Curious what others would change with hindsight.
For me it was chasing follower spikes without checking whether anyone stuck around. The number looked great for a week, then reach and replies got worse.
What metric looked important at the time but mostly wasted your effort? Followers, likes, views, or something else?
Views are useful only when they lead to the next action. I care more about saves, profile visits, replies, and whether the audience returns. A spike with no follow-through is usually distribution, not demand.
impressions. looked huge in the deck, meant nothing once we checked who actually opted in or came back. if it doesn't change a next step i ignore it now.
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followers for sure. the number going up felt great but a lot of those people never saw a post again. what actually told me something was saves and shares per post and story replies, those moved way before followers did. views too honestly, a reel can do 50k from people who never come backfollowers for sure. the number going up felt great but a lot of those people never saw a post again. what actually told me something was saves and shares per post and story replies, those moved way before followers did. views too honestly, a reel can do 50k from people who never come back
Followers is probably the most useless metric these days. Especially now that most algorithms prioritize engagement, followers often have little correlation even with reach, let alone any conversion metrics.
I've been absolutely obsessed with short form content for the last two years. Like people have staged actual interventions about my health level of obsessed. I'm talking 11-14 hour days breaking down what separates successful videos from failures, experimenting with different hook variations, rewriting scripts until my brain hurts, testing every editing approach I could possibly get my hands on. Why this level of obsession? Because I'm absolutely certain short form video is the backbone of everything right now. Growing followers, selling anything, generating opportunities, creating brands from nothing. Every part of it depends on whether you can hold someone's attention for 30 seconds. But here's what nearly made me quit entirely: despite the constant daily grind, nothing was hitting. I'd pour 7-8 hours into crafting one video only to watch it crash at 300 views. Tried every tactic from every person claiming to have figured it out. Bought their courses. Applied their "proven" methods. Still going nowhere. I seriously started thinking maybe I'm just not the type of person who can make this work. Like maybe there's some fundamental ability I'm completely lacking. Then something clicked. I'm grinding constantly, but I'm operating completely blind. I don't actually know what's broken. I'm essentially just trying random things hoping something eventually works. So I stopped hunting for some mythical viral code and started analyzing actual data. Analyzed my last 50 videos second by second, documented every retention drop, and discovered 5 consistent patterns that were systematically killing my performance: 1. **Vague mysterious hooks are totally invisible** "This will transform you..." gets scrolled past every time. But "I used resistance bands for 55 days and my shoulder mobility actually decreased" stops people mid scroll. Specific concrete details destroy vague teasing without exception. 2. **Seconds 5-7 are where everything gets decided** Most viewers leave between 4-7 seconds if you haven't proven it's worth watching. I was creating slow buildups like a complete amateur. Now my strongest visual or most compelling number arrives exactly at second 5. That's where the hook that genuinely holds people. 3. **Any gap beyond 1 second absolutely kills your retention** Tracked this obsessively, anything past 1.2 seconds makes people think the video stopped. What feels like natural comfortable pacing to you reads as complete dead time to someone scrolling. Cut significantly tighter than feels normal. 4. **Visual variety is absolutely critical** If nothing changes on screen for more than 3 seconds, attention vanishes without warning. I started constantly rotating camera angles, cutting to b-roll, moving text placement, literally anything to maintain constant visual movement. Went from losing 50% at the halfway mark to keeping 70%. 5. **Rewatch rate is dramatically more important than most people realize** Videos people watch more than once get pushed exponentially harder by the algorithm. Started planting subtle details that aren't obvious first viewing, editing faster, adding elements worth discovering on rewatch. Rewatch percentage jumped from 8% to 31% and reach went completely through the roof. Honestly the biggest shift was abandoning all guesswork and actually measuring what was happening at every second. Came across this one app that goes way beyond showing where people drop off, it literally tells you why and exactly how to correct it. That's when everything transformed. Went from averaging 300 views to hitting 18k in about 4 weeks. Regular analytics show you people are leaving. This one shows the exact second, the actual reason, and what to adjust before your next post. If you're uploading consistently but stuck below 1k views, your content isn't the problem. You just don't know what's genuinely working versus what you assume is working. Listen, I'm sharing this because breaking through was honestly one of the hardest things I've tackled. I really wish someone had just explained exactly what needed fixing when I was stuck there. Would have saved months of confusion and doubt. So that's what I'm doing now for anyone who needs it.
Scrolling and reading people's bio on Linkedin, Facebook and some here Amazing how many "coaches", "life coaches", business coach, leadership coach, career coach, mindset coach, sales coach, branding coach, social media coach, health and wellness coach. Where did all these people get qualified to be a "coach"? Life experience? or sounded good on the Bio?
microsoft owns linkedin (imo that is social media). google owns youtube. maybe it is time for Apple to start a social media given the rise of Muse creating personal dossiers on all of its users (Meta - Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp). or even acquire one? I would love to use something other than tiktok, snapchat, instagram, youtube, or linkedin. apple?
Hello everyone. I’m thinking of using Threads (the Meta app) and wanted to know if anyone uses it regularly. Do you find it useful? What sort of content do you see, how’s the reach for those who post, and how does it compare to X, Instagram or Bluesky? Any experiences, good or bad, would be helpful. Thanks.
​ I've been cross-posting my Instagram content to Facebook, mostly random daily-life mini vlogs. Nothing particularly interesting or fancy 😅. I've been thinking about creating more interesting content, but honestly, I'm not sure where to start or what kind of videos to make. Recently, I received a notification saying my profile had been approved to use Content Monetization, I'm not sure what this notification actually means. I checked my dashboard, and my analytics are pretty low. I have around 1,510 views in the last 28 days, and my approximate earnings are still $0. I'm confused about a few things: Does this notification mean I'm already approved to earn, or do I still need another invitation? If I start posting more videos or Reels now, can I earn money, or do I need to complete something first? I'm using my personal profile with Professional Mode. Is there any difference between that and creating a separate Facebook Page? Which one should I use? What kind of content would you recommend for someone just starting out? I'd really appreciate it if someone could explain how this works in simple terms and share any tips for getting started.
Hi everyone, I started a Facebook page a week ago and post AI-animated cooking videos. So far I've posted 7 videos. 5 got over 1k views and 2 got 300+ views. But I only have 8 followers. So people are watching, but almost nobody is following. I want to grow both views and followers. A few questions: Does Facebook push Reels mostly to non-followers, so views don't turn into follows? Do you need a call to action like "Follow for more recipes," or does it hurt reach? Does a consistent series or format help people follow? Does posting at a certain time or frequency help with followers? Does AI-generated content get less trust, so people watch but don't follow? If you've grown a page recently, what changed things for you? Thanks!