Hi! I’m a wedding florist and educator in the US. I also have PiHole running at home (thanks to my partner) and feel the same way about social media - absolutely hate it, no personal accounts, and it’s only for the business.

Edited to add: I draw a hard line in my business with paying Meta or Google to advertise. I have never paid Zuck a dime. I also refuse to use TikTok because it’s a privacy nightmare.

Here’s how I handle different marketing channels:

SEO - my bread and butter - allows me to blog useful things and not feel slimy. Try to blog about things “upstream” from your services that couples would hire first - venues, planners, caterers maybe.

Instagram - I’m a florist, it’s a must. I used to use a separate device but after forgetting it at a wedding for behind-the-scenes shots, and the having to transfer everything over, I just gave up. I have Instagram on my main phone and it annoys me. I have mic/photo permissions turned off unless I post a story/reel. I use Tailwind for IG and Pinterest static posts.

Facebook - I don’t use the app, just desktop. have a FB page but I rarely log in. Tailwind allows me to post my IG post to FB without logging in.

Pinterest - I don’t use the app, just desktop. And I use Tailwind to schedule. To be honest I do not get any leads from Pinterest, so I stopped caring about it.

Networking - This is another key source of leads for me. We have several local wedding vendor groups here, and I belong to all of them. And I go to meetings regularly. I highly encourage you to go out and meet the people who will eventually refer you! (But never ask for a referral/preferred vendor until you’ve worked together at least once.)

The Knot/WW - Worth having a free listing. Only worth having a paid listing if your service is low cost and you’re interested in volume. Are there French sites like those you could be listed on, some kind of directory?

Wedding shows - I’ve never done a wedding show but some people have lots of success. Whatever you do, make sure you make them book a consultation with you right there at the booth. Otherwise you will lose them. It’s not enough to gather emails (although, do that too) because they will be getting a billion emails after the show from vendors. Be the first in their inbox. Have an incentive for scheduling their consult that’s not a discount (e.g. bigger photo book if they end up booking with you or something).

Hope that helps! Never keep doing a marketing method that isn’t bringing you the right people. It’s a waste of your time and you can’t do all these things, you’ll go mad! Please DM me if you have questions or wanna chat more, I’m happy to help. Je parle français aussi, mais seulement après café :)

As weird as it sounds I use Edge for things like that. It keeps me from accidentally using the same browser for other tasks. Because I instantly know I’m in the wrong browser if I’m doing other work.

That’s enough separation for me.

This sounds like it just sucks no matter what you do.

Anyway you should post on pixelfed even though it doesn't have a ton of users because it is better from a moral standpoint

This is a question the community should give a little bit of attention to. Its easy to basically say "burn it all down" or even the slow-burn equivalent we have going currently but there needs to be a long-term roadmap to help deal with the objections of the dominant landscape and its major players to help further advance the cause and get everyone who's "update-able" up to speed

My parents run a wedding venue in the USA. Usually wedding vendors (FOOD, VENUE, DJ, photography, etc.) have local conventions. I would find the local wedding venues and talk to one of them, find out where and how they advertise and do the same. Go to the stupid conventions or events.

Assuming the wedding business in France is similar, doing this should get you most of the information you need.

I share your pain, using those online advertising platforms kinda goes against your principles. But it is what it is. On a phone using Facebook / Google through a browser takes care of a lot of privacy related issues as the browser is sandboxed and can't touch your system in any way unlike their apps.

I use a PortableApps installation to keep my work separated. You could run it in a virtual machine too.

As far as the social media platforms go though, I just use the first party sites for scheduling posts. I have to give them a minimum amount of information to have accounts on them, so I don't see the point in giving that information to someone else too.

I've got a browser, email client, and FTP client, and they're all completely separate from everything else on my computer.