Tried for 10 Years to solve these problems: Thank you so much for all the replies regarding what you'd change about the way you publish to social media.
I can see that many of you have lots of things you'd change.
Trust me when I say: I've been there. I still am there: even after 10 years of being a social media manager (I had a musician brand for which I managed their MySpace page. Yeah, I'm old school like that)
The really good news is that: about 90% of the things you've mentioned will soon be solved. In most cases, 100% of your problems with social media will be solved.
I was super excited that you replied. Me, Ana and the rest of the team went through everything and we're excited about our next few weeks together with you.
You see: I knew that it would be a good question to ask. 10 years of being a social media manager and there are still a lot of things that I would change about the way I do social media.
I said that you must've felt the same way. And most of you did.
So what did I try to do in all these years to make my social media manager life better?
1) tried all the possible platforms out there. I knew first hand when UberVU got acquired by HootSuite because I was using them both. About Buffer I've already written a lot. There's so many more I've tried. None of them managed to work like I work, nor how our Agency's customers want the work to be done.
2) I've helped finance with money from Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists some promising startups in the field of Social Media Management.
Yes, I did go that far. I said that if I advise these teams with all my experience and all my known problems regarding Social Media, then maybe I can help them build the amazing product that I was so desperately waiting for.
At first, I've been a trusted adviser to one of these two companies. I really wanted to help them build the perfect product, so they can solve all of the problems I felt.
They seemed to be onto something. So, I've used my network and helped them raise a pre-seed round. Sadly, soon after the investment, they just enjoyed the money and the status which came with being a funded startup and they did more "conferencing" than actual work on the product.
Of course, this made me step out of my role as Adviser when I saw how poorly they handled things and the fact that they were turning their backs on their own dream. They no longer cared about helping small businesses be awesome at Social Media Management. They just wanted the attention, the interviews, the networking, the feeling that they were somebody.
It wasn't the end of that story. After a while they raised a new funding round from a well known international fun.
However, this didn't change their determination. It didn't make them want to do better for their customers.
During all this time, I was already helping out another team with lots of advice on social media management. Now, these are guys were something else. I wished that I had just started with them. One of Squirrly's investors saw that I liked them. He was already interested in investing.
Therefore, this was the second Social Media startup I've mentored and helped secure an investment.
Of course, it helped me a lot, too. I could see a lot of people expressing their concerns and trouble with these platforms.
Basically, I've done a lot of product development on their products, even though I didn't get any money out of it myself. Not even shares in the companies.
WHY?
Because I only ever cared about finally getting my hands on a great social media product that would end my frustrations.
We came close with this second team, but their solution still doesn't answer all of my concerns.
It doesn't answer your concerns, either.
How did this journey continue?
3) I started developing this thing myself.
Yes, that's right.
I wanted to stay away from this, because last year we launched Squirrly SEO 2017, then Squirrly SEO 2018, then Squirrly SEO 2018: Steve. I guess you can imagine how busy I already am.
Let's not talk about ContentLook or Starbox, that were also under development.
This year, you've seen Briefcase and the Business Plan already. Giant upgrades to our product.
Destiny had a say in this. I met an awesome developer, a team Leader (a true Leader this time).
Together with him it was a LOT easier to work on a social media product than ever before, because we were on the same page and we focused exactly on everything that all the other platforms got wrong.
He has a very similar story to mine, when it comes to trying out all the other social media tools out there and trying to help third party companies get their products right.
We're still ironing out the last details, after extensive testing with customers of our Agency and customers of his Agency.
This tech partnership is awesome. We've both learned a lot about the best ways in which we can fix all of these social media scheduling problems.
From the small concerns:
a) I publish on WordPress. now I want my post to go out to all my Social Media Profiles, without me lifting a finger.
b) Evergreen content publishing
c) make sure there's always something going out to my accounts, without me checking in every day.
to bigger ones:
d) organizing my social media team
e) organizing all social media customers of the agency
f) creating a fully detailed social media scheduling plan, based on current events, different time slots on different social media profiles
g) curating brand new content from relevant and trust-worthy news blogs, 100% personalized for my niche.
From those small concerns to the bigger ones: Squirrly Social has it all figured out.
Steps 1 and 2 that I've taken were imperative to getting to where we are today.
It will soon be time for Step 4.... the one where I put this wonderful new product into your own hands.
"times they are a-changin'" -Bob Dylan
With Squirrly you can publish Excellent SEO Articles. Once they're published, they get pinged to Search Engines via Squirrly SEO, and then scheduled to your Social Profiles via Squirrly Social.
I hope you'll love it. Because there's more to come, not just SEO and Social Media.
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