people from coming thru the doors long after the initial problem is resolved.

We love seeing restaurants, caterers and purveyors survive and even thrive. It’s healthier for the community and the dialogue that our mission requires encourages open conversation between the customer and the restaurateur and that’s always a win-win.

Fort Worth Foodies now has almost 77,000 members and we are as serious now as we were in the early days in regards to being pro-commerce and pro-consumerism. Much to my delight, the city of Fort Worth has readily agreed and adapted to our guidelines and it’s a much kinder, more prosperous city for it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I was in finance for 32 years, handling institutional accounts. That means I was dealing with the portfolios of pension funds, banks, insurance companies, cities and counties. I grew very adapt at sensing business opportunities and methods that would streamline operations and increase profits. It’s a skill set that has proven valuable being the creator and admin of a large Facebook community.

Facebook has stepped up in the past 2 years or so and invited admins of groups to be active in groups that are created just for us, and have Facebook employees as admins. There are 20 million admins in North America and I am a very proud member of one group that only has 1,500 admins in it as those who are allowed in have to pass certain criteria. In this group, we get to let the admin know of our glitches, wishes for features we’d like to see (Facebook has given us quite a few of them!) and to attend round tables and classes designed to help us become better admins. Everything about these groups have helped me to become a much better admin, to create my community within Facebooks Community Standards and to meet other admins from whom I’ve learned so much. It’s become richer and more dynamic than I could have ever dreamed of! As my community continues to grow and thrive, I take great pride in knowing I am doing my best to serve my city and this generation of Facebook users..and hopefully future generations.

I am most proud of the channels for dialogue we’ve encouraged and developed. We encourage open dialogue between the customers and restauranteurs instead of harmful ‘reviews’. That alone has been a massive help to our culinary community. I am also very, very proud of the relationships that have turned into friendships and often feels like family. There’s no way I could carry this load without them. There’s a lot more to running a group than to just having a group and my admins and moderators get that for which I am eternally grateful.

How did you build your audience on social media?

My audience organically grew and we have a sustained growth of about 100 members a day which represents a third of those who request membership. We are doing everything we can to keep our community safe so we screen each and every applicant.

I decided I wanted to monetize it when Facebook started giving us amazing tutorials and tools from which to monetize. Since my community is a foodie community and we are pro-commerce, it made sense to me to approach restaurants as brand partners. That has been my bread and butter for which I am grateful but I realize multiple revenue streams are just good business so I’m perusing that. In April, I’ll be launching a digital magazine that will be funded with half page and full page ads. I’ve also worked to build up my followers and posts on Instagram and just recently was accepted as an affiliate marketer which has the potential to be very lucrative. I am interested in diversifying my income streams on and off Facebook and will probably entertain partnerships with other media outlets such as I Heart Radio, etc.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Cancel culture seems to be a favorite past time for some and unfortunately I was the target of a group, now taken down by Facebook. It was in existence for 2 years and had 9,000 members when Facebook disbanded. I have never met most of the people who were speaking unspeakable things about me but the saddest part is those I did know professed to create environments of ‘dialogue’. Most claim to be ardent feminists and community builders, others were restaurant owners and they were also the ones who said some horrendous things about me..all of which were untrue. It was mob mentality that was frightening. They knew the make and model of my car and would take photos of me in restaurants, unbeknownst to me. Those photos would then be held up for ridicule within that group. I have many, many, many screenshots of the comments and photos. It was those screenshots that were used by Facebook to take that group down.

What’s interesting is some of the restaurant owners who insulted and maligned me have tried to convince me to let them back into Fort Worth Foodies, realizing their business stands to prosper if I were to relent.. I have held to the adage that ‘you can’t pee in just one end of the pool’. If they want to contaminate their ecosystem, so be it but don’t ask me to swim in it and don’t try to jump into my pool either. It just doesn’t work that way. If they were to offer a sincere apology in front of the same audience in which they were so eager to insult and try to destroy me, that might tilt the scales more in their favor but to date…crickets.

It was a very trying and very frightening time for me. I’ve emerged as a more resilient person and even prouder of the. community I and my admins have built. By promoting the best of people, magical, wonderful things happen. People prosper, communities prosper. It just works.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fortworthfoodiestx.com
• Instagram: @fortworthfoodiestx
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/885062074977188