Which platform should I post on? What should I post? Which social media platform is the best to grow an audience?

These are some of the most common questions every creator asks, when they’re about to start creating content, hoping to go viral and get a 100k followers before the year ends. They want to know which platform should the spend their time on, to get the most out of their content.

Well, I’m going to show you the results I’ve seen over the first couple of weeks of creating content for my brand building series of California Digital Nomad. And if you haven’t subscribed to this series yet, where I share more in-depth essays like this one, you can sign up here so you don’t miss them when they release.

This is a screenshot below, of a Analytics Dashboard I created in Notion to help me track the results over time.

Over the course of the last two weeks, I focused heavily on creating video content for this brand. I didn’t do much writing, other than taking notes and documenting both my work and my recent trip to Joshua Tree National Park.

Now, most of the notes I took are so that my newsletter, which I’ll now be calling my journal, is to help me write about the trips I go on, and talk about my experiences, the history, tourist spots, special sites, the plants, geology, creatures, and the overall experience. I plan to take all the video, pictures, and my notes, and create multiple forms of content. I’ll explain more about that process in the coming weeks.

For now, I want to share with you what I did in weeks 3 & 4.

The focus was on content, and I did not focus on any sales, no lead generation, no content consistency, and no new journal entries (newsletters). I spent all my time trying to figure out how to become a better video editor, and this is where I feel I can provide the most value to you, in this brand building series documentary entry.

But first, let’s get straight into the results.

Here's a breakdown of how each platform performed this week, along with key insights that might help inform your own content strategy.

I think Instagram is the easiest platform for me to create content for, but the most attention I'm getting is on TikTok, which means I spend less time on this and all other platforms. Instagram is popular for sharing content on travel, leisure, and vacation-type of content, so I anticipate this account will do a lot better over time as it gets discovered.

Instagram has over 2 billion monthly active users as of 2024, making it one of the largest social media platforms globally. Despite this massive user base, the platform's algorithm and user behavior works differently than it does on TikTok, favoring accounts that users already follow rather than pushing new creator content as aggressively to broader audiences.

Here’s my results for Instagram

Going in to this process, I knew that TikTok would do well, but I didn’t expect it to dominate so much between all 6 platforms.

TikTok has over 1 billion monthly active users globally as of 2024, making it one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. This massive user base is one of the key reasons why content can gain traction so quickly on the platform—there's simply a huge audience ready to discover and engage with new content.

Without even trying, the algorithm was pushing my content out and getting me immediate results. I think this platform will be the easiest to go viral, if not, the easiest to have a larger audience.

Here’s my results

I haven't been publishing on Facebook as much as I expected. It was the first account I created, and I planned to use it regularly since I can dual-publish from Instagram. But for some reason, I haven't followed through. There seems to be some friction in my publishing workflow.

My original plan was to post on Instagram first, then toggle the option to share it on Facebook. However, I often get stuck trying to sync a song with the video, which requires the video to be exactly 90 seconds or less. I waste a lot of time on this editing step and usually shelve the project, never returning to it—especially since I've been focused on learning long-form video editing for YouTube.

Going forward, I'll try to publish simple cut videos like I do on TikTok to avoid getting distracted. But with my ADHD, and OCD, I can only hope to accomplish these tasks.

Facebook has over 3 billion monthly active users as of 2024, making it the largest social media platform globally. Within the travel and outdoor adventure niche specifically, Facebook sees significant engagement through dedicated groups, pages, and communities focused on national parks, hiking, camping, and nature photography. Many travel creators find success on Facebook through its robust group features and the platform's older demographic that tends to have more disposable income for travel experiences.

So, I might have to focus more on building a community, but I’ll hold off for now to keep my workload low.

Here’s my results.

YouTube is where I'm putting in the most effort. My goal is to create high-quality, long-form videos—the kind I personally seek out when learning about travel, outdoor adventures, and exploring parks, deserts, and mountains.

While short-form content drives discovery, I'm drawn to full-length videos that go beyond simple clip compilations. My favorites are the ones that dive into historical context—explaining the lore of a location, interviewing locals, detailing how a park was founded, its journey over time, and what makes it special. This type of content requires significant research and production work beyond just video editing.

Since I enjoy this style of content, I want to create similar videos with my own perspective and personality. However, the learning curve is steep. I haven't published much this week because I've been focused on mastering CapCut, learning skills like:

What I appreciate about this process is how it's pushing me to become a better video editor and storyteller. I'm learning to focus on narrative structure—how to connect scenes, build a compelling story, and create satisfying conclusions that feel like closing a chapter. The goal is to leave viewers fulfilled by the journey while making them eager for the next video.

This matters because first impressions are crucial. If viewers don't connect with my content, they won't return. I want to build an audience that the algorithm recognizes as engaged, signaling that my content deserves broader reach.

Here’s my results.

To be honest, I haven't prioritized the newsletter yet. I'm still figuring out my approach while spending most of my time learning video editing.

I do have a clear direction in mind for the format. I'm experimenting with an image-heavy, design-focused approach—completely different from the text-heavy newsletters I've created for my other brands. This is new territory for me, so I'm learning as I go.

For this, I can’t imagine anyone will find this post until I start promoting my newsletter more on social media.

Here’s my results.

I published this post back in June 2025. Though I haven't been active on Substack, it's encouraging to see it's still attracting some traffic. While Substack won't be my primary email platform, I plan to use it as a distribution channel. Its strong social discovery engine helps me reach readers who prefer discovering and consuming content directly on the platform.

I do love how easy it is to write on Substack, and there’s a lot of awesome features that makes Substack a heavy contender. What I love about it is that you can;

Substack has many more cool features, but those are the main ones. I also love how they provide clips to share on other social media platforms or directly in their social feed. I think this could become a powerhouse social platform in the near future, which makes it worth the effort to publish more content here.

Here’s my results

Here's what frustrates me about X. I can't access basic analytics without paying for it. Every other platform I'm using—TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, even Substack—gives me free insights into how my content is performing. But X locks this essential feature behind a premium subscription, which honestly doesn't make sense to me as a creator trying to understand my audience.

I did sign up for the basic tier plan so that I can publish longer posts, but I wasn’t aware that I wouldn’t get analytics with it, and I think that sucks.

I'm going to sign up for the premium version to unlock the analytics feature. This will let me dive deeper into what's working and what's not. More importantly, it means I can share more detailed insights with you—real data that shows you the best ways to build your own brand online.

Because ultimately, even though X hides features behind paywalls, it still might be the platform that benefits your brand the most.

But I’m going to be honest, I don’t think this particular brand about outdoor adventure, where it’s more focused on video format, will fare too well on X, which is a text-heavy platform. But, I’ll still give it my best shot, make improvements to make it work, and see what happens.

Next week, I’ll have even more data to show.

I publish more detailed posts like this, as I’m building a brand in public from scratch. I’m trying to share as much information with you, so that you can also benefit from my work, and learn what is working on all the platforms, and apply the best strategies to your business.

You can sign up here if you like.

That’s it for today.

See you in the next issue.

Amado