Facebook ALLOWING Scammers on their platform!? Plus A Boostly Update. 🚀

We have some breaking news now. The Boostly podcast is about to begin. Make sure you like this post, comment bookdirect and share this video in Facebook groups. But now let me hand you over to your host, Mark Simpson.

All right? Hello, everybody. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, welcome. This is. I've been on this for a week now, which seems a bit mad. I've been very, very, very occupied with something that I'm very looking forward to telling everybody about. So this is the Boostly podcast. This is a live recording. We're going live right now on Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, all the places. And I just want to say hi. So, hi, Shirley, Hi, Ginny, Hi, Tracy, Hi, Sarah, Hi, Lorraine. Hi, Tracy again. Hi, Shirley as well. I was like. So thank you very much to everybody that is tuning in now and tuning back on the replay. What I would love for you to do because we've got over 30 people tuning in live, is let me know where in the world you are tuning in from today. I'm going to be sharing with you what has been happening in the world of Boostly over the course of the past week. We have been running a five day challenge. So those of you that are taking part in the five day challenge, put your hand up, say hi, tap the thumb button or the love heart button as many times as you can on your phone. So I know where you are and who you are. So basically for those of you that aren't taking part and those of you who are watching back on the replay thinking, what? What is he talking about? The five day challenge is something that I run maybe three times a year, four times a year max. And what I do over the course of five days is I take hosts through a, a pretty exhausting week. And what we do is we utilize social media, we utilize Facebook to get tons and tons and tons, thousands of people's eyes on our business. And then I show them how to turn lookers into bookers. And we're just about to finish today. We have a debrief in two hours time, which I'm looking forward to, really looking forward to. And it's been, yeah, it's been. It's amazing week. Some wins, lots of wins, lots of really good people taking part. And what I love about it most is that there's tons of action takers. We've had people from all over the world, from Tobago to Australia to Tokyo, which is obviously in Japan. We've got people in America and Canada, obviously we've got people in Britain, uk, Ireland, and we've got people spattering all around, scattering all around Europe as well. So it's been a total worldwide event. We had just over 500 people put their name down. We've had about 423 in the group, and I think last time I checked him, about 150 people who are taking part every day. So really good numbers. And yeah, I think if anybody's seen a giveaway posted on Facebook in the past week, it's pretty much guaranteed it's going to be one from our training. So it's been fantastic, there's been lots of wins. But as the title suggested, something that has really amazed me this weekend, it's not the first time it's happened. It definitely has happened over the course of the last, say, six months. But there's, there's a new trend that's happening with, with scammers, with bots. And what is happening is that with these bots and these scammers, they are targeting Facebook business pages that are running giveaways. And it is really sophisticated, it's really clever, it's all automated, but it is an absolute shocking operation that is happening. And what even worse is that Facebook are doing nothing about it. So basically what happens, these bots are very sophisticated. They will look for a giveaway that's got a bit of traction. So traction could be anywhere between 100 entries to maybe 200 entries, 200 likes, et cetera. And what they'll do is they'll scrape the page and then they'll create a copy page and then they will message everybody who has entered the real giveaway and the private message will read along the lines of, hey, this is X. And again, it's same profile picture. All the information you've won, please fill in this form. And on that form, they're asking for credit card details, which is, which is shocking. And again, if, if, if you were just a normal Joe Smith who just entered a giveaway, seeing that a lot of people have put their credit card information in now, thankfully, they're in the process of getting their money back. And thankfully, because the page has been reported and because we've, we were ready for this, to be honest, I wasn't ready for just this amount because it is pretty vicious. But those pages have been able to get taken down. And I say the people that put their credit card details in are in the process of getting the money back. But it really does surprise me how Facebook are not reacting to this. And those of you that know me, those of you who know my contacts, we, I do have a PR person. So Amanda, if you are watching this, we are going to be going to be making more known of this over the course of the next couple of weeks. A hundred percent because I want something done about this. It's, it's, it's not nice and you know, yes, there's hackers and scammers and stuff all over the world and for many different things but to do it on a platform as big as this and it not being more wide known and for them to not do anything, we need to, we need to take a stand. So again, if you are going to run a giveaway, the reason why I wanted to mention it is that I wanted to let everybody know, be aware if you are going to run your own giveaway, just be aware that this could happen. If it does happen, make sure that you get all of your followers, the people that are in a giveaway to report said page and just make sure that they are ultra aware that not to give credit card information over. So again I wanted to let everybody know which is important and it's good to see so many people that have been taking part of this week in the comments saying hi, I will, sorry, I will come back and say hi to everybody afterwards but let's very quickly I just wanted to say a big hi to everybody that has taken part this week and I wanted to give a big shout out to those that have come and joined the Boostly Academy. So those of you that have been on this page and active on the Facebook page for the last 90 days, you know that I've been documenting the Boostly Academy's 90 day journey to more direct bookings ever since we did it, since the first week, every Thursday I came on and documented the five phases that we did. We've come to the end of that and on the 22nd of March we're going to be doing a new round which is great and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in with all of the new members. So we've had the following people join. So hello to Luke Todd, to Sarah Ewing and I think you're Sarah's watching live with us as well. Two people that have just joined today are joined the Boostly Academy. So they're going to be taking part in the in the 90 days. We've got Aiden Nesbit, Barbara Godfrey, Claudia Hodgson, Tori, Tori Fisher, Leander Dado. Apologies if I mispronounced any of your names. Catherine, Susan's, Karen Haller, Louise Turley, Marion Williams, Susanna Green, Rachel Hodge. We've got Jerich I can't pronounce your last name, buddy. I'm so sorry. Sue Borman. Terry McGill. Tara McGill. Jody. Jody Sterling. Ginny Coles has is chodb. Marek Campbell. Lena Sierra. Michelle Rowland. Taraheen. Uh, Zoe Gilding. Uh, Antoniella Columba Baller. Nikki Shannon. And I do have two more names they've snuck in. Nicola Garrett and David Rowland. And if I have missed anybody, welcome. I do apologize but welcome, welcome, welcome. So they're all going to be taking part which is, which is fantastic. And that has been a big part of what I've been doing this week. But it's not the only thing that Boostly does. As you may know we also do website design and the team have been doing fantastic work this week. We have had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 websites go live and I just wanted to, to show you two of them. So let me just share my screen. Where is that music coming from? Okay, Georgina, I'm not showing your website because your music's playing in it. I don't know how to turn it off. So I'm going to show this one inst. Let me do this. So this is a website that we've been working on. What I love about this website is that it is based up in a part of the world that I used to live which is Stockton northeast and it's a really cool website. I love this one. So Rachel and Sarah and the team, the SA company, really nicely put together and I'm not just saying that because it's a boostly website. I, I love this website and yeah, it looks really good. We've, we've worked, we've worked hard putting this together and again it just works well on mobile. It looks good, it's got the coloring and everything absolutely perfect. So yeah, love, love how it has all turned out which is lovely. Now Georgina, let me go see if I can get your website again. Georgina, if you are watching I do love your website but the music doesn't play well for a. When I'm doing a live video. Let's have a little go at this. So again it's a done for you website, guest house, the music playing in the background which is very fun. Very Georgina, very lovely. But I'm gonna turn off because I can't hear myself think. And what I want to show now as well is a, is a, a do it yourself website. So we have the little Yorkshire shepherd hut which is fantastic, lovely little shepherd up in Yorkshire. And again this is one that the do it yourself is basically we Gave Emmett a template and she just put it together herself which is fantastic. So lovely looking website ready to get booked. So again, some, some really good ones and again it's been a fantastic work by the team to get these live. So we've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 websites that are live this week. So Rachel, Madeline, Emma, Darren, Georgina and Julie. Oh yeah, one last one. I want to show the one that we did for Madeline over in, in Italy. Doesn't this place look amazing? So it's in, in Italy. I'm assuming that is wine country, but it looks a stunning location and again Madeline came to us knowing that she needed to get a website up and running. So yeah, really, really, really, really, really happy with how that, how that turned out. And also as well, we've been just doing lots of other little things in the background. I explained that a couple of weeks ago. We are working on something really big with, with, with boostly websites. The, the last thing that I, I told you was that what we are looking to do is create a boostly booking engine. Actually, I don't know if I've actually said that out loud. I think I've just announced it. But yeah, we're working on a, on a boostly booking engine. So basically what that means is that with a website, what we've basically got with the website now is that it gets to a certain point and then we let the PMS take over and we let the, we let the property management software take over with the actual booking part. But there's a lot of friction there. So what we're looking to do is to take out the friction. So what we're looking to do is to have it where somebody can go from start to finish on the website journey and not leave the boostly website. So it just looks smooth and transitions nicely. Now that requires a lot of code, that requires a lot of communication, that requires a lot of what's called APIs. And we've been working with Ziva, we've been working with Hostfully, we've been working with Uplifting, we've been working on Rentals United. Next up is Tokey and then we've got Hostify and we're going through all of those. So it's, it's, it is, it is really exciting and we're going to be going to lots, lots more. We're about to start working with Guesty. So it's a lot of communication. We've hired a lot of developers, a lot of pro programmers who are doing fantastic work behind the scenes. Tom is. Is got a lot on, but it's looking and working really well. And let me see if I can give you a little teaser of one that we've been working on. So we've been working on one with. With hostfully, the fantastic Lorraine based over in Myrtle beach in obviously South Carolina. See if I can get her website up because if I can show you this. So this is very close to being the finished. The finished product. So it's got a lovely, lovely little video here. This is a boostly website and this is the cool thing is that if I come and put in a search here and I might have to go quite far into the future because she's very, very busy. So Lorraine had a fantastic mention in an article in the New York Times anti Airbnb, which is fantastic where we're able to help her with a website now. So you put the. Put the search in here. Hopefully she's got accommodation in November. Although that is very, quite close to. That is very, quite close to biggest holiday season ever. Let me just drop back into September. Busy all the time. Oh my gosh, that's even going to be busier. So I wish I prepared that one. I wasn't going to show you it. Oh, I know why. Because it's not live yet. That is why it's not showing, because it is. It's not live. This is one of our. On our dummy URL. But the main point is that what will be able to happen is that when it does is active and it's all synced up to a proper domain is that we'll be able to. Oh, here we go. Is that we'll be able to do something like this. So they're still on the boostly website and they'll be able to just complete the whole process. Dates are already in. You can actually go and book there and then. So it really takes away a big pain point in a lot of website design. And also as well, the very, very cool thing for you, the host, is that another pain point is that when you maybe change your rates, maybe when you change your images and whatnot, you then have to come into the boostly website and duplicate everything that you do. But with the API that we've created, you won't have to do that. It all gets updated in real time. So when you update your rates, it shows for on the website. When you update your pictures, it shows for on your website. So that's really exciting and, and that is basically what we're working on. So is a lot of work Going on, on behind the scenes. A lot of work on going on behind the scenes and we're, we're communicating with different PMS every single day. A big part of what I now do with the boostly website design is to create more partnerships to go out and show what we're doing. And it's, it's been, I say Tom's been a lot of stressing, but it's definitely going to be, definitely going to be worth it. And yeah, we will. I will let you know in due course. The first people that can take advantage of this is going to be our current website clients. Obviously, we're going to look after our original clients first and then we'll be able to offer out to new people as we, as we go. But it'll just mean as well how we build a website will be 10 times faster, which is awesome. We don't need to get as much information. It can be 10 times faster. So we can start really scaling our websites because I want to get to 1,000 websites this year. I really want to start to, to make a dent in this industry and I want it to be when anybody goes to a website, I want it to be able to see that it's a boostie website because we know that this style works. The proof is in the pudding. The proof is in everything. And we've, we've totally redesigned the templates so it's up to the latest trends. There's a massive Google change coming very, very soon in their algorithm and their rankings and what they rank for. So booster websites now load faster than ever. We've actually managed to get it under a second, which is insane. And it's ticking off the last part of the jigsaw, the last piece of the puzzle, the keystone, if you like, of our who is. What's been missing is making it a real smooth connection between the PMS and the website. And nobody's done this, nobody's created this, so we're going to be the only ones. This is why I've been really excited behind the scenes and yeah, it's, it's, it's exciting, really exciting. So please do keep on touch with that. I will be talking about hopefully more in maybe May, but when I do, I'll let you know. And that's been the week. There's been so many wins. It's, it's been, it's been long. I'm not gonna lie, it's been a long week. There's been some amazing people helping behind the scenes. So we've got Boostly Ambassadors. So people from the Boostly Academy have been doing this, this training with me for years. I invite them in to come and help me run it and we call them Boostly Ambassadors and they've done so well this week. So Tracy. I know Tracy's with us. Tracy Tillman. We've got Ger Jones, Melanie Benwell, who's been in my world since 2017, ever since I sent her a cold email. This is before the GDPR days. I sent Melanie an email of a, of a tortoise and she had a tortoise on her farm and she responded back. So we first got chatting and again she, she'd been massive help. Alison over in Austria and we've got Liam Carolan over in Norwich and Kay Taylor, which is down in Cornwall or Devon. I know she's definitely south. I mean, it's Cornwall. Yeah, Cornwall. They say Cornwall. I know I probably got it wrong. I do apologize. It's probably Devon of the two. So thank you and you've all made me laugh. This week we've got our own little private WhatsApp group chat. So many questions coming in and it's been, it's been good. Sleepless nights, but good. So it's going to be a well deserved break this weekend. We're going to go to a zoo, which is quite rare. An outing out of Javier this weekend, which is nice. And then and back to it next week. So I just want to say thank you so much for everybody who is. Is watching. We've got 48 people watching, which is amazing. Please do look out for some big press release next week. Amanda. Amanda Leake, who helps me with press releases, we are going to take on TripAdvisor. For anybody who knows about what TripAdvisor have done this week, they have tried to get away with changing their T's and C's where they can say that they can scrape your website. I'm not standing for it. We're going to call them out on it and we've got a press release ready to go. It's been sent to everybody. We're just waiting for TripAdvisor to come back with their response. So please do look out for that and make sure that we share it and we make sure we get fully aware. We spread it to all the journalists that want to know about it and we're not going to let them get away with this. So please do look out for that. And we've also got another article hopefully going out next week or the week after about people trying to book hospitality accommodation, saying that they're key workers, but really they're not and they're just trying to get a holiday again. We're going to try and make this newsworthy, make it more aware of. We're going to go with TripAdvisor first and then we're going to go after those people that are trying to book fake holidays next. But no, don't go off TripAdvisor just yet. Let them let us do this. Let us, let us get them accountable for it. Let's try and make them change their, their new T's and C's that they've got coming out and then we'll make a decision later. But for now, that's it. And I will hopefully be able to give you more news on the book. I had an interview, a chat with the publisher this week. It's all sort of ticking along nicely in the background. Everything is under control. Unlike what I felt like a couple of weeks ago. It's all under control. It is all managed, thanks to some amazing people behind the scenes. So, yeah, the book is currently with the fantastic Neely Khan. She's editing it and we're still on, on track for a November release. But I will let you know more about that. Okay, thank you very much and I shall speak to you all soon. Thank you for tuning in. And I shall speak to every everybody very soon. And judging a taunt. Don't call me that. All right, everybody, thank you very much. And what I'll do is I will leave you with a nice little video about the Boostly Academy for everybody who's watching who would like to maybe join. And if you know somebody that recommend to join, please do get in touch. Please do let them know about boostlyacademy.com.

And let's do this. You're frustrated, a source of consternation. You're struggling to rent accommodation. You be not rubbing hands with glee. You're being screwed over by Airbnb and booking dot com. They're not nice to the hosts. No, by far not the most taking high commission costs. They be presenting you and taking all that percent should be into your bank account. And maybe you don't know how to use social media to grow and get the bookings coming direct. Well, don't worry, I'll explain what comes next. Yeah, you're gonna be glad you heard a rap from me. I'm explaining. That's an academy. Oh, like an orange. So juicy. Gotta look at that thing by Boosley. That's the three T's two tools, tactics and training to give you the confidence. That's a no braining. You get weekly group coaching, 500 people. That's the most in let me say this, going through it. You know that he's the Martin Lewis for the hospitality owners. Yeah. Not dumb like Homer Simpson, not the guy from the past. There's a vault of online training videos that will last you for a long time time teaching you how to master Facebook, Instagram and what comes after marketing by email, the pricing, branding, Google so you don't fail. And here's another thing that you ought to see. If you don't get a return, there's a money back guarantee.

What? Yeah.

You can't top that return on your investment or you get your cash back. Sounds like a deal. Sounds like a steal. And that's the Bruce Lee academy that I ran revealed.