Design Diaries

Social media has taken the world by storm. You can’t go anywhere without seeing people glued to their phones. I for sure am guilty of getting lost on TikTok for hours. While most consume content, there are content creators and business owners monetizing their presence on social media. I know you’ve see people talk about making money online as UGC creators, affiliate marketers, or just dancing online like the D’Amelios. Whatever the avenue social media is a vital part of business in 2024. TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, & Youtube all have different things they prioritize. In the last couple year since TikTok has become so popular, Instagram now prioritizes reels or video as well. Let’s get into the social media best practices.

Creating Content That People Want To Watch

There are so many different content creators out there recommending what time you need to post, how many posts a day, how many hashtags there needs to be and what song you have playing in the background. All of these things can help or hurt you for sure, but I would never say this will make or break you. For example if you own a wholesale beverage company with an old audience, I wouldn’t suggest your CEO get on TikTok and dance for sales. That doesn’t match your audience or your brand identity. On the flip side, if you are a retired Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader that teaches dance and owns a studio. I expect you to get on TikTok and dance 4-5 times a day. You can see how there is a little nuance with social media, but let’s keep it basic. Anytime you are caught in a loop on instagram reels or TikTok, start saving ever audio or sound that you like. You don’t realize how much this will help you later when it’s time to make content. From personal experience I have saved audios or super popular trends to my phone, I’ve come back to it the next day with an idea. I am a website designer, so when I come across a great audio I add my text overlay on top that pertains to my niche. I talk about how most design clients are, the kind of questions they ask, I take apart popular brands websites and what I would do to fix them. These are all super specific things I do for my brand. But saving those audios will make your life WAY easier I promise.

Pinterest: The Hidden Gem

When I first started my business, someone told me to use Pinterest as much as I could. I had never been a big Pinterest girly until I got engaged. I learned very quickly that you can drive so much traffic to your website. In my web designer example, I personally created website templates shared picture of past websites and link my website. I also write blogs like this one you are reading now, and link that to a Pinterest post. Think of Pinterest as a search engine, not social media. So it doesn’t matter how many “followers” you have. It doesn’t even show you a follower count. On your home page is shows how many viewers you average per month and how many people you personally follow. This program really is one of a kind. If you own digital products on Etsy you can directly link them to your pins and receive tons of view and site visits from one pin. I started my website template shop April 18th, 2024…yesterday lol. I have 10 site visits to my etsy shop. Mind you I tried selling on Etsy without Pinterest for other digital products and received 1 visit in 6 months. Do you see what I mean?! Pin that shit.

CapCut Video Editor Saves Time

A lot of people have heard of CapCut but we’re talking best practices here so stick with me. CapCut will save you time if you have to edit down some video or share content over several social media platforms. Obviously I create a lot of content, but I’ll tell you what I’m not doing. I am not creating separate content for ALL of my platforms. Take a video or multiple videos on your phone, bring it into CapCut to edit it down. Them upload that video individually to each platform. You can rip videos from TikTok & Instagram and reuse on different platforms. Keep in mind that these platforms are getting smart. They will prioritize creators that don’t upload videos with a watermark from somewhere else. Save yourself time but only having to film once. I made that mistake before CapCut. I would try to film the same video multiple times for my different platforms. Let’s work smarter, not harder.

My Takeaways

Social media can be challenging but I promise you it gets easier. I started my company in August 2023, while I’m still learning, I have picked up so many new techniques along the way. You can’t quit yet, it gets better. The last thing I would recommend is following social media mangers, marketing gurus, and popular people on social media. They will give you free content trying to sell you to work with them. If you follow enough of these people, you never need to pay for a pro until your company gets too big for you. Keep creating and don’t forget to show you face from time to time. Happy posting 🙂