Derek Richardson - My Digital Domain

My Digital Domain

Spring is on the way!

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We are getting ever closer to spring here on the Isle of Man, the 21st of March can’t come soon enough. I am loving the fact that we are getting more lighter in the morning and afternoon’s. It makes such a difference to my body and mind.  Sunset tonight is at 17h39, this is so much better than the peak of winter when the sun sets at 15h50. It’s still cold with a maximum temperate of 7C but, we haven’t had a storm a few weeks.

My last post was on the 12 January, so I thought I better get some words down and not leave it for another month.

There has been lots of new happenings in the digital landscape. Organic reach is down on Facebook, we knew this was going to happen. One thing I found out last week is how Facebook measures organic reach and I’m sure not a lot of people know this! Organic reach is measured when your post is loaded into the newsfeed, so if a person doesn’t scroll down and see your post, Facebook still regards that as a view, rather sneaky on their behalf. Not to mention a video view is measured at only three seconds!

Instagram made a raft of changes to their algorithm in January and we are seeing the effects of this now. Your posts will only be seen by a maximum of 10% of people who follow you, but if it gets good engagement then it will be shown to more. Comment pods have been banned and users will be penalised if they are used.  If you are one of those people who adds your hashtags to the comments you will be penalised for doing this! The best organic reach is without a doubt on Instagram Stories, these can used is a very creative way, the magic happens in Stories!

Snapchat have not impressed their core user base with the new update.  They have tried to make amends by adding GIF stickers for Stories. Will it be enough? The petition set up to ask Snapchat to remove the update has been gaining a lot of traction with 1.2 million signatures.

“With the release of the new Snapchat update, many users have found that it has not made the app easier to use, but has in fact made many features more difficult,” the petition says.

I love this world I work in, not much stays the same for long. The ever evolving digital landscape!

Thanks for reading!

Facebook Updates Newsfeed #FacebookZero

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This has been on the cards for a long time and it’s finally happening. Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg wrote this on Facebook.

Businesses and brands need to be aware this going to have a huge effect on their organic reach. The other thing to be careful of is what you are posting on Facebook. If you don’t get any engagement you will be penalised for future posts. So rather be absolutely sure what you post is going to work! This is definitely going to improve the newsfeed and clean up the experience for users. Facebook lost focus on the user experience and now Zuckerberg has realised this and is making the changes at a rapid rate. The good news is that Facebook is still keeping pages in the newsfeed, for now anyway. But you can be assured that in time pages will move to their own feed; be it a pages feed or the tested explore tab. I wrote a previous post about ‘The Rise of the Social Algorithms’  the next one to watch out for is Instagram. They recently introduced an algorithm and you can be assured they will want more brands and businesses to pay for visibility in their newsfeed.

There is no need to panic, but, if you don’t have a Facebook advertising paid strategy, now is the time to look at your options. The questions you need to ask is do you understand how Facebook advertising works? The boost button is not the most effective way to advertise your posts. Do you know how the Facebook Ads Manager/Power Editor/Ads App works? Do you understand all the metrics Facebook supplies? If not, now is the time to learn and do it fast, otherwise you could reach out to an expert.

Now I wish Facebook would tighten its control on the adverts being shown in the newsfeed. I think they will because of the Russian accounts they found running ads during the American election. On the Isle of Man, I see so many crappy ads. This is because people don’t understand the platform and don’t monitor their campaigns using the tools provided. Then people have the audacity to say Facebook doesn’t work.

What content works best on Facebook? Tell your story on your Facebook page. Create live videos and articles about your journey in business that people engage with. Share pictures that will be shared and liked, but more importantly, these will need to create conversations. The critical part is engagement, Facebook is not happy with people passively reading articles or watching videos as this may not be good for your state of mind. Now the way Facebook is going to rate engagement is going even deeper, no longer will it just be comments and likes but people typing out a long and thoughtful reply to your content. It all boils down to the content you produce and how you post it. Stop selling with every single post you share!  Think about the content you create for each of the social networks you use, it’s not one size fits all! If you are a business or consultant that offers social media strategy I would be concerned for you if your clients don’t have a paid social advertising strategy!

Now if you are a school that doesn’t use Facebook advertising, it would be a good time to create a group for your school. Facebook has been improving groups and encouraging pages to create groups for specific interests. Think about your business/brand or community and decide what needs to happen, think about it carefully.

I am excited about these changes as it shows that Zuckerberg is always looking about for the community of users on Facebook. This video below by Adam Mosseri, Head of News Feed gives more information about the thought process and objectives they want to achieve.

Thanks for reading.

My Morning Routine

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Anastasia Zhenina

I wake up at a reasonable hour; my alarm is set for 7 am weekdays. The first thing that is needed is coffee. Olly, my yorkie comes downstairs with me and continues to sleep on my lap. I used to have a smoke in the morning, but I started vaping in March and haven’t had a real cigarette since April. There have been times that I have nearly fallen off the wagon and it could happen at any time. I have to be really careful with my mindset.

Then I am on my phone. I do a quick catch up, check emails and Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and go through two of my Twitter lists, the one being Isle of Man new and the other is international news. I definitely have FOMO!

I do love the peace and quiet, and I do think I am more of a morning person. This might have something to do with when I was producing the breakfast show for Alex Jay in the nineties on Radio 5. I would be up at 4am in the morning and loved the drive into work, the roads were quite and it was just as sunrise was about the happen. It was a wonderful feeling arriving early at a radio station, the calm before the storm. I loved working with Alex and he taught me so much and he is an amazing soul, miss you!

I’m up thirty minutes before everyone else in the house. I do this on purpose as it gives me some time to ponder my day and get started in a peaceful way, before the rush starts. It’s still dark and we are nearly in the peak of darkness, sunrise this morning is only at 8.20am.

For some reason I couldn’t get to sleep last night, well, I do know why, but that is for another time. The other reason is that I found a new series on Netflix that I started to watch, not a good idea to do that at 10.30pm, so I only got to sleep past midnight, not my usual sleep pattern.

While I was trying to fall asleep, I had an idea. What if I changed my morning routine slightly? Instead of trying to gobble up social media, how about I use that time to write? Well, I did and this is what I will try and do each morning from now on.

Yesterday I tried to write, I had the idea but did not have the words to write. So that was abandoned, I did save it so it might turn into a post at some stage.

So let me take this day by day and see if there is anything worth publishing. Now my 30 minutes are literally up and time to wake up my beautiful family!

Thanks for reading!

 

Day 27 – The Sun Shines on the Rock

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We have been spoilt for the last two days, blue skies and no rain. But it is really cold, which is expected for this time of year. Today calls for me to take another picture for this blog post. I am thinking about popping out at lunch time and going up to Douglas Head, it looks amazing when the sun is out.

Someone I have been talking about a lot about recently on this blog is Ian F. Now he just opened a new Instagram account, @ayeartofitness –  Give Ian a follow and join in with his goal to become fit and lose weight.  Nice one, my friend! I look forward to following you on your journey!

HOW SNAPCHAT IS SEPARATING SOCIAL FROM MEDIA

If there is one social network I have a keen eye on its Snapchat. They are currently rolling out a major update of their app, but its founder is the one to keep an eye on.  Who is Evan Spiegel? He created Snapchat whilst at Stanford University studying product design, alongside Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown. He has written an article which is well worth a read.

HOW MUCH LIFE IS LEFT IN LIVE TV?

It’s interesting to see that the BBC is going to be hosting a lot of box sets this Christmas. It makes sense as they have the platform and infrastructure they need to complete with the likes of Netflix and Sky over this festive season. You’ll be able to catch up on shows like: ‘Peaky Blinders, Taboo & Wolf Hall. If you have been watching Blue Planet II, some good news is that the original Blue Planet will be on the iPlayer soon, along with Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and last year’s Planet Earth II.  This brings me to the point of; how many people will be watching live TV this festive season?  I think the only live TV I will consume is the New Years countdown, just so I know that I hit 2018 on time.

STEPHEN HAWKING: ‘I FEAR AI MAY REPLACE HUMANS ALTOGETHER’

One of favourite sources of tech news comes from ‘Wired’ they have such fantastic in depth articles and this is one of them. When Hawking speaks we should pay attention!  He answers questions about the anti-science movement, the president of the United States; I can’t even type his name, the digital duopoly of Facebook and Google and what scientific research should be pursued most urgently.

Thanks for reading!

Day 26 – Hanging In There

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Picture by Me: Braaid, Isle of Man.

Do you ever get the feeling things are about to change? You are happy with what you are doing, then, boom! Well, I have had that feeling for a while now and it is such an unsettling feeling.  I don’t want this post to be a downer, so I am looking for some inspiration.

Someone who is helping my state of mind at the moment is thousands of miles away and it’s Ian F. Thank you for posting the content you are… from cooking to gratitude. You do put a smile on my face, my friend.

So Amazon delivered the new Tim Ferriss book I ordered: ‘Tribe of Mentors’ What’s great about this book is that you don’t have to read it from the beginning to end to get the gist of it. Tim asked people the same questions, so you can just jump in and see what appeals to you.  It did find someone I had never heard of before and that is: ‘Tim Urban’ he’s known for his TED Talk about procrastination; but also has a much read blog: ‘Wait But Why’ 

One of the quotes that caught my eye was from Naval Ravikant:

“Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself. You’ll always know”

As we head into December, it’s time for some reflection of the last year. I have to say it was a good start and now it’s seems unclear as to what direction needs to be taken.

Today is a beautiful, cold, sunny day on the Isle of Man and its days like this that makes me appreciate where I live.  I am going to pop out at lunch time and take a picture for this blog post, not sure where I’ll go but I’m sure I will get a great shot!

Some of the best news I saw last night, is that Gary Numan is bringing his ‘Savage’ tour to the Isle of Man on Friday 23 March 2018. I was looking through the tour dates wondering if I should book to see him in Liverpool and Bam, there was a date for the Isle of Man listed, super-stoked is an understatement. If you haven’t heard his new album: ‘Savage: Songs from a Broken World’ do check it out, it is brilliant. Here’s the first single: ‘My Name Is Ruin’ which features his daughter, Persia on vocals. She has been on some of the tour dates with him and I hope Gary brings her along for the gig here.

Thanks for reading!

Day 23 & 24 – Weekend Vibes

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Patryk Sobczak

Here we are at day 23, only seven more to go and I would have achieved my goal of writing for thirty days.

It’s Saturday afternoon as I write this and you know by know that my weekend writing is more of a diary. So let’s jump right in! This morning it was haircut time. I can’t believe how quickly my hair grows and it loses its shape after three weeks. I am also not pleased with the amount of grey hair that is appearing, but there isn’t anything that can be done, well I suppose it could be tinted but then I would look like a real ass. I don’t think my wife or daughter would approve.

It does remind me of twenty years ago when I used to tint my hair blue black. Now that did look amazing when I was DJ’ing at massive venues with awesome lighting. It worked back in the day, but that is a distant memory.

After my haircut, my daughter and I hit Starbucks and then started to do some birthday shopping for my gorgeous wife. We have three birthdays in rather quick succession in our family and one of them isn’t mine. I love spending time with her, she is an amazing kid.

Got home to watch the F1 qualifying session. Tomorrow is the last race of the year in Abu Dhabi, which I am really looking forward to.

Tonight the wife and I have a date night. We try to go out for dinner one a month. Tonight it’s my wife’s choice of restaurant. I love spending quality time together, it might only be a couple of hours, but it’s really important and a special thing to do, now that we can leave the kids home alone. Think about this, one is an early teenager and the other is a good few years younger. There aren’t many places in the world you can leave your kids at home and know they will be safe!

SUNDAY VIBES!

Had a terrible night’s sleep, woke up at 03h27 after some intense dreams and could get back to sleep until 5am. Not the best start to a Sunday.

Hooping back to last night, my wife and I had a lovely dinner out at my favourite restaurant ‘Thai Thai’ good choice Boo and thank you!

Had some work to do in the morning, got that done. The youngest was heading out with a friend to go swimming at the NSC.

No WhatsApp video calls this morning with my mom and sister. It was my uncle’s 80th birthday and they were all going to the Johannesburg Country Club for brunch to celebrate. I got to catch up with them after the F1 race, which I have to say was rather boring, it’s a great looking track but not many overtaking opportunities.

In the oven right now is our Sunday roast; it has become a tradition in the winter months here on Isle of Man. As the nights close in and it’s cold, we call it comfort food. No one is really up for it in summer as the days are so long.

Then later, it’s the second of the semifinals of Xfactor. So some more family time is on the cards tonight.

So it will only be five more days left of my writing challenge tomorrow. I am so glad I have got this far and hopefully I will find some inspiration for the last leg!

Thanks for reading