Postcard lets you write once and share everywhere

Postcard 4These days, we are bogged down with multiple social networking sites. If you’re not checking in on Facebook, you are sending pictures to Instagram. If you aren’t musing on Tumblr, you are posting your work status on LinkedIn. Let’s not even think about things like WordPress or other websites.

Postcard lets you post to multiple networks at once. That’s nothing new. What makes this app special is you can easily connect and disconnect social sites per post so if you don’t want your boss reading something, you don’t have to go to the settings section to remove LinkedIn temporarily. Plus, this app lets you post content to your own custom web server…

Design

When you first open the app, you will be shown a couple of actions. Here is your first clue to getting through the guide without getting stuck: follow the instructions exactly. If the tutorial asks you to enable/disable a network, don’t try to access the settings section. If the app asks you to swipe to the right to make a network the host, don’t try to add a new network. Just follow every detail, tapping where the arrow points to and swiping when asked, until you get to the part where you can “Start Posting.” Make sure you tap the words, “Start Posting” in order to get started. The app isn’t broken. It just has a very strict tutorial to follow.

The posting screen displays a big, blank box at the top. This is where you will write your post. If Twitter is your hosting site, you will see your character limit. The app won’t allow you to post anything more than 140 characters if Twitter is the host. If your post is going to be longer than 140 characters, make one of your other social sites the host.

Below the big, blank box is a series of icons. Tap one of the icons to perform an action. Tap the share icon to see what social networks you have connected to the app. Tap the photo icon to add a picture. Tap the link icon to add a web URL. Tap the settings section to see information on the app, upgrade it, or redisplay the tutorial. The bottom portion of the screen will show what action is currently active. For example, if you are under the share tab, you will see your connected sites.

Postcard 5App Use

As I mentioned above, when you first open the app, you will be required to follow the instructions. Once you make it to the “Start Posting” screen and you tap the words, you will be able to do just that… start posting.

Begin by adding your social networking sites. You will have to log in and give permission where needed. The app lets you connect three sites for free. If you are a social butterfly, you can increase how many sites you can connect for an in-app charge of $0.99 for two additional sites, $2.99 for five additional sites, and $4.99 for unlimited additional sites.

You can connect to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, App.net, Buffer, or a Custom Network. There is also a WordPress Plugin so you can add posts to that service.

Custom Networks let users send content to any web server by following the Postcard API Protocol. With the WordPress Plugin, users can display content however they want.

Once you’ve connected as many sites as you would like, make one of them the host site. Swipe the account from left to right to make it a host. If you want to get traffic to your WordPress site, make that your host. All other posts will include a link to that post.

For example, when I posted a message on Facebook using the app, a portion of that message showed up on Twitter with a link to the Facebook message. The same message showed up on LinkedIn with a link back to the Facebook message. You can see how nice this would be for users trying to create traffic to one place without having to do much work to get it.

To access the settings section for each social site, swipe the account from right to left. You can change the title and delete the network from here.

Now that you’ve connected all of your sites and made one of them a host, it is time to start posting. Write what you want, add a picture, website link, and tag, and then tap the Send icon at the top right corner of the screen.

If you don’t want to send a post to one of the sites, tap the account to temporarily disable it. Tap it again to enable it. This makes it very easy for you to quickly leave out certain social networks that you don’t want to post to.

Postcard 6The Good

Connecting each site was very easy. I had three social networks added in a matter of seconds. If I want to add more, it won’t be too expensive. If you have a lot of social networks, you can get unlimited connections for only five bucks.

The Bad

When I tried to add a link and a picture, the picture didn’t show up in the post. I was able to send it separate, but it appears that you can’t send both a link and an image in one post.

Value

Postcard is free to download and comes with three network connections. You can pay, buffet style, to add more accounts, which is a very efficient way to get more from the app without spending more money than you will need. If you don’t have more than five accounts, you won’t need to spend more than $0.99.

Conclusion

If you want more control over what social sites drive your traffic, this is a great app. Its best feature is the ability to add Custom Networks and the WordPress Plugin. All posts will link back to the host site. However, it is still useful for simple, everyday social network postings, even if you aren’t concerned with traffic. Download it in the App Store today.

Does Postcard sound like something that would benefit your social networking experience?