Michael Wilding

Category: Social Media

  • Why I Hate Post Planner

    Why I Hate Post Planner

    It’s official, there is currently no software I hate more than Post Planner.

    Here’s why…

    I’m always keeping an eye out for software that may be able to speed up, or improve, our processes. So, when I came across Post Planner,. I was curious.

    We’d just stopped using HootSuite, not because it isn’t a good tool, it is, but because we were only using a fraction of the functionality and tbh it wasn’t much faster than going to each social media account and posting manually.

    I like to post content specifically on a platform per platform basis, and since we don’t run social media campaigns for other companies, we don’t need to control hundreds of accounts.

    One of the features that appealed to me most about Post Planner, was it’s ability to help you find content to share.

    And I admit, it’s pretty damn good at it. In fact, that’s probably it’s only redeeming feature.

    Once you login to Post Planner, the setup is pretty easy. You spend a bit of time playing around, and everything looks great.

    But then…

    …you start to use it, seriously.

    Which is when the whole thing completely crumbles.

    For me it began with the RSS feeds from our sites not working inside it.

    I spent many hours contacting their support to ask why, and the bottom line was…

    They didn’t have a clue.

    All I got were responses saying that there must be something wrong with my feeds, which strangely worked in every other RSS reader I could find.

    To be fair to them, at least they were still responding at that time (more on this later).

    After about two weeks, with nothing resolved, and having discovered that Post Planner can’t actually automatically share posts from your websites RSS feed onto social media (I mean WTF?!), I decided just to use it to schedule posts.

    This lastest less than a week.

    The software is so slow I could write a letter with my social content, post them to the companies, and probably still have them up before Post Planner.

    Alrighty, maybe a slight exageration, but I have no words to explain how slow this software is.

    To do one day’s posts (for one site) would take me nearly an hour, and that’s almost all due to the software taking best part of five seconds any time you want to do anything.

    It’s infuriating.

    So… I cancelled.

    Which is when I got the automated message offering me three months for free if I continued.

    I’d also been assured, via the support chat, that there was going to be an update to the platform which would speed it up, and it was going to be released very soon.

    i.e. within the timeframe of my extension (although that wasn’t explicitly said)

    So I decided to continue using it. After all, the social content search was good, if painfully slow.

    I tried, once again, to use it for our daily post scheduling, but eventually gave up as it was faster for me to schedule inside each social media account.

    But, I thought to myself, they have this feature which they keep saying is awesome called… Recycling.

    On some social media platforms, it’s sensible to post the same post a few times. For example, on Twitter you want to repeat some posts over a period of time to maximise exposure.

    So I turned it on, and added a few posts to it.

    First problem…

    There’s no granular control over the scheduling of recycled posts. It’s fine to keep re-posting, but I don’t want the same post posted every day if I don’t add more to the recycle list.

    Second problem…

    You need a doctorate to find out how to stop the f***ing thing.

    I consier myself pretty good with computers and software, and I still don’t have a clue how to remove posts from their recycle function.

    After becoming increasingly frustrated, I decided to go back to the chat support to get them to process my cancellation.

    And what a surprise… the chat support has dissppeared.

    Although to be fair, nice as they were, they weren’t much help to begin with.

    With Post Planner going rogue on my social media accounts, and me unable to stop it posting, I disconnected all my social media accounts from it, and…

    It’s still posting to my social media accounts!

    I went back to the site, navigated my way through their help, found a link to a special form that you have to use if you want to cancel your account, filled it in, got the automated email asking me to continue for three months free (which I said no to this time) and… I’ve heard nothing.

    All I know is… it’s still posting content I don’t want it to, to my social media accounts.

    So I thought to myself…

    “This is a social media company, surely they’ll be monitoring social sites for mentions of them”

    How naive of me.

    I posted this tweet just over twenty four hours ago:


    So far… stony cold silence.

    Now, I’ve gone into Post Planner (yes I’ve still got access because they’re apparently so desperate for people to use this crock of shite that they won’t cancel it for you) and removed all the times for posting.

    Then…

    I’ve gone into every social media account we’d connected with them and revoked their access.

    This was done this morning, and I wish I’d thought of revoking access earlier. I only have myself to blame for that.

    So, in summary, I wouldn’t touch Post Planner if you paid me, and I would strongly suggest that you don’t either.

    If you do, then be aware that you may have to revoke access to stop it from posting to your social media accounts.

    Michael

  • How To Take Professional Photos On Your Phone

    How To Take Professional Photos On Your Phone

    Photos and videos are becoming more and more important for gaining traffic online.

    In my recent tests, photos or videos regular get over 100 times the reach on social media as a text post!

    This makes it incredibly important to be able to take photos and videos that look good and people want to share.

    With smartphone cameras producing outstanding quality images, this is getting easier to do.

    I’ve got the iPhone 7 Plus, and it’s camera is by far the best I’ve ever had in a phone.

    But… the photos still lack something. You can always tell they’ve been taken on a phone and not with a professional camera.

    There’s a couple of primary reasons for this, the first is that it has a fixed lens. This sounds obvious, but it means the photos it takes are always pretty wide.

    The zoom function isn’t very good, it very quickly distorts the quality of the picture, which is why I never use the zoom and recommend you don’t.

    So how do you get the punch from your phone camera that professionals get from carrying big DSLR’s?

    You could go out and buy a lens for your phone. These are things that you clip over the top of your phone and it changes the lens type, angle or zoom ability.

    But… they’re pretty damn expensive and chunky.

    The whole point of a camera phone is convenience, I don’t want to then have to carry around another lens and attach it whenever I want to take a photo. If I’m doing that, I may as well carry a DSLR.

    In order to make your camera photos look professional, it’s all about the editing software you use.

    To be honest, even when a photo is taken on a DSLR camera, the pro’s will do a bunch of editing afterwards to make it just right.

    I’ve gone through a ton of different editing apps on the iPhone, until the other day I found one that works perfectly.

    It’s called… PS Express.

    And it’s basically Photoshop for the iPhone. I don’t know if it’s available on Android because I don’t have an Android phone, so you’ll need to check that for yourself.

    I’m already a fan of Photoshop, but for some reason, when looking for photo editing software on my phone, I never searched for it.

    That’s a prime example of why you need to always keep your customers mindset up to date with your advancements.

    And what makes the app better than the desktop software is… it’s free!

    Simple to use, incredible results and free. It doesn’t get better than that.

    To make the perfect picture only takes 5 minutes of editing.

    Start by framing your picture well before you take it. You should spend some time on this because the framing of the picture is what’s going to make it interesting to look at or not.

    Then load it into the PS Express app and click this button at the bottom:

    The mistake most folk make, is to use one of the preset filters. Don’t do this, every image is different. Open the settings and adjust the filters one at a time until you get the finish you’re looking for.

    Doing this can create the difference in a photo like this:

    That’s how you can quickly and simply create photos on your phone for social media (or just your own use) that look like professional photos.

    Until tomorrow,

    Michael

  • Social schmedia, is it really important?

    Social schmedia, is it really important?

    I have a love-hate relationship with social media.

    I don’t know about you, but not a day goes past when I don’t wish that it never existed.

    Of course, I pretend that I have to be on social media because it’s part of my job.

    But would I be on it if it wasn’t?

    Of course I would. I’d only be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t.

    There are some things I absolutely hate about social media. The biggest, is that it’s yet another way for people to contact you, which drives this perpetual myth that you must be in communication with people 100% of the time, and you must answer them the second you see their message.

    Well… I say…. f**k that.

    It’s important to have some time that’s just for you, and then follow it up with some time that’s just for your family. Nobody else, and certainly not technology.

    We’ve begun to forget how to just be in one room, with the people in that room, and not be thinking (or focusing) on something else at the same time.

    And honestly, that’s sad.

    But on the flip-side, the modern world demands we need to use social media as a marketing platform if we’re going to sell any of our products.

    The question is… is that true?

    The truth is, from a marketing perspective, you…

    Must use social media platforms that are right for your business.

    It’s all about audiences.

    You need to begin with your audience research, find out where they hang out, what they chat about, and what they buy.

    If you’re not sure how to do it, then there’s a whole chapter in Business Ignition devoted to it.

    https://michaelwilding.com/business-ignition

    Once you know where your audience hangs out, you’ll know what social media platforms you should be using as part of your marketing efforts.

    If you sell products to the younger generations, then Facebook probably isn’t the place to be anymore.

    If you sell digital products, then Instagram probably isn’t for you. After all, it’s kinda difficult to keep making interesting photographs about digital products.

    Here’s how I look at it…

    If I’m spending a lot of time trying to work out how to create content for a social media platform, then I should be asking myself if I should be using the platform for that business at all.

    Creating social media content isn’t easy, but don’t make your life harder by trying to make it for a platform that doesn’t align with your products or audience!

    Michael

  • One Penny Conversions

    One Penny Conversions

    Do you know what, it feels pretty good to be writing a bunch of emails again. I find email writing cathartic, it relieves the stress for me.

    I’ve been talking recently about Penny Clicks Academy, which launched yesterday, and you can check out here.

    https://michaelwilding.com/recommends/?id=pennyclicksacademy

    You already know it’s about creating Facebook pages with thousands of Likes, and then monetizing them. Simple and effective, my favourite type of business.

    But what if you don’t want to create a Facebook page, what if you just want to generate thousands of clicks to your own site for pennies?

    Well, you’re in luck amigo, because that’s what the bonus video is all about, and I friggin love it.

    It’s a very simple concept, and one that’s very similar to the first Facebook Ads I ever ran.

    The difference is, Facebook has now added one single setting, a really damn simple one too, that makes all the difference.

    It changes the game from taking ages to setup to taking minutes.

    And what makes this even more awesome, is that you let Facebook do all the optimising for you.

    Here’s the basic steps:

    1) Create a Facebook ad

    2) Make sure your settings match what you’ve been told

    3) Let Facebook optimize it for you

    4) Take the best converting settings (after Facebook has optimised it) and start again

    Yup, it’s that damn simple.

    I’d love to give you more, but I can’t because it’s not mine to give away. If you want to know the details, then head to…

    https://michaelwilding.com/recommends/?id=pennyclicksacademy

    Scroll down, click the buy button, and then choose the Bonus: Penny Click Conversion Ads video

    You won’t be disappointed.

    Michael

  • How I got 6858 clicks in 24 hours for fiver!

    How I got 6858 clicks in 24 hours for fiver!

    Yesterday, Penny Clicks launched, and I’ve received a couple of emails asking if I’d actually tried it out myself.

    Seriously?! Do you think I’d recommend you something I hadn’t gone through, in it’s entirety, myself.

    Here’s the thang…

    …I say exactly what I think. There’s no namby pamby crap going on in my newsletters. I say it how it is, I say it how I find it, I say what I do.

    If what I say seems simple sometimes, that’s because it is.

    This stuff doesn’t have to be difficult. When you start trying to make it difficult, you fail.

    It’s the simple stuff that works.

    But what most folks don’t understand, is that almost nobody implements the simple things. The things that take the least time and make the most money.

    Anyhoo…

    Penny Clicks is rising in price continuously, so you’ve already missed the lowest price, but you can still get it before it goes up.

    https://michaelwilding.com/recommends/?id=pennyclicksacademy

    But back to the question at hand…

    Can you really do Penny Clicks.

    And the answer is… f**k yes!

    I set up a campaign yesterday following their rules, just to prove a point, and here it is 24 hours later.

    penny-clicks

    It took me about 15 minutes to setup and currently I’ve had…

    * 6858 clicks

    * 102504 impressions

    * 6.84% click through rate

    * £0.001 cost per click

    My account is in pounds, because I’m based in the UK, but so far I have spend £3.88, which is about $4.79.

    $4.79 for 6858 clicks.

    That’s $0.0007 per click.

    It doesn’t get much cheaper than that.

    Yes, pretty frickin awesome. However, you should be aware that I haven’t optimised this campaign yet, which means that the conversion rate is very low.

    But that’s to be expected, because the whole point of the Penny Clicks course, is to let Facebook optimise for you, which means it needs to run for around 5 days before I can start targeting the settings that give me the conversions.

    As I said earlier, simple and effective.

    Here’s where you need to go to get the details on how to create a campaign like this in 15 minutes.

    https://michaelwilding.com/recommends/?id=pennyclicksacademy

    Michael