Empty Chair Diaries: Entry 4

When you’re not allowed to advertise

I remember sitting at my computer one evening trying to work out why Facebook wouldn’t let me advertise.

At first, I assumed I had clicked the wrong button. Then I assumed there had been a mistake. After all, thousands of businesses advertise every day. Surely there was a reason mine had been stopped, and surely there would be someone who could explain it.

So I went looking for answers.

What I found instead was a maze of help articles, automated responses and review requests that seemed to disappear into the void. Every path eventually led back to the same place. No explanation. No conversation. No clarity. Just silence.

The strange thing was that the advertising itself wasn’t what bothered me most. Of course I wanted the option to promote my business. Every small business owner wants to be seen. But what frustrated me was not knowing why the door had been closed in the first place.

As human beings, we’re remarkably good at dealing with difficult news when somebody takes the time to explain it. We may not like the answer, but at least we understand it. Silence is different. Silence leaves room for doubt. You start wondering whether you’ve done something wrong, whether a mistake has been made, or whether you’re simply talking to a system that was never designed to answer back.

For a while, I felt as though I was missing out. Everywhere I looked, people were talking about ad campaigns, boosted posts and marketing strategies. It seemed as though everyone else had been handed a map while I was standing outside the gate looking in.

But something unexpected happened.

Because I couldn’t follow the path everyone else seemed to be taking, I started looking for another one.

I spent more time talking to people. I focused on building relationships. I wrote articles. I shared stories. I showed up consistently and trusted that genuine connection still mattered. It was slower than advertising, and at times it felt far less certain, but it taught me something I might never have learned otherwise.

Visibility attracts attention, but trust attracts people.

One is purchased. The other is earned.

Looking back now, I still think businesses deserve better than silence. I still believe people should be able to ask a question and receive a human answer. But I no longer see that experience as a dead end.

Sometimes the road we didn’t choose becomes the one that teaches us the most.

The empty chair reminds us that algorithms don’t determine our worth, and paid reach isn’t the only kind that matters. Some audiences are found slowly, through conversations, recommendations and quiet acts of consistency.

And sometimes the strongest connections are built long before anyone thinks about advertising at all.