Two days ago I posted a short message in a private Facebook group. And Facebook “kindly” told me it was spam so… GET LOST!
Now I can understand there being some level of “help” from Facebook if this is a public group that anyone can join whenever.
But this was a PRIVATE group. And all posts are MODERATED by real people anyway.
Plus this is a Facebook Group I originally started. I stepped down from being an admin. But I’ve been part of the group since it started OVER 5 years ago!
And the WHOLE POINT of the group is that people can post announcements and things for the others to see. And the admins give the tick of approval before it shows.
So why on earth is Facebook stepping in and having its say?
And look… I didn’t have my Prince of Nigeria crown on this time… so NO WAY was this spam.
It was literally two sentences. I was telling people the time of a friend’s funeral in case they hadn’t heard.
To recap… private group… I’ve been a long-term member and past admin… I sent an innocuous message and… BAM!
Its times like this that makes me resent Facebook — even more than usual.
I’ve just about had enough with Facebook “glitches” in other groups. And constant ads. And general wierdness.
It’s not hard to become jaded.
I use it because I have to. I want to be connected with certain people in certain groups.
That’s the have-to need. Not at all because I love the platform.
But enough moaning about Facebook…
I breath the fresh social-media-corporation-free air every time I write and send my daily email.
It makes living all the more worthwhile.
Yeah… I’m going OTT here… but hey… trying to forget Facebook for now.
Emails are great because I can connect with people who want to follow along with what I’m doing.
And unlike the big-tech social media behemoths….
Email’s an open standard. Has been around for decades. No one corporation controls it. And it’s going NOWHERE.
One reason I love email is the freedom of choice. It puts control back in the hands of the “little guy”.
And… apart from some phone-based things… you need an email address to sign up and use anything.
Everyone just knows how it works. They can pick emails up from one of a hundred different email client programs. And use it however they like. No lock-in to big tech’s proprietary platforms.
So I’m enjoying sending email. And enjoying writing it.
Enjoying the whole experience really.
Partly because I’m keeping it super-simple.
I’m using Visual Studio Code to write my emails. Yes… it’s so much more than a programmer’s editor.
I write emails in Markdown format. Plain text with a few “#”s and “*”s here and there as needed.
So I don’t mess around with any stupid formatting glitches along the way — I’m looking at you Google Docs and Microsoft Office!
Then I preview the Markdown in Visual Studio Code. If it looks OK then I select it all and copy it to the clipboard.
I open up BerserkerMail. It defaults to my new email page. So I can just paste in the email.
BerserkerMail does its magic — including taking the first line and putting it in the email subject — and makes sure all my formatting and links come across fine.
Lately, the only edits I do in BerserkerMail are when I’ve made a typo and not picked it up in Visual Studio Code.
Once it’s pasted in I’ll either schedule the time with literally 3 clicks. Or just 1 click if it’s my favorite preset time.
Or if I choose to send without scheduling then it’s one click. And a second one to confirm the “Are you sure?” message.
Try that in Mailchimp or Klaviyo sometime.
Not. A. Hope.
My daily emailing process really is that simple.
BerserkerMail is the key to it being painless and enjoyable.
If you’re curious about BerserkerMail there’s info here.
This is an affiliate link because I am 100% confident I’ve found the ideal platform for sending daily email.
Asterisks is hard to say,
Ready to build your email list? Go here…
EmailForTheWin.com
Chris Milham