I’m back with my monthly update for the social media growth project. In June, I started to post consistently every day on Instagram and cross-post the same videos on other platforms. It’s been 5 months and I’ve learned a lot.

This month has been fairly quiet with no big viral videos. I put more effort into making longer videos for YouTube and there was some growth there. I honestly still have no idea how TikTok works—the stats were getting worse.

September’s Highlights:

• The best-performing video on Instagram this month got 48K views.

• My YouTube channel crossed over 200K views. That same video above crossed over 50K+ on YouTube Shorts.

• TikTok views have fallen down to around 300-400 views per video with some odd ones crossing 1K.

Follower Growth

• Instagram: 10.7K followers (a 4% increase from 10.3K)

• TikTok: 594 followers (a 6% increase from 562)

• YouTube: 809 followers (a 14% increase from 707)

Insights and Conclusions

• This month has not been the best month. I feel a bit frustrated with myself as I have not been able to produce any new viral videos. But at the same time, I want to make videos that I enjoy making, not just for views. I need to find a way to balance this. At the moment, I don’t make money from social media, so to a great extent I want to be able to serve my own interests.

• I came across a TikTok creator who just blew up within a week and she made lots of content about having money and intimate details of her relationship, which caused controversy and led to virality. I know I do make relationships content but I do keep certain things private. I don’t like the idea of turning everything into content for views or sharing things I don’t need to be sharing just for shock value. I don’t value turning your personal life into entertainment for strangers and feeding an app’s algorithm. Without a strategy and goal, it seems like a slippery slope where you’ll end up exploiting yourself and your real-life relationships for dopamine and money.

• Yesterday, I tested a new video format that had two halves: 1) me speed drawing Mario and 2) me talking about relationships. It didn’t perform as well as others, but I enjoyed making it. Drawing was fun and relaxing. So I made another drawing-related video but this time it had a narrative to it. It did better than the previous one (over 2K views on YouTube Short). Still, it’s all about retention.

• I’ll try to be more creative with video production even if there aren’t many people watching yet. I want to do it for anyone who is watching and for myself/my younger self. I want to put out content that I feel proud of. I don’t want to do it just for virality. I like the idea of having a small, engaged community that I know I can make an impact on.

• I don’t know how I feel about TikTok. I think the platform is just really saturated right now. It’s really hard to grow. A video could do well on Instagram and YouTube but absolutely flop on TikTok. I’m thinking of using TikTok to post videos longer than 1.5 minutes and less than 5 minutes. But then again, I’m thinking… do I even need to be there? I don’t see myself as an influencer doing sponsorships or selling products there so it’s kind of pointless.

• On that note, I got one collaboration offer on Instagram from a spa. They asked to give me a complementary treatment in exchange for a review reel on my profile. I said no.

• On YouTube, I only post videos longer than 10 minutes. I like making long videos. Is that a millennial thing?

• Overall, I’ve enjoyed my experience creating content on social media. The responses have been mostly positive, some very heartwarming. It’s rewarding so far. I can’t believe I’ve been posting every day for months without skipping! What? It helped me become more efficient at video production and more creatively fulfilled.

See you next month!