Where you are now
Molo is an established school with a real reputation. Nothing below is about the riding, the teaching or the gear — the reviews settle all three. It is about what a stranger can see.
The two accounts are pulling in different directions
Instagram follows more accounts than follow it back, which usually means an account has been working on reach. Facebook is a much smaller audience on the same content.
Neither is the problem on its own. The point is that effort is going into two places at once without either being the place the crew actually gathers.
The proof already exists. It is just not where new customers look.
The Google Business Profile carries 24 reviews and they are excellent. Stuart is named personally in most of them. They cover the demo gear, the repairs, the teaching and the shop, and several are from visitors who found Molo while on holiday here.
None of that is visible on Instagram or Facebook, and the Facebook page’s own review tab is empty — that is a separate system from Google and it shows nothing. So somebody who finds Molo on social media sees no proof at all, while somebody who finds them on Google sees a wall of it.
Lesson enquiries still go to the old contact
Every page footer on the site, and the Facebook page, still list the previous school contact. Anyone asking about a lesson today is being sent to an inbox and a number that is not being answered. Worth fixing this week, separately from everything else here.
The two phone numbers on the site are also typed as plain text rather than links, so pressing them on a phone does nothing.
tel: links: 0The season decides the plan
There is no wind now, so nothing in the next eight weeks depends on it.
Molo’s customers arrive on a season, and their own reviews show exactly when. Of the fourteen recent reviews carrying a date, thirteen were written between January and March. None were written in August or September.
That is the whole argument for starting now rather than in November. If the posting starts when the wind starts, Molo begins the busiest months of the year with nobody warmed up. If it starts now, the season opens with a WhatsApp group already full of people who have been reading about it for two months.
| Now — September and October | The season — November onward | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Building the list and the anticipation. | Converting it, and capturing proof while it is happening. |
| What gets filmed | Stuart, the instructors, the shop, the van, the bench, the bay on a flat day. None of it needs wind. | Students, first rides, events, downwinders. All of it needs wind. |
| What gets built | The WhatsApp group, the summer calendar, the enquiry system. | Nothing new — it is already running. |
So there are two plans, and they are written separately rather than mixed together:
- Plan A — pre-season. The next eight weeks. Sixteen posts, every one of which can be filmed on a windless Tuesday.
- Plan B — in-season. From November. A four-week cycle that repeats, built around the three monthly events and real students.
Keeping them apart matters. Mixing them produces a plan that stalls the first flat week, which in September is most of them.
What we are aiming at
A small number of committed people, rather than a large number of followers.
Molo does not sell something small and repeatable. Taking a beginner through to riding independently is a real commitment of time and money, and a kite is a considered purchase on top of that. A large following is not what makes that work. What makes it work is a group of people who know Stuart, know the instructors, know each other, and treat Molo as their place. Those are the people who come back, buy their gear here rather than online, bring friends, and write the reviews that the next beginner reads — which, as section 09 shows, they already have.
So the thing we track is not follower count. It is a group we can actually count. A useful definition, so it can be measured month to month:
- They have done a lesson, or bought gear.
- They are in the Molo WhatsApp group.
- They have been to at least one Molo event.
- They have brought someone else along.
Everything in this document is designed to move people down that list. Roughly a hundred people who tick all four would be a healthy position, and it is a more useful target than any follower number.
Where the crew actually lives
Social media is for being found. A WhatsApp group is for keeping people.
You do not own an Instagram following, most of it never sees any given post, and there is no way to tell a regular apart from a stranger. So we set up a Molo WhatsApp group and that becomes where the crew is. Sessions get called there. Events are announced there before they go on Instagram. Conditions get posted in the morning.
It costs nothing, everyone already uses WhatsApp, and the number of people in it is a more honest read on the business than a follower count. Every post on Instagram then has one job: get the right person into that group.
What we post about
Four categories. Every post belongs to one of them, and each is there to do a different job. For the next eight weeks, none of them need wind.
The place
Van Riebeeckstrand, the conditions, the season ahead. Works on a flat day as well as a windy one.
Learning
What a lesson actually involves, kite against wing, and once the season starts, real students going from nothing to riding.
The crew
Stuart, the instructors, the team riders, the regulars. Names and faces.
Gear
Flysurfer, the test centre, servicing, what lands for summer.
Three events a month
Posting builds an audience. Events build a crew. They also solve the content problem, because an afternoon at an event produces more usable material than a fortnight of thinking of things to post.
These start when the season does. The dates get announced during Plan A so people can plan around them, but the first one runs when there is wind to run it in. How each event feeds the posting is set out in Plan B.
| Roughly when | What it is | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Early month | Sundowner session — end of day, open to anyone, nobody has to ride. | The easiest one to say yes to, and the one that turns strangers into regulars. |
| Mid month | Downwinder along the Melkbos coast. | Gives independent riders a reason to stay involved once they no longer need lessons. |
| Late month | Foil or wing day, alternating with a wave day. | Sells the next lesson to people who already ride, and puts the test centre gear in front of them. |
Once those run steadily and the same people keep coming, they build into camps — a multi-day trip, with the flat water at Langebaan as the obvious first one. Camps only work off the back of months of smaller sessions, so there is no rush to get there.
Who is on camera
Most businesses have to invent content. Molo already has four kinds of person worth filming.
- Stuart — runs the lessons and the shop, and is who people are deciding whether to trust.
- The instructors — IKO certified. Beginners need to see this is a real school with real staff.
- The team riders — sponsored rather than employed, and already posting. They fill the gaps between the two planned posts a week.
- The students — the most convincing of the four, because they were beginners themselves a fortnight ago.
The weekly rhythm
Two planned posts a week
Made properly and planned ahead, spread across the four categories. Two posts a week does not change between seasons — only where the material comes from. Plan A · Plan B.
Team riders in between
Their sessions, reposted and credited. Keeps the account moving without anyone having to make something.
Stories most days
The wind call, what the bay looks like, who is down there. Unpolished on purpose.
Three events a month
Announced in the WhatsApp group first, then publicly. That gap is what makes being in the group worth something.
The reviews you already have
Twenty-four people have already told you what Molo is good at. That is worth more as research than as content.
There are 24 reviews on the Google Business Profile. They are not polite three-star reviews — people have written paragraphs, named Stuart personally, and come back to say so years apart. Four separate people describe being handed demo gear and taken seriously about what they actually wanted to ride. Four more describe a repair being done on the spot.
| What the reviews keep saying | In their words |
|---|---|
| The demo gear works | “took the time to really understand what I was after” — on testing directional boards. Another describes testing four different boards in one session. |
| Repairs, fast | “I came in with a broken bladder and he fixed it up in no time, so I was able to go kite the same day again.” One review notes it was done on his day off. |
| People stay for years | “The Molo Africa team has been helping me over the past 3 years with Kitesurfing, and more recently Foiling.” |
| Beginners feel safe | “Felt safe and relaxed” — which is the exact thing a nervous first-time booker needs to hear and cannot get from footage. |
| Visitors find you | “Stuart saved my holidays.” Several reviews are from people kiting here on holiday who needed gear, parts or a session. |
So the job is not to build trust from nothing. The trust is already documented. The question is what to do with it.
Treat them as research, not as posts
The obvious move is to put the reviews on screen as text over footage. We are not doing that. It is the format every business reaches for, it looks like a screenshot, and a stranger scrolling past has no reason to believe a caption they could have written themselves.
What the reviews are genuinely good for is telling you what to film. Twenty-four people have independently said what they value about Molo. That is better information than any amount of guessing about what to post, and it points straight at three things:
- Four people describe a same-day repair. So we film a repair — hands, bench, the thing working again. Week 2.
- Four describe being handed demo gear and taken seriously. So we open the van and show the test centre properly. Week 3.
- One has been coming for three years, and moved from kiting to foiling here. So we get that person on camera saying it themselves, rather than quoting their typing. Week 5.
Same evidence, but the post is the thing itself instead of a picture of a compliment.
Two things to do anyway
- Keep the flow going. Most of these were written around the start of the year. Ask every person who finishes a lesson and everyone who comes to an event, once, in person, while they are still buzzing.
- Reply to all of them. Only two have owner replies. Replying is free, it shows up publicly, and it is the difference between a listing and a business paying attention.
What this does not do
Worth being clear about up front.
- It will not push the follower count up. It is not trying to. Posting for a narrower group will probably slow that number down, and that is a deliberate trade.
- It cannot promise a number of bookings. What it commits to is the work: consistent posting, three events a month, a group people can join, and enquiries answered quickly.
- It depends on wind and on access. Filming happens when conditions happen. Being based at Melkbosstrand makes that realistic, but a flat fortnight is a flat fortnight.
- It needs Stuart on camera sometimes. Not often, and not performing. But a school is a person, and that part does not work without a face.
What we need to start
- The old contact removed from the site and Facebook, and lesson enquiries pointed at Stuart. This one matters regardless of the rest.
- Access to Instagram, Facebook and the Google Business Profile.
- An introduction to the team riders, and agreement on what they tag.
- Dates for the first month of events, so the first posts have something real to point at.
- Anything already filmed — old lesson footage, event clips, phone video. It does not need to be good, it just needs to exist.
The next thing after this is the enquiry side: making sure that when someone messages at eight on a Sunday night they get an answer then, rather than on Monday. That is a separate conversation.