Category: Technology

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Social: When and how often should I post?

Social networking has changed the way we reach out to people - The Sardine News

Social: When and how often should I post?

Social marketing by The Sardine News

How often and where should I be posting on my social networks? A vital consideration that can make or break your campaigning efforts. Thie questions have been answered by many independent survey people and companies all over the web. This is what I have gleaned from the average of what they all have to say, about when and how often to post to your social networks.

  • Facey: Thursday, Friday and Saturdays are the cooking days for Facey. Earlier in the week, people are more work focused. Posting times are best after or before work hours during the week. Anytime on the weekends.
  • Twitting: Twitter is more rapid fire, but keep same times as Facebook, for best results.
  • Email marketing: It turns out that emails are best sent on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and at lunch time and up to 5pm. People generally check email all day, but the bustling mornings produce less opens than the lazy afternoons.
    Note* Tuesdays are the most productive day of the week, after Mondays, for performance in the work place. This performance generally peaks on Tuesday, and dwindles into Friday. Saturdays are quite good, for the unfortunate who have to work on a weekend.

Re-posting

Something none of us do enough of, is re-post. Approximately 4%, yes – 4%, of your followers even see your post once. So you have every right, and even a duty, to re-post your hard work, a few times. For us to enjoy!

Facebook is quite sensitive and I recommend re-posting every morning and evening, for a few days. Then again the next week one or two more days, the next again, and then taper off as a month rolls by. So you could end up posting the same post in the same place up to 10 or 12 times, in it’s first month of deployment.And then, a year later, Facey will probably remind you, that you can post again a few times.It is quite possible that some of your posts will be relevant and contemporary even if written a long while ago. In this time you Groups or Pages, would have collected more Likers and Followers, that never had a chance at seeing your completely cool and relevant post.

Twitter is less sensitive and therefore gave rise to Hootsuite and it’s many auto-posting contemporaries. You could really post and re-post on twitter many times, as the timelines are so fast and so many. Best automate re-posting here.

Google+ and LinkedIn have far slower timelines, and so you need not re-post much at all. Perhaps once a month would almost be too much. You would hate to post one on top of the other – that really looks spammy.

So what does this mean for all of us using the social network platforms to market our business’?

Get posting!

Connect with us on Facebook here…

https://www.facebook.com/thesardine.co.za/

or click this for all my social profiles…

elink.io/9132d (Very interesting way of going about it, take a squiz)

 

 

 

 

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Survey in Pomene

Pomene by sea: the natural sand harbour at the top of the point. Kayaks abound here.

Survey in Pomene

Clint Marx of LM Surveys gave The Sardine a call and asked about the feasibility of getting a boat from Barra to Pomene, 110kms north of us, for a survey job. Very feasible, was the quick answer. And so we were chartered to assist Clint with a survey in Pomene.

Our team of Captain Paul Cook, 1st Engineer, and navigation and GIS champion, Captain Robin Beatty, and me, boat Elvis, have done this trip, and so preparations were underway.

Our chosen little big boat was a Cobra Cat 500, with twin Yamaha 60’s. That hadn’t run in 8 years?! So quick to work and Paul started uncovering the multitude of  problems available, when a boat is not winterised. The steering was jammed, the chokes inoperable, the trims full of air, the remotes sticky and stuck, the coils unearthed…it never seemed to end as we just about overhauled the motors completely.

Survey in Pomene: departing at the beautiful Barra Reef Divers launch
Survey in Pomene: departing at the beautiful Barra Reef Divers launch

After 4 or 5 sea trials, we had the motors starting great and pulling top revs. Which made us good for 22 knots at spark advance – our most economical speed. Which two hours after launch at Barra, put us at the start of the Sylvia Shoal, and lines out.

It wasn’t a few minutes when the MYDO Livebaitswimmer rigged with a brand new mini sardine went down to a marauding Tropical Yellowtail. And the another one a few minutes later. This meant we had enough fish to eat at camp for the next few days, and so on we crtised at 20 knots, influenced by a slight chop. Meeting our ground crew who by road, made the same time as us, at the top of the ever awe-inspiring Pomene Point.

There is a natural sand harbour in front of our permanent camp at Pomene, perfect for parking boats in…easily navigated at higher tides.

The next day, whilst waiting for Clint to arrive, we hit out the 17kms to Bassas da Zambia. Miles and miles of more reef…very similair to The Sylvia Shoal. 5 Metres in places. 7kms out to sea. Snorkeling with the current over undragged coral didn’t last long as fish came into view. Many fish. Two Green Jobfish were soon in the hatch. Then a shark ate our bonnie. And a sailfish speared a hole almost right through our live Rainbow Runner. But in my excitement, I set the drag up to high straight away, the fish did not like that at all,and swam off indignant.

Our guest chef in the camp, Rio Domingo, took to catching our live bait for us, and brought up a host of cool little fishies, most of which swam away without hooks in them.

I got a new reel!

When Clint arrived that night, we moved to Pomene Lodge, where we would be based the next week or so. Hot water showers! Woohoo!

Mobilising the boat took a whole day but then we were cruising the magnificent estuary scanning away before sunset.

After a few days missioning with weather, engines and equipment, the job was done. Clint had to leave for more work but not before, he was amply treated to a serious surf session up at the point, with a draining tide and offshore wind, that produced lips a foot thick. And barrells big enough to live in. Enough said.

And so we were left with a boat and some time on our hands whilst waiting for more fuel and a good sea. With which we were able to explore and survey the rest of the huge estuarine system. Packed with Mangroves, and crystal clear water – what a day! It also happened to be the day of the solar eclipse, more about that here.

Solar eclipse from Pomene Lodge
Solar eclipse at Pomene Lodge by “Buddy”

The next was deemed fit for travel, and at 4am, we repeated the ritual, and headed back out to sea. Again we stopped at The Sylvia Shoal, stuck out a whiting on a MYDO, and as we came up the side of the undersea mountain, a lovely swallowtail rockcod chomped it and we had fish for dinner, once more.

A quick two hours had us back on the beach at Barra, where Russell and his crew from Barra Reef Divers put us back on the trailer and into the pub. A few great plates of food at Neptunes Beach Bar, and three exhausted sailors put in for Tofo, and some serious R&R (not rum and raspberry!).

Thank you Clint and The Sardine team!

We can do this trip for anyone interested, anytime…buzz me on umzimkulu@gmail.com

 

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I spent the morning chatting to a robot!?

I spent the morning chatting to a robot!?

I spent the morning chatting to a robot!? It’s a +31 number that rings.  Which is Netherlands, where my girlfriend lives, so I was eagerly expecting her sweet voice, but got something just a tad far to the right.

“Hi, are you Sean (heavy Taiwanese/American combination used with perfect prose) Lange (not so good this time but sounding like Bernhard so ok…)?”, goes the female voice on the other end of the line.

“Yeah”, slowly figuring it’s not my girl.

The voice goes on, “I am something-something from Horizon Investments based in Tokyo…”

Ok, so two strikes already; firstly I am not Shaaan Langer, and secondly the number rang out of The Netherlands. But I like to play these games, so long as they are not extracting any juice from me. ie. bank details, ID, credit card…which are the obvious, but then there are the hidden – income bracket group, occupation, family details, financial details…this is the juice they (the baddies on the far Right) use, to build profiles of us. This information they can then use to target us with their wares.

And then the punch line – “So what exactly do you do at MYDO Fishing?”. Out the park! How the hell they know that? My suspicions were well aroused now.

“Dogsbody.”, replied I suspiciously. She laughed nicely and said, “I don’t understand?”.  “Oh”,  I said, “ok, I am the owner and marketing manager right now.” As I haplessly divulged more company information.

They already knew my number, my name, and where I work. One of my jobs anyway. They knew a lot about me. Obviously an easy task since we are all, all over the interweb. And now they were profiling me with every word I was saying. I had admitted I was the owner. That we had a few staff. That we were manufacturers. That we an active business with a possible chance of investment outlook.

After a while it started getting ugly – “So, Shaan, would you be interested in an investment opportunity of $10 000?”

“Nah, I’m from a small town in Africa lady. I am not interested in investing $1. But how is the weather outside?”. And I repeated the exact question a few times. Over and over. “But how is the weather outside?”.

She started laughing and responding – “I don’t understand?”, but each time, exactly the same, this could have gone for years. It’s what we call a loop and is the vulnerability point of many AI applications.

Gathering of information, and manipulating programmatically on the spot and in an instant, is in our faces right now. The future of marketing banditry is here. There are new technologies on the block. They take potential customers very, very seriously. Programmatically marching into your life. With other programmes researching beforehand specifically, they are given a profile of you to work with. Populating databases with the right questions. Very right questions. Delivered in a theatric environment. Discussed and tuned. Trying to win your trust.

These flow charts must be incredibly complex although it is not much progression to take an existing telesales clerks flow chart and automate  with Articial Intelligence. These guys literally climb into your mind with vague mention of riches to be earned, sweet voices, and confusing accents. They control much of your attention during the call. They paint a world with theatrics and send it to you via an entertaining fresh and perfect voice to imagine where  they are and what they are doing. What they look like. These are all strategies, or tricks, to be exact. Using people with different accents as the target. Appealing to all kinds of emotions – being analysed by software produced by a team of shrinks making on the fly decisions. Millions per second kind of thing.

The resources for AI powered speech robots to be used in sales applications have existed a while now. It’s just been a matter of time before this happened. Imagine the cost of sale savings per target? Instead of a living breathing breeding sales person, you buy a programme of the shelf, and double click!

It’s not all bad, conditional marketing has been around for ages. But when it starts calling you up with a robot and engaging you in your valuable time and they don’t even know you, is. It really is. And when they start asking the exact right questions from a robot programmed with artificial intelligence start specifically focused on perfecting the manipulation of people via prose. Appealing to emotions. Painting them up. Extracting information. Age of desperately aggressive marketing tactics.

Anyway, I started to play the game and turned it around, asking this woman personal questions, and telling her she was a robot.

Same reply. An eerily innocent and genuine sounding laugh. Over and over again.

So I left her in cyberspace laughing. And wrote this story.

Whistlebower!

Then the phone rang again, and trues nuts, she tried two more times. Eventually I got mal and hung up twice.

The phone rang again. 15 minutes into the story. Also from Netherlands. A young cheerful Indian sounding chap, asking the exact same questions. Saying the exact same things.

At least I got a story out of it. Imagine how many people they hit in a day? Gethousands.

Don’t be one of them!

Unless they are selling Mydos! 🙂

 

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Programmatic Marketing by thesardine.co.za

Need more bites? Get on a Programmatic Marketing campaign by thesardine.co.za. Contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com

Programmatic Marketing by thesardine.co.za

Need more bites?

Need more bites? Get on a Programmatic Marketing campaign by thesardine.co.za. Contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com
Need more bites? Get on a Programmatic Marketing campaign by thesardine.co.za. Contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com Photo by Captain Duarte Rato

thesardine.co.za is a great source of surfing, fishing, diving and environmental news from around Southern Africa. 30 Years ago, The Sardine Newspaper was a printed tabloid reaching 10’s of thousands of avid ocean and outdoor readers. After having been bought and sold a few times, it is now back in full swing as an online newspaper. We have been online for 6 years now, and are growing from strength to strength.

Contributors from all over the southern African area regularly submit news and information relevant to their areas and their businesses. Lodges, charter operations, restaurants, tackle shops, tackle brands, boat and outboard specialists, bands, construction companies, cottages for rent, adventure companies…all with an interest in thesardine.co.za’s content and it’s wide delivery. This increases exposure for our contributors across the board, and is an example of how programmatic marketing works.

A PROGRAMMATIC MARKETING programme consists of the following:

  • a Web 3.0 website
  • an SEO and keyword strategy
  • a content channel and publishing schedule
  • an active database
  • social network integration
  • B2B network integration

“Programmatic Marketing by thesardine.co.za…Surfing, fishing and diving news…from all over Southern Africa. And an SEO and Content Marketing platform that produces great results. For cutting edge PROGRAMMATIC MARKETING for your business, contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com”

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Catching kob in Port St. Johns with #1 Mydo Luck Shot

Typical South Africa style spinning equipment

Catching kob in Port St. Johns with #1 Mydo Luck Shot

Catching kob in Port St. Johns with the MYDO baitswimmer head used as a powerful dropshot rig. These two are rigged the two different ways (see below), and with paddletails.
Catching kob in Port St. Johns with the MYDO baitswimmer head # 1 used as a powerful dropshot rig. These two are rigged the two different ways (see below), and with paddletails. Note the outsized hook on the orange plastic, for big fish and heavy tackle. The Orca plastic is rigged with the knot buried deep and a short shank hook further back in the lure. Choose your favourite hook!

The original #1 Mydo is turning out to be the choice lure in Port St. Johns as it’s perfect weight – 1.7Oz, and swimming action, works the waters at the mouth and in the surf zone, just right. Read on to find out more about catching kob in Port St. Johns.

The rig is adjustable and allows you to engineer the ideal swimming pattern for you, in the given conditions. The line is tied right through the middle of the baitswimmer head and through the eye of the hook. Using a uni-knot allows for the tiny adjustment needed, to play with the action. There is also a through the bait option – great for sticking a hook far back in the bait. Some plastic baits, like the ones with paddletails, need no adjustment really, they swim just so nice, straight and reliable.

But if you loosen the connection between hook and baitswimmer, and stick a split tail plastic on, you can get that thing to swim like a snake! It really is amazing to see you plastic dead bait darting through the water just like a wounded and fleeing fish would be.

The # 1’s are the budget line of the Mydo, and you get to buy them unrigged so you can choose and rig the ideal hook and leader combination for you. The #1’s come with a pin or without, the following are the adaptations of the MYDO baitswimming technologies, to various fishing applications.

baitswimmer dropshot head with pin: rig your nice soft strong leader through either of the available holes and right through the baitswimmer. Tie on your absolutely favourite hook, even a short shank will work great. Grab ahold of your plastic (anything from 3 inch to 8 inch – the hook just needs to be right for the plastic and prey), and get that hook in there. Bury the hook so far in that the eye of the hook goes right inside of the plastic. Now stick the plastic onto the pin, upright. With longer hooks, get the pin right through the eye of the hook, bend the pin over, trim it off with heavy duty pliers and off you go to the nearest river mouth. Now! The pin keeps the plastic in the right place – on the hook!

For short shank hooks, or when you want to rig a hook right in tail, keep burying the hook to where you want it. Put the nose of the plastic onto the pin, and stick a toothpick through the plastic through the eye of the hook, break off protruding ends. Now you have two anchors for the plastic, a completely flexible bait with the leader running right inside it, and a hook right back in the bite zone – far more hookups, no more tail-bite-offs.

Number-ONE-Pin

baitswimmer dropshot head without pin: This is the other options (some shops sell #1’s without pins especially for this rig). Leader through bottom hole, up through eye of hook, back through top hole, and tie a uni-knot. Everyone should know this knot by now. Quick and painless, and very reliable. Use you own initiative for keeping the plastic on, when it eventually starts to fall off. I use cable ties. Toothpicks. Superglue. A slow bouncy retrieval for the kob, gives a totally different swimming pattern than a faster surface crank for the garrick. The Port St. Johns crew get their fish at a more medium pace, and when they change pace and bounce completely – that’s when they get the bang most times.

Number-ONE

 

baitswimmer: the #1 was one of Brian Davey’s first patents, and all the other baitswimmers were based on this lure. Even at it’s size, it can give swimming lessons to the biggest shad, and even tames a bonito of a kilo or so. Amazing, considering how hard it was to swim those baits ,before Brian came along with his invention and rocked the fishing world. Walla walla, half beak and jap mack all started swimming upright and true – no more spinning baits. The Vaalies finally started winning some comps!

live baitswimmer: #1 baitswimmers are ideal for putting som order into your spread when dragging a bunch of errant little live baits behind you. The bit of weight just puts them away from the surface guys, and you can then play deeper with the #4 and #4 Mydo Baitswimmers safely under them. Running 6 or 8 livies takes some serious planning and execution, and the baitswimmers help you do just that

But here in Port St. Johns, shoulder to shoulder with the pro’s, I am stoked to report that everyone here is using #1’s with great results. Many kob so far, and many garrick. Getting photos out of the team is nigh impossible – they don’t want anyone to know where and what they are catching!

Click here for more about the MYDO Luck Shot #1’s and here to take advantage of our price promotion on MYDO Baitswimmer # 1’s.

Dealer enquiries to umzimkulu@gmail.com, there is a reward of a huge MYDO hamper offered out to for people who can hook us up with dealers, in their areas.

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