Category Archives: Social Media

Hand drawn map of Scotland

Scotland Was Great But FlyBe Sucked

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Let me start this by saying Vicki, Kelly, Lyndsey and I had an amazing time in Glasgow this weekend. We ate and drank and talked and laughed. We shopped and saw comedians. We stayed up way too late and slept in not quite enough.

But it almost didn’t happen.

Originally, our flight back was at 1050a. Perfect time to get us all back and into routines with our children and back to work and school on Monday.

Then I got an email. Your flight is now 810. Groan, but okay, good to get back early.

Then during the week another email. 1300. Which was find for me, Lyndsey and Kelly, but Vicki was supposed to be at work. So I called FlyBe and asked them what we could do. We could take a partial refund, so fly to Glasgow without a return, we could take a full refund, so cancel the trip, or we could leave at 1.

So I gather my ladies and we talked about it. (Okay, we did it on Facebook Messenger. Don’t pick nits!) Vicki was adamant she would just cancel her bit because she had just started a new job and didn’t want to mess them about.

However, the lady she works for is very nice and when she heard she said she’d cover until we got back to Belfast.

So we were off!

And then FlyBe started canceling flights. On the Wednesday they canceled Belfast to Glasgow morning flights. More panic. Was the whole thing being canceled?

Then I realized they were having trouble with early morning flights but they hadn’t canceled any at the same time as ours on the Friday.

And then it was Friday and we were on our way!

Now, I checked us all in online before we left on Friday and printed our boarding passes.

We had all agreed we’d only bring small liquids so we didn’t have to check any luggage. And we all got on the flight fine. Remember that. It’s important later.

We then proceeded to have an awesome weekend in Glasgow. Too much junk food. Too much alcohol. Lots of laughs and gossip and serious talk. The perfect Ladies Weekend.

So we head home. And I try to check us in via the App. Which tells me a new app is coming soon and to use the website. Except the website would only issue boarding passes to be printed. And we had no printer. So we all said ‘Okay, no problem, we’ll check in at the airport.’

We get to the airport and go to check in. I check in fine. They get to Kelly, and she can’t get her bag into their stupid metal bag measurer so she takes some stuff out and puts it into a plastic bag with her hand bag and then it fits.

Then Lyndsey. Manages to squeeze it in.

Then Vicki. Who knows there is no way it will fit into that stupid thing. And tells the man that it fit on the way over so what’s the problem? No pay, no boarding pass, go over there, it’s £40.

Now Vicki had put some of my stuff into her bag as I bought way to much, so I paid the fee. I wasn’t happy and I started Tweeting that I wasn’t happy.

So we get to the gate. And they announce that if you don’t have an approval sticker on your bag, come measure it. So people queued up. And then the FlyBe staff realized they had no way to take money so they waived all of the fees.

So we paid for Vicki’s bag and no one else (well one other person who had checked in at the desk) had to pay?

Then I really started raising a stink on Twitter. And was told it was policy. And that they couldn’t speak to others with their bags. And then they stopped answering me when I pointed out that every person who was suppose to pay at the gate got off scot free.

Then there was an incident after we boarded where one of the Flight Attendants was very rude to one of us, but that’s not my story to tell and it has been sorted anyway.

And FlyBe still won’t reply to my comments about their horrible procedures.

And suddenly their app is updated.

And I’m still out £40.

So my advice, to all is to not fly Fly Be (or Easy Jet, who apparently have done the same thing) unless you club together to pay for one case to be checked before you get to the airport so that you all can put your shopping in it on the way home.

And this blog post is going to be turned into an email to FlyBe.

To the highest person I can find an email address for.

And I am not the least bit surprised they have had to be bailed out.

I’m warning you now…

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I am about to start messing with this site.

I am bringing together all my knitting, design, blogs, social media etc etc under one brand design.

Starting with this site. This site will become the Tee The Brand (heh, anyone see The Apprentice?).

There will even be a small shop here along with the Etsy one.

Did you know there was an Etsy one?

Knitted By A Tee

So stick around. See what’s coming.

It’s going to be an interesting ride…

I Am Wondering if Facebook Staff Actually Use The Site

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So today I was reading my news feed and there were several times friends of mine posted on various groups they belong to. These groups hold no interest for me, so I selected to hide the group’s notifications.

And Facebook wanted to know why. So I clicked on the link to be asked if I wanted to stop seeing my friends feed altogether, you know, if I didn’t want to see every group they belong to.

No. I don’t.

You see I have lots of friends. And, guess what? Some of them don’t have all of the same interests as me! Shocking, I know. Completely.

Or, you know, only to Facebook.

I mean, you probably know lots of people, right? And you know them from different places. Some are from your child’s school or your work or maybe another web site you belong to. So you have that one point of connection.

That doesn’t mean you don’t want to see them talk about themselves, or their child or what have you. But it might mean you have no interest in their underwater basket weaving group. I’m sure it’s something that is totally thrilling to them. But that doesn’t mean it’s thrilling to me.

And I can’t believe it’s thrilling to Facebook staff, either. Surely, if they use Facebook, they’ll know how incredibly frustrating it is to have someone say ‘Hey, I was hoping you’d comment on my question about X Y Z on Facebook, since it’s your area.’ and you have to respond ‘I never saw it. Probably because Facebook thought it was more important that I saw B’s comment on her underwater basket weaving group.’

Yes yes, I don’t pay for Facebook. They get money through advertising, they don’t have to keep anyone happy but their advertisers.

But how happy will those advertisers be when more and more people go to Twitter or G+ because they get to see what they actually want to see?

So…How’s Your Facebook?

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Mines pretty annoying, thanks.

My friends, most of whom are also Social Media and web type people, and I have recently noticed an odd thing.

If we post something to our business pages, in my case Designed To A Tee, it doesn’t always show up in our own feeds.

That’s right. It’s our page. We post something. We never see it.

So we started to wonder what our fans/clients/others were seeing then.

Apparently, not much.

If you don’t like or comment or, apparently, click a link that’s posted by a page you like, you will not see that pages updates. Even if you’ve liked the page.

You have to do some hanky panky with also following and other things which my friend who runs Fazenda Rodizio Bar and Grill put on their blog. I won’t rewrite it all here, go read that one!

Why has Facebook done this? Because they want us, the business page user, to pay. The tell us constantly to ‘boost’ our posts. Boost is their fancy way of saying ‘give us money and we’ll let more people see what you have to say’. Which, where I come from, is blackmail.

Now I have a problem with this. My marketing budget is very small. I spend a bit on business cards and of course I own my domain. But to give Facebook any percentage of that small part of my yearly budget, especially since they don’t guarantee reach even if you do ‘boost’ a post, is just not going to happen.

So high cost, low Return on Investment…yeah, think I’ll skip it.

So what to do?

Well, we’ve started a movement, some of these friends of mine and I. A movement towards, believe it or not, Google+.

Now I was the first person to scoff at G+, at the idea that we needed yet *another* social media outlet.

But if Facebook is going to decide for my users and me who gets to see what I say?

Then I say: G+? Here I come.

I don’t have a company page on G+, even though I could. I am trying to consoldate all my social media anyway, so I’m just using Robyn Fraser. It’s still a work in progress, as when isn’t my own stuff, but come take a look. See what I’m talking about.

You’ll actually get to, you know, see it!

By the way, it’s my professional opinion that this attempt at blackmail by Facebook will end Facebook as a marketing tool for small business.

So good luck to them.

I guess.