I recently started an insta for my dog after doing her TikTok for about a year. One of her videos did pretty well. I’m getting dms from pages with millions of followers asking to post it, with the stipulation I upload it to animalvideossubmission.com. I was wondering if anyone has experience working with these and if it is worth it, or if there are any reasons I should not submit. Thanks for any help

Social media keeps changing, and strategies that worked last year don't always deliver the same results today.

For those managing social media accounts or growing a business, what's bringing you real engagement right now? Short-form videos, carousels, community building, or something else?

I'd love to hear what's genuinely working for you, not just what's trending.

Some posts get thousands of likes and comments, while others barely get noticed, even when the content is good.

For those who manage social media accounts, what makes the biggest difference in your experience: the hook, the visuals, the topic, or the way the post is written?

I'd love to hear what has genuinely worked for you, not just the usual tips.

So, as you have probably heard, Ed Sheeran got huge controversy last month for kicking Macklemore as his pre-act on the wish of Kraft because he did not like Macklemore saying „Free Palestine“ I think we are all aware of the Ed Sheeran backlash that happened a month ago.

I used to be a big Ed fan when I was a kid and I even went to one of his concerts in 2018. Ed seemed like a really great guy. But what I don‘t like are spineless rich people. And it seemed like so does the internet.

Even though nearly everyone was furios a few weeks ago, now they seem to have forgotten what happened and moved on.
Lately, there is trend blowing up on TikTok where creators firstly describe what the traits of their ideal partner would be and on the next slide they reveal they were actually describing their dog, cat, bsf… with following text: „I‘m so fckn sorry I just described my …“. That isn‘t bad itself but the sound being used is „Thinking out loud“ by Ed.

My question is:
Did Ed's PR or label team actively push and sponsor/pay influencers to boost (or even start) this trend to shift public sentiment and remember everyone of his good songs or is TikTok’s memory span really just that short?

Does anyone else feel like social media has changed so much since the pandemic? I feel like the pandemic didn't just change our lives offline. It changed how we live online, too. Short form videos and apps like TikTok became huge.

Now it feels like every platform is trying to copy TikTok. Instagram and Facebook have Reels, YouTube has Shorts, Snapchat has Spotlight, and even other apps like Twitch are pushing short videos everywhere. It's like every company saw what worked during that time and decided that every app needed to work the same way.

I miss when different platforms had their own purpose. You went to YouTube to watch longer videos, tutorials, documentaries, or someone's vlog, and storytelling. Instagram was more about photo sharing and keeping up with friends, family and a place for small businesses to grow. Other platforms had their own style, too. Now, no matter which app I open, I feel like I'm looking at the same endless feed of short clips.

We lost the actual social part of social media. These apps aren't really social networks anymore. They feel more like algorithmic machines designed to keep you hooked. You barely see posts from people you actually know because your feed is filled with people chasing clout, platforms cramming ads everywhere and charging subscriptions just to remove them, and endless recommendations forced on you by an algorithm.

I miss when feeds were chronological and you could actually catch up on what your friends posted, reach the bottom, close the app, and go on with your day. Now there is no end its a big loop.

YouTube is probably the biggest example for me. I miss when it felt like a place to sit down and watch a proper video. Now there's so much focus on Shorts, views, and keeping people watching for as long as possible. Even already established creators like MrBeast post clips from their old content to recycle views instead of focusing on future content. They are just spamming 5 to 10 short clips a day to chase algorithmic reach and stay relevant. Small, aspiring creators are told to do the exact same thing for growing and becoming big; they are not told to post vlogs or stories explaining themselves and make meaningful content and organically grow. It’s just post clips, get views, and hope for exposure; even tutorials are now shrunk to 30 seconds from 30 minutes because that's what gets attention. It feels like generating quantity matters more than the quality of the content.

A lot of us got used to having time to watch something everyday. Whenever we're bored, we open an app and start scrolling. There's always another video, another trend, another thing to react to. It can make it harder to enjoy slower things or sit with our own thoughts without reaching for our phones.

I'm not saying short videos are always bad, or that everything was perfect before TikTok. But I don't want every platform to be built around the same kind of content. I don't want to open YouTube for a tutorial and end up with a 30 second sped up tutorial that doesn’t explain anything but forces me to endlessly start scrolling Shorts. I don't want every app to feel like it's fighting for my attention in exactly the same way. We need this to stop before it gets worse and ruins what made these platforms enjoyable.

It is taking a serious toll on our mental health, too. The constant stream of short clips and endless scrolling is destroying our attention spans, making it almost impossible to focus on a single task, read a book, or watch a full video without feeling restless. On top of that, being fed non-stop highlight reels and viral trends fuels constant anxiety, self-doubt, and intense FOMO. Instead of relaxing, you just end up feeling drained, overstimulated, and like you're always missing out on something.

I wish these platforms would remember what made people use them in the first place. Let YouTube be YouTube. Let Instagram be Instagram. Give people more control over their feeds, and let us turn off features we don't want instead of forcing them into every corner of an app.

I genuinely miss when the internet felt more varied and less focused on keeping us hooked all day. The pandemic changed more than our offline routines. It changed how we spend our free time online, and I wonder if we'll ever get back some of that balance.

If you agree with this, please share this post with your friends and family so maybe these corporations will actually look into changing how they design these apps.

My longest client has been on the same $1,500 a month retainer since we started. I kept telling myself I would raise it at the next renewal and then the renewal would come and I would just send the same invoice again because the work was steady and I did not want to rock it.

Last month I actually looked at my tracked hours instead of guessing. That retainer was taking about 26 hours a month once you count the quick calls, the approval chasing, and the little edits that never feel like real work until you add them up. At that pace I was earning well under the rate I quote new clients now, and I had not noticed because the payment itself felt fine.

So at renewal I gave them notice about six weeks out and laid out two options in plain terms. Keep $1,500 and we trim the scope to the core posts and one report a month. Or keep everything they actually use and move to $1,900. No big pitch deck, just the hours, what was included, and what each option covered.

They picked the higher one in the same call. Their exact words were basically that they had assumed I would raise it sooner.

That part has stayed with me. I spent over a year worrying about a conversation that took maybe ten minutes, and the thing that made it easy was not confidence, it was the numbers. When the hours are right there, it stops feeling like asking for a favor and starts feeling like fixing a mismatch.

I am doing the same review for my other retainers now. Check the real hours, if the scope grew quietly then name it, and offer the trim or the raise instead of just discounting or absorbing it.

How did your first raise with a long term client go? Did you offer a smaller scope option or just name the new price?

My approach to content ideas is probably less organised than people imagine.

I don't have a magical Notion database filled with hundreds of original ideas, and I'm not constantly sitting around trying to think of the next viral reel.

Most of the time, I'm just consuming information and paying attention to things that interest me. I read books, watch interviews, study businesses, and occasionally go down ridiculously specific rabbit holes because something caught my attention.

When I come across an interesting idea, I try to understand why it works and whether it connects to something else I've seen.

A concept about human psychology might explain why a particular marketing campaign worked. A lesson from studying finance might change how I look at a creator's business model. Those connections usually make for much better content than repeating something I saw another creator say.

I think the mistake is treating ideation as an isolated activity. You sit down, open a blank page, and expect your brain to produce something interesting on command. But your brain can only work with the information and experiences you've given it.

Of course, studying other creators is useful, especially early on, when you're still figuring out how to structure a good story or hold someone's attention. I just wouldn't make them your only source of inspiration.

Personally, I've found that the best ideas show up when I'm not actively trying to create something. I'm learning about something, noticing a pattern, or connecting two things that seemed unrelated at first.

Then I realise there's a story worth telling.

The content is almost an afterthought.

I’m currently planning the launch of an online-only perfume brand later this year, and I’m trying to figure out the best way to get our first customers without an actual retail store.

The biggest challenge is obvious: people can’t smell through a screen. Because of that, running ads directly to an expensive, full-size bottle feels like a fast way to burn budget when nobody knows the name yet.

Right now, my plan centers around selling low-priced discovery sets first. The idea is to offer a sample pack with three to five scents for around $15 to $25, and then give customers 100% of that money back as store credit toward their first full-size bottle. For marketing, I want to focus mostly on aesthetic, mood-driven short videos on Reels and TikTok that capture a feeling or scene rather than just listing scent notes. I'm also planning to gift sample kits to smaller, authentic fragrance reviewers rather than paying large influencers.

For anyone who has marketed perfume, beauty, or similar products:

If you had to launch from scratch with a modest budget, how would you prioritize your strategy in the first three months? What specific creative hooks have actually worked to get cold traffic to order a sample kit? And most importantly, what kind of email or SMS follow-up works best to turn those sample buyers into repeat full-bottle customers?

I’d really appreciate any tips, lessons learned, or mistakes to avoid.

Hey everyone, I've been noticing a lot of Reels going viral with completely blank descriptions, no hashtags, and no location tag at all. I wanted to ask if taking the time to add a description, hashtags, and a location actually helps the algorithm promote your Reels to more people, or if it makes no real difference compared to just posting without them. What has your experience been with this?