What's so special about YOUR post?

Nothing, but…

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So, I tweeted that I’m running two video doorbells right now, one a Ring and one a NEST, err, Google, err… Nest? Whatever… And a friend* (*I say friend, but really I don’t know Ruth, but since #avocadogate I deem her a friend!) asked why my deliveries were so special, and I know she was toying with me, but I thought I might take a minute to a. add some context and b. spend five minutes winding down, just me and my dog, and pen a largely not-important blog post.

P.S… The Ring is on with double-sided tape! don’t @ me with “it ain’t straight!”

Ring Doorbell Vs Google Nest Doorbell

Skip back a handful of years, I’d ordered a watch band for my oldest, he was maybe 8 or 9 at the time and had one of those tiny Garmin kids watches, anyways he’d destroyed the band and was excited to get the new band! “Dad, leave it in the mailbox so I can get it out!” sure thing kid… It arrived while he was at school, and I dutifully left it in the mailbox for him to take out when we arrived home… I have a large old steel mailbox, locks with a key, kinda tricky to get into unless you have the world’s slimmest hands, anyways, I’m gone maybe 25 minutes from when I left the package in the mailbox, to going to school, picking him up and heading home… In that time I’d told him “I think there’s a package in the mailbox for you!” he was SUPER EXCITED! (You can see where this is going, can’t you) Some scumbag had been down our street stealing mail at that very 25 minute time-slot! They had used a stick to wedge the package out. I was furious, not because it was an $11 watch band, but because of the lock on my boy’s face… I wanted blood (or at least an apology and the package back ya know) I actually went walking the streets looking for someone - I was quite cross.

Skip forward a day or two and the police had advised they could do zip, and fair play, they had nothing to go on - at all. But dear reader (Hi Ruth, you’ll likely be the only reader, but that’s just fine!) that’s not where the doorbell came from! That’s where my front and rear 4K Hikvision camera system came from! YOu know you see Crime Stoppers “Criminal Evidence Photos” and they look like a hand-drawn caricature of someone with no facial features? I wasn’t having that and had to put in a system that rendered each and every wrinkle.

That was great! Worked well, missed the people that hit my car AND my neighbour’s car, but did catch the guy that jumped the fence and smashed my elderly neighbour’s fence IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY (bright spark that bloke) The one thing it didn’t do though, as it’s mounted up quite high, is allow me to see who actually comes to the door.

This is the Hikvision 4K POE Security Camera - At night. Not awful.

Yeah, so in the example above, someone comes in the gate and then I’ve no idea where they go after that… Not ideal!

The first camera I purchased, the Google Doorbell (AKA The NEST Doorbell) *The irony, it doesn’t work with Google Business Suite and so I had to setup a whole new gmail account and shift all my existing smart devices across to that new email… Really not ideal, but it’s fine… whatever…

Then I had the chance to review the Ring Doorbell 4 for my friend Kevin’s website, DRN and THAT is how I have come to have TWO smart(ish) doorbells on my front door…

I will remove one of them in about two weeks, I’m not 100% sure which just yet… Watch this space, or don’t, that’s ok too.

Five ways organic social media content can still help your business

Back to the lab again…

This ramble is more squarely aimed at small businesses or individuals that sell a product or service of some kind, I guess.

Social media is a fickle beast, here, have some likes, right, that’s enough likes, pay us.

That’s what it feels like for the most part, especially for an old bloke (compared to the SMM crew these days…) The numbers grew relatively quickly back in 2010, organic content actually gathered some eyeballs and a healthy amount of conversions across to your website… Now, skip forward twelve years and organic content gets you frustration and very low ROI - but there are different ways you can STILL use organic content to garner audience and community.

1. UGC or User Generated Content - it’s the simple play of identifying good content that’s made using your product or features your product and then re-sharing that content to your platforms to help promote your followers, but also help promote your product / service. *

2. Content that helps solve a problem for your audience, coffee’s going to be $7 a cup at your local cafe, solve that with ‘how to make coffee at home’ videos and tips if you’re selling beans or pods?

3. UGC doesn’t just provide some great (and some awful, lets be honest) content, but the act of contacting the creator and asking to share it - in most cases - can result in a stronger connection with your community. “This brand cares enough to share my stuff…” This comes with a caveat we’ll touch on after these points..

4. Think about more than just page posts and Instagram posts - when you’re working on content, try to remember to create for stories/reels as well (I’m a big fan of the Hootsuite always updated image sizes for social thingy)

5. If you do ALL of the above but don’t bother checking your Facebook page’s messages, don’t bother replying to comments, don’t actually use the platform for what it was built for - to be social with your audience - you might well take points one through four, print them out, roll them up and smoke them - that’s about the amount benefit you’ll get.
   

Point three above - your audience may well tag you (your brand) in posts, but that doesn’t automagically give you the right to use that content however you like. I’d say around 75% of the time, someone tagging you likely expects that you might share it at some point, but it’s better if you have some sort of system in place, something to cover you if things ‘go south’ - An example, I have a note in my bio “Tag us using blah blah so we can see and share your posts” now, this likely wouldn’t hold up in court, but it does help if issues ever arise… People create this content for themselves, we don’t own it, we merely ask to use it to help sell our products - remember that and be gracious and kind when people allow you use of their UGC content.

The flip side - trying to blackmail a brand that’s shared your post is a pretty scummy thing to do - especially if you’ve tagged them… What did you expect would happen? Why did you tag them? Slap your own face.

Time to take a deep breath, step away from your screen for a minute or two and soak in your surroundings. Here’s a picture of the old boat shed in Queenscliff to help you do that.

Leave me a comment below, follow me on Twitter or Instagram. (Instagram is more pics of my new pup, Coco, right now… sorry not sorry)

Fixing things is a new thing

Lots of broken stuff at the moment… society, the way we live, most of the opinions on the internet… I can’t fix any of those, I can only watch as those things play out.

What I can fix is some of the stuff that’s been chucked away by others, old hand tools, bikes, scooters… that sort of stuff, and in a way that helps fix me a little, too.

Finding a little space where you can pull something apart, get your hands dirty, put a little effort in and make it clean and working again… I really enjoy a quiet moment these days, avoiding the sensory overload for half hour, sitting on the verandah in the morning sun to have a coffee… that sort of thing - yeah, it’s called getting older, Simon.

I’ve made a little workbench in our house, when I can’t get to my shed (It’s outside my 5km ring of allowed adventure..) where I’ve got simple stuff like WD40, Degreaser, Wire Brushes, old rags, a couple of files, screwdrivers, a drill and a few different grits of sandpaper…

Restoring an old Mambo Kids Scooter to give to some kid that needs it

I don’t have a metal lathe or a sand blaster and I’m a bit envious of those that do, but also I’m an ‘office worker’ and not a fabrication shop owner, so it’s ok! it’s just for fun and the whole point of it is just to make some room in my head for not-screen-internet-social related stuff.

It’s good to get offline from time to time.

Restoring old worn Stanley hand planes

Just making old stuff ‘new’ again is a good pass-time passtime? however it’s written. I have a couple of hand planes in the wings, waiting to get their turn on the bench and then I’m not sure what will come next… Need to build out the tools required for this stuff, but slowly slowly.

Leave a comment, do you love your online life?

Frio Photo Back to Life

The team behind Tethertools have re-released Frio. You might remember Frio from many moons ago when Zeke at NicePhotoMag.com made that fun review ad thing? Let me refresh your memory…

So, yes, back and I’m quite fortunate to have had the set to play with for some time now. The long and the short is Frio Photo has released a set of accessories that allow you to affix your flash / LED Panel / Audio gear (Mics) …actually, anything with a 1/4” 20 thread (or 5/8 via adaptors, or anything with a bit of MacGuyvery) to pretty much anything!

As wll as the original Frio (now called Hold) there’s a whole range, a couple of solid little clamps, a suction cup named Frio Cling, an articulating 1/4 20 gizmo called ‘Arch’ that you can mount on the clamps or a light stand or a tripod plate and a c-stand/arm version called ‘Stand’… anyways, you get it - these things are super handy and you need a kit of them in your camera bag - They’re like a “get out of lighting jail free” card that you can play when you need to.

That’s Frio Grasp Mini (There’s a Bigi version as well… as in …but not to be confused with the Notorious B.I.G)

I love this kit and they permanently live in my camera bag. They’re currently shipping to distributors and dealers around the globe, but you can get them directly from the FrioPhoto website for now.

In the immortal words of Jared Polin…. SEEYA

Disclaimer: I’m Frio’s social media manager, but here’s the thing, I’m thankfully only the social media manager for brands I believe in and love and actually use… so it’s a pretty good bet I genuinely love and use this stuff and the links aren’t monetised and, as always, you have to make up your own minds - will this stuff suit my workflow? will it benefit me and help me make more revenue because my lighting game is on-point… who knows, try it out.

What to Look for in a Photo-Editing Laptop?

I’m on a constant journey to find the right photo-editing setup for when I’m out of the office, I typically run a Macbook pro, but there’s no reason to not keep your options open these days! Have a read, see what you think! — S

A big part of producing great photos is post-processing. This is why aside from your trusted camera and other photography equipment, an equally capable laptop for editing is needed. After all, photo manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop and Aurora HDR needs a number of hardware requirements such as 16 GB of RAM to function smoothly. But this begs the question: what constitutes a great laptop for photo editing?

Hardware specs

Whenever you choose a new laptop, you need to look at three specs: the CPU or processor, the GPU or graphics card, as well as its RAM capacity. These will determine the types of editing software that can run on your hardware and how fast they can run. Try to prioritise the CPU and RAM, as they determine how many images you can open at once. A laptop with an i7 CPU and 16 GB of RAM is ideal, but you can meet the minimum photo-editing specs with an i5 CPU (16 GB of RAM is non-negotiable if you want to run programs simultaneously).

Meanwhile, the GPU is responsible for rendering your graphics on your laptop’s display. Fortunately, it doesn’t tax the GPU to load 2D images, so you can get away with quality budget GPUs like the new AMD RX 6700 XT.

Your chosen laptop’s motherboard is also important. This is your laptop’s “hub” or the component that allows all the other parts of the computer to communicate with each other. It’s a special type of PCB or printed circuit board with an expandable system due to the heavy system requirements the laptop needs to run. Every PCB has unique net clearance rules, such as energy limits, which it needs to follow to prevent the board from short-circuiting. If any activity on your computer goes beyond the threshold, the motherboard will experience a power surge, which will damage its systems and slow down your laptop forever.

Photo editing is such a hardware extensive activity, so your laptop should have a motherboard that can handle the power of your other components. Laptops that can support at least an 8th gen CPU such as the MacBook Air, Dell Inspiron 13-735 and the HP Pavilion DV7-2000 contain these powerful motherboards.

Macbook vs. Windows

It’s difficult to say whether a Macbook or Windows laptop is better for your specific needs. Ultimately, the answer is dependent on several factors such as the software that you use and your budget. Apple products naturally have a more accurate colour display, for example. This is because of integrated display technologies such as Super Retina, Mini LED, and OLED technology, which grants Macbooks that incredibly high contrast ratio and resolution. On the other hand, Windows laptops are cheaper and are more compatible with editing programs on the market. So if you’re using specialised software like PhotoDiva, you’re looking at a Windows laptop.

While there are minimum specs to follow, the perfect photo editing laptop for you is entirely based on your preferences and needs. Are you on a tight budget? Is the laptop going to be used for things other than post-processing? Consider the specs that you need, do your research, and arrive at your own decision.

For more photography gear guides, take a look at some of the other posts on our blog.