🤯 How to Choose the Right Social Media Platform?

Hello creators - week 7 of the Creator Chronicle is here!

I was talking to Yoma James Kokur this week (interview out next week) - he’s a finance, business, entrepreneurship, and personal development creator. Really cool guy with an awesome story.

Anyways, we got on the topic of the best social media platforms for beginners.

I’ll be honest - it’s a battlefield out there. TikTok. YouTube. Instagram. Twitter (not calling it X). Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitch. Pinterest. Threads. Snapchat. Reddit?? How the hell are you supposed to know what to do.

Spreading your limited resources across all these platforms would be impossible. That’s why I recommend start with short form video, and leverage that one video across multiple platforms. Reuse TikTok videos on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Turn that same video into a Twitter thread and Reddit post. The opportunities are endless.

Yoma suggested starting with TikTok. You can see instant results with your first couple of videos, which gives you momentum to keep creating. Nothing is worse than putting content out into the world, just to find out that it reached no one.

With that in mind, for this week’s newsletter I thought we’d break down the pros and cons of getting started on 3 of the largest social media platforms - YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Let’s find out what each has to offer!

Pros & Cons of the 3 Largest Social Media Platforms

#1) YouTube

Pros:

• Large Audience Base: YouTube has over 2 billion logged-in monthly users, offering a huge potential audience to attract. There are people interested in every type of niche possible.

• Evergreen Content: Videos can gain views over a long period, remaining relevant for months or even years. Truly a passive content creation strategy - create once, sell forever.

• Monetization Options: Creators can monetize through ads, memberships, and sponsored content. Lots of room to make money.

• Detailed Analytics: YouTube provides comprehensive insights into video performance and audience demographics.

Cons:

• High Competition: It's challenging to stand out with millions of videos being uploaded regularly. You need to nail those thumbnails.

• Longer Production Time: Creating high-quality videos often requires more time and resources. You need to be conscious where you’re putting your time in early on.

• Complex Algorithm: Success can depend on navigating the platform's complex recommendation algorithm - it’s not easy to understand.

• Slow Initial Growth: It may take time to see significant traction as you build your channel and subscriber base. Success is NOT overnight.

#2) INSTAGRAM

Pros:

• Strong Visual Platform: Ideal for photography, fashion, travel, and other visually oriented content. If this is your bread and butter, get on Insta.

• Multiple Content Formats: Offers posts, stories, IGTV, and reels for varied content creation. You really can post whatever format you want.

• Business-Friendly Tools: Has built-in features for business profiles to track engagement and interactions.

Cons:

• Algorithmic Shifts: Reach can be inconsistent due to frequent changes in the Instagram algorithm. C’mon Zuck!

• High-Quality Expectations: Users expect high-quality visuals which can require more effort and design skills. You can’t be posting that 2008 photo taken on a flip phone here.

• Saturated Market: It can be difficult to grow followers due to the high number of active users and competitors. It’s a common trend among all the platforms.

#3) TIKTOK

Pros:

• Viral Potential: TikTok's algorithm is renowned for allowing content to go viral more easily. This is easily the best platform to start with.

• Creative Freedom: The platform encourages creativity with a variety of filters, effects, and music. Most trends nowadays start on TikTok.

• High User Engagement: TikTok users are highly engaged with content, leading to higher interaction rates. How many Gen Z’s do you know that are glued to their phone, watching TikTok’s 24/7?

• Shorter Content: Short video format is less time-consuming to produce. You can keep the content coming.

Cons:

• Unexpected Changes: TikTok's algorithm can change unpredictably, affecting content reach.

• Less Evergreen: Content tends to be more trend-driven, which can become outdated quickly.

• Demographic Limitation: Primarily a younger audience, which might not suit all types of content.

• Monetization Challenges: Direct monetization options are limited compared to YouTube, but this might change over the next few years.

All that to say - I’d rank YouTube as the most established but hardest to master, Instagram as a nice middle ground, and TikTok as the new comer on the block with huge potential, but is still ironing out a few kinks.

The best part about these three (as I mentioned before) - they all offer short form content. So create that one minute video, and then go post it on all these sites. Reach is key for your creator brand. The more eyeballs you can get on your content - the better your chance of success. It’s all about EXPOSURE.

So there you have it! Now let’s go watch some videos featured on 2 of those platforms (not sponsored… but it would be nice ;)

TikTok Video of the Week

@tech_wizzdom

Tech project managers fighting with developers #javascript #techwizzdom #frontend #developer #backend #webdevelopment #devtools #programmi... See more

Dom’s a creator who has mastered all platforms - check out his latest interview on Creator Exclusive!

YouTube Video of the Week

First hand advice from Dom about how to leave your 9-5 this year by creating content

Creator Exclusive Weekly Interview … with Tech Wizzdom

An excerpt of our interview with the full time content creator & tech developer Dom Vidovic (aka Tech Wizzdom)…

Hey Dom! How did you start you come up with your content and creator idea?

It all started back in Croatia, where I got my CS degree and landed a coding job that didn't exactly pay the best – just around a grand a month, you know? But it got me thinking about the whole 9-to-5 grind and whether that was really what I wanted for myself.

See, coming from Croatia, entrepreneurship wasn't exactly the norm. I mean, it was all about that stable job life. But deep down, I couldn't shake off this idea of having my own thing.

So, I experimented with various online ventures – writing on platforms like Twitter and Medium, even tried my hand at running a ghostwriting business. But nothing quite clicked until I stumbled upon content creation.

Funny thing is, I wasn't even into social media at the time. I had ditched all my accounts – Instagram, Facebook – you name it. It all felt like a waste of time. But then, my sister suggested TikTok, and I thought, why not give it a shot? And boy, am I glad I did.

Turns out, being a creator on social media is a whole different ball game than just scrolling through feeds. It's like shifting from being a passive consumer to actively building something meaningful. And for me, that journey kicked off in August 2021.

With a commitment to consistency, I posted daily for over 500 days, immersing myself in the world of short-form content. I started creating videos, and man, did I fall in love with it. I've always had a thing for photography, and videography just took it to a whole new level. Coding tutorials, funny tech videos – I was having a blast.

After that the growth was consistently steady. Within weeks, I had my first viral video on TikTok, which fueled my motivation even more. By the end of the year, I had a solid following, and come March 2022, I hit the 50K follower mark.

But here's the kicker – I made a rookie mistake by not expanding to other platforms sooner. Instagram and YouTube were kind of lagging behind until one magical moment in September 2022.

I posted this funny coding video for the umpteenth time on Instagram, and boom! It went viral, catapulting my account to new heights - we’re talking 4-5 million views on that one video.

Suddenly, the algorithm was my best friend, and my follower count shot up like crazy. It was like a snowball effect. I doubled down on the content that was working, and before I knew it, I had hit the 100K mark in just a month, from only starting out with 500 followers. It really goes to show how much can change in such a short time period.

Read the full interview with Dom over at Creator Exclusive

Thanks for reading everyone - really happy you’re enjoying the creator journey!

If you could, please let us know what you enjoyed (or didn’t) with a very quick reply to this email.

We’ll catch you next week - until then, keep creating!

JP