Sunday, May 17, 2026

A Week in Writing #613 - Social Media Meltdown


Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing.

I don't know if you're like me, but there is a certain amount of pressure to post regularly on social media platforms. For me, the main ones I use are Facebook (both David Hankins and Powers Squared), Instagram, LinkedIn (both David Hankins and Powers Squared), Threads, amd Bluesky. [This is not a call to follow me on any of them, but I'm just trying to give you an idea of what I'm on. I used to use GoDaddy for this, but they have very limited reach, like Facebook and Instagram. I decided to try another service, PaddyPost, which are usually Powers Squared related.

With PaddyPost, there were always issues with Bluesky, since they have limited space and for PaddyPost to interface, it has to be shorter than their limit, so I try to keep that in mind. But there are problems with PaddyPost, such as my social media connections keep getting lost, pretty much exclusively Bluesky, but it gets worse. My two LinkedIn accounts stopped working several weeks ago and my emails to PaddyPost Support went unanswered for several weeks. They finally acknowledged me but claimed never to have receive my emails, which I attached on my response. But still no response to my issue.

I also post to Threads directly, because when I try through PaddyPost, I get the largest QR Code I've ever seen and this is only the top part, which fills the screen:


Thanks for nothing.

This led me to reconsider GoDaddy, but you don't create your social media posts, their AI slop does it for you and there's no way to opt out. After spending thirty or more minutes with their help chat, the answer was to let AI write them and then edit it to what you want. What a load of BS. So they're out.

As I'm writing this, I've gotten two emails from PaddyPost about losing connection to BlueSky (both accounts), again, again today! WTF?

My postings are pretty simple. I post every morning about anniversaries of titles reviewed in Trophy Unlocked on BlueSky. I do these directly under my name, and I'm editing as I go to ensure they will work again next year. On Saturdays I post on Facebook and BlueSky about the Saturday Morning Review; I also do it on Wednesday if there is a game review and I know about it ahead of time. Again, these are done directly on the plaforms, little to no issues. I also post on Sunday nights regarding this post on both platforms, again with minimal issues.

What I want help with are the two to three Powers Squared posts, which I try to get to as many platforms as possible. Our Wedneday video goes up at 2:30 pm, which happens to be when I supposed to be doing my day job. So I had been trying to use PaddyPost for those, as well as the Tuesday Peek-of-the-Week post about that feature on our Powers Squared website. We also post a video to Instagram and that works. Even afterwards, there are more groups to post it to on Facebook, which again, I do directly. But it's also supposed to go to BlueSky, Instagram, LinkedIn, but it's not going to LinkedIn and BlueSky's connection, as noted above, is lost at the drop of a hat.

So, I feel like I'm spending too much time trying to get PaddyPost to work properly and if they don't respond in short order, I'm apt to give up on them all together. I had high hopes that they would be a reliable partner and they're proving not to be. 

End of Rant.

In other news, I finsished a review of Moana (1926), the Robert Flaherty documentary. My goal is to save it until the new live-action Disney Moana comes out. You're now officially in on the joke. My review of The Sheep Detectives went up as the Saturday Morning review on Trophy Unlocked. Our artist on Powers Squared has been very busy and I'm already behind as I write this with a new page from her. It's great but every night, I have to review what she's sent and give comments. It's more time consuming that you think, though necessary.

Our Friday night On the Air with Powers Squared podcast, which I had tried to use PaddyPost to "advertise", this week was a look at the Steven Universe universe, the original series, the movie and the Steven Universe Future series. You can listen to it now here, watch it on our Twitch channel for the next few days, or watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 pm. It will go up even if the social posts don't.

I'm still working on Blackmail, but I've come to a part I plan to rewrite, as the timeline in the story allows me to do that. I'm about 84% through the book at this point and standing at 89,538 words. I'm guessing the latter number will go down with the rewrites, which should tighten the story somewhat. 

So, my next week will be reviewing and rewriting.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you back here next week.

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