I use Hootsuite to post to my website’s Facebook and Instagram pages because it’s a lot easier. I can post from the desktop, rather than having to email my post to my phone and do it that way. It’s also worth noting that I use the free version of their service.
The Problem
For my website, randomanime.org, I post something daily called the “Random Anime of the Day”. This is something that, like the name suggests, is generated every day. So I have to create a post daily, or schedule one.
I made the decision to start making videos instead of images to try and improve some interaction. Well, this ended up causing a lot of frustration. No matter what I did, Hootsuite would fail to post my video to Instagram.
Only video. Pictures worked just fine. Video would fail every time.
Solving The Problem
I took to the internet to try and solve my problem, but couldn’t find anything. “Direct Publishing” was already enabled, like it said to do in their docs. I created a help desk ticket which, to present, still hasn’t even seen a single reply from them. I know I’m a free user, but c’mon. My help desk ticket was replied to on March 5, so 11 days after it was created. Do with that what you will.
So what do you do when technology is acting up and you can’t figure out why?
Turn it off and back on again. So that’s what I did.
I removed my Instagram account and re-added it from scratch. However, I noticed this time around that I had new options available to me. During the setup process, it even asked me to download the app, and enable notifications. It detected when this was done, and the setup continued.
My next video posted without an issue.
Takeaway
I guess the “turn it off and on” methodology really does apply to any and all technological situations.
It kind of irritated me that the error for publishing I was receiving wasn’t helpful at all. It was just a generic error message. What’s more frustrating is the lack of support. Funny enough, if you go through their documentation, there are a lot of pages that have very poor review ratings at the bottom in the “did you find this helpful” feedback section.
All in all, I’m a freeloader, so I can’t really complain, right? Sure I’m irritated, but at least now my problem is solved. I’m not really sure why I have to have the dumb app, but if it makes my social media posting easier, then whatevs.
Thanks for listening to my complaining.