On June 30th, just as we were launching the new digital edition of Sretna Žena Magazine ‘Iscjeljenje‘ (Healing), I was uploading the gorgeous cover photo in our Facebook group… when my Facebook account suddenly got suspended.

In a split second, I lost access to:

14,000+ followers on my personal Facebook page

10,000+ followers on the magazine’s Facebook page

2,000+ followers on a third page

Nearly 1,000 incredible women in our Facebook group

I created my first Facebook page back in 2011 when I launched a vegetarian blog. The magazine page was created in 2013, when we officially launched our website www.sretnazena.com. That’s 14 years of building a community — gone in an instant.

To make it more ironic, after a decade of running a completely organic business — I only started running Facebook ads for the first time this May with my mentor – to additionally promote our best-selling digital books.

The ads were working well – we were getting 3–4x ROI and had additional income coming in through sales funnels on the back end. But when my account got suspended, so did the ad account.

So there I was—in the middle of a magazine launch—with 27,000+ in audience reach lost and Facebook ads paused.

I’ve been preaching for long sustainable marketing (‘long-form content‘), and this experience proved exactly why that is so important.

Because here’s the bitter truth:

We don’t own our social media platforms.

We don’t control the algorithms.

And everything we post there—our content, connections, even years of relationships—can disappear in a click.

I filed the complaint, but to this day, I haven’t heard back from Meta.

The saving grace in this experience is that my income did not dip, despite losing the access to the audience of 27000+ and paused ad campaign, thanks to these factors:

– I’ve been building email lists.

– My personal website and the magazine site are very SEO-optimized, with automations that drive traffic and sales without me having to post daily. Google search traffic brings in far more visitors than social media ever did.

– I have automated sales funnels, multiple income streams, and recurring revenue systems in place.

– I’ve built deep offline relationships with clients and friends over the years—many of whom immediately reached out to support me when they heard about the suspension. They shared our magazine graphics and links on their social media and email newsletter community. Thanks to this, Iscjeljenje became the most downloaded issue so far—even without Facebook promotion from our end!

– In addition, I still have 3000+ followers on Instagram, and 4,000+ on LinkedIn, so my online presence is at least somewhat diversified.

What This Experience Taught Me About Social-Proofing a Business

Your website and email list are the assets that YOU own—invest in them.

Back up your social media content regularly. Automate or delegate what you can.

Drive your audience to platforms that you own.

Don’t rely solely on social media for website traffic and sales.

Build real relationships offline—they’re more powerful than algorithms.

Don’t make your launches 100% dependent on Facebook or IG—social-proof them too.

Recurring income, email marketing, and sales funnels can both life-proof and social-proof your cash-flow, revenue, and business stability.

If you want to build a social-proofed and life-proof business that can run without you – one that supports a slow living lifestyle, even while you’re traveling, spending time with your family, focusing on your health, or facing unexpected challenges like losing your social media audience overnight – then I’m the person to hire.