Digital Annie

03/09/2026

You finally work out what you want to post on social media, sit down to schedule it or post it and nope, not working!

The first thing to know is you're not alone.

As a business owner, busy getting on with running your business, you probably don't see the same posts as me. Every day I see hundreds of questions from people who are stuck, trying to figure out why something isn't working or how to make it function properly.

Nearly all of the social media platforms have their own little irritations.

Just this morning I was copying and pasting content I'd written into LinkedIn, forgetting that you can't copy and paste emojis! [Sigh] So there I am grumbling to myself, manually going through and adding the emojis back in.

And the other week I picked up some copy from a client and was working on it in Meta Business Suite. I couldn't work out why it wasn't scheduling and then... [sigh]... it turned out some of the apostrophes and other punctuation weren't being recognised. This is a fairly easy fix these days as I throw it at ChatGPT and ask it to reformat it.

In the grand scheme of things, these are minor annoyances and I frequently have bigger problems and workarounds to figure out.

So, if you're that business owner sitting there feeling frustrated because Facebook won't post, Instagram is doing something weird or a button seems to have disappeared overnight... it's not just you.

Sometimes the tech is just being annoying!

26/08/2026

What am I working on right now?

I am entering a bit of a project mode actually. For one client I will shortly be building a new online booking system, well installing one out of the box, setting it up and getting it talking to the right systems.

For another client I am busy fixing technical stuff. Client has an online store that previously had the products built in rows but annoying you can't drag them from one row to the next. So this morning I reconstructed that area of a page to put everything into one grid. Nice, now you can hide things, change the order of display and I even created a template block to make it easier for the client - future proofed!

A client is launching a new membership subscription. I've been busy setting up the payment process, connecting software together so it actually talks properly, new tags for email lists, rules for what happens when someone signs up e.g. send this email. It's all built now. I just need to go through some testing to make sure it's all working.

My social media clients are still around of course so the start of the week was all about scheduling content for them and I will be back to that tomorrow.

Plus, I have a few policies and documents to write for a charity.

As ever it's all go, always happens when we get to the last week in August.

19/08/2026

You do not need to post on social media every day, you don't need to make Reels just because everyone else is making them and you definitely don't need to spend half your working week wondering what on earth you're supposed to post next.

Your social media really only needs to do something much simpler. It needs to help the right people understand who you are, what you do and why they might choose you.

That could be sharing something useful, answering a question customers ask you all the time, reminding people about a service you haven't mentioned for ages or simply showing a little bit of the person behind the business.

I think sometimes we get so caught up in what we're supposed to be doing on social media that we forget there are actual people on the other side of the screen.

You don't need to constantly feed Facebook and Instagram. You need to communicate with the people you want to reach.

And sometimes that might mean posting less, but having something worth saying when you do. 💜

12/08/2026

From Mari Smith

AI for business webinar.
Free to watch
1 hour long.

Worth your time, talks about Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT. Mainly Claude but the Gemini use case for in the browser work - just brilliant and I will be testing this out.

Details from Mari are:

✅ The full VIDEO recording of the live training
✅ Mike and Ali's SLIDE DECK
✅ Fathom AI NOTETAKER replay, transcript + summary
✅ BONUS gift: Mari Smith's Top 10+ Ways to Turn AI Into Revenue
✅ Plus an invitation to join us in the AI Business Society! 🎟️

Get everything here:

Join Mari Smith, Michael Stelzner & Ali Kelly for a free live event on cutting AI overwhelm — a simple system to save time, make money & stay authentic.

04/08/2026

I have signed up to attend this. Mari is bringing in some expertise to the session as well.

I know it's late for UK folks but if you sign up you will get access to the replay.

I am sure it will be worth your time to listen.

30/07/2026

Facebook has announced a free verified badge for personal Facebook accounts (not ProMode or Pages).

Personally I am not keen as verification is via a selfie and I am not sure I want to hand that over to FB.

See Facebook's official announcement here:

We’re launching Facebook Verified, a free badge that verifies there's a real person behind a profile.

29/07/2026

Around mid December last year, I started seeing reports that Meta was testing limiting the amount of links pages would be able to add in a given month.

I filed it away under "wait and see". After the Christmas break I started to use links more sparingly in posts for my clients just in case but nothing seemed to materialise.

Over the first few months of the year I noted several reports of people discovering that links were not working in comments. I actually witnessed a few not changing in the hyperlinks but then it all seemed to fade away.

However, today this error message appeared as a screenshot for a member of a group I am in. I have hidden the identity of the page as it's not relevant to this discussion.

Basically Meta is saying if you want to add links that take people away from our platform you will have to pay.

Now before you all jump on the post, this is still a "test-phase" for Meta so it's not affecting everyone. But it could come into force.

What would that do to your posts?

I mean generally posts with links out don't do so well engagement wise anyway. I suspect they are already not liked. Maybe we will end up with more "link in bio" type posts and everyone will just get used to going there. That might mean using LinkTree or something similar in the near future.

Something to think about for sure

22/07/2026

Sharing knowledge doesn't diminish your own!

I sometimes get told by other (well-meaning) business owners that I give away too much information for free.

I have always smiled and nodded at this. Yes, it seems that way but there's a difference between giving a potential client one or two quick wins and actually giving them the answer to everything!

As an example I had a slightly stressed out lady on the phone yesterday afternoon on a discovery call. I gave her some ideas for quick fixes and today she has emailed me to say since making those changes she's already signed up two new clients.

Win!

And as for the potential client - she is making plans to book in a proper session with me. Plus she is so delighted that I know she will be an advocate for my business as well.

So sometimes what seems like giving advice for free is actually marketing!

I am sharing this as a reminder to everyone, no matter what the gurus or experts tell you must do, you do you. Whatever that looks like as long as it's genuine and fits you personally - crack on.

(Image created with AI but the words are all my own)

15/07/2026

Strength in numbers!

A few days ago (3-4 days depending where you are in the world!) Meta quietly released a change to Instagram. It was to Meta's Muse Image model and it allowed anyone to scrape your IG photos and reels for AI generated content (you had to use an ). Shocking right?

It was bad enough that they introduced but even worse the automatically opted everyone in.

There was uproar in the public domain. Data protection organisations in the USA and around the world came out with statements about how wrong this was. Plus gazillions of people sharing and talking about this.

Well Meta has reversed the change and apologised for "missing the mark" amid privacy concerns and the automatic opt-in for users.

Power to the people is what I say! Well done to everyone out there who shouted loudly about this. I am glad to see that the world came together AND that resulted in a positive change. Particularly as this is Meta we are talking about which at times feels unstoppable.

02/07/2026

I've had a few messages from clients recently asking why their social media engagement has dropped.

My first step is to dig a little deeper, has it really?

Yes, likes and comments may be lower than usual, but that doesn't always tell the whole story.

Over the last few weeks we've had half-term followed by two heatwaves. People have been keeping cool, looking after the kids and catching up on everything they put on hold. Social media naturally takes a back seat.

When I looked a little deeper for some of my clients, people were still watching videos, reading posts, looking through images and visiting websites. They just weren't interacting as visibly.

My advice?

Don't rush into making big changes or opening new social media accounts just because things feel a bit quieter.

Use the summer to gather content instead. Take photos, record videos, jot down ideas and get yourself ready for September.

Sometimes the audience is still there... they're just a little quieter than usual. 😊