Master Social Media & AI in 2026: Create, Analyze, Grow

1. Introduction to the Class: Welcome to the class. My name is Cabi, and I'm very excited to see you here, and I cannot wait to share what this class is going to be about so you can understand whether this class is something you would like to explore or not. So let's get started. First of all, I just wanted to introduce myself and my background a little bit better so you can understand why I've created this course in the first place. So for the past few years, I've been focusing on social media quite a bit. So I was creating content for other brands as a UDC creator. I was also a virtual assistant, meaning that I help other brands to start using social media for their businesses and to develop their brands on social media too. I was also building my own personal brands, and besides that, I was also working with AI, more particularly improving AI. So I've gathered quite a bit of knowledge over here. Now the idea for this class came from the fact that I've seen quite a bit of classes focusing on social media, but I haven't seen a class that would cover social media with the use of AI. As we all understand, AI is becoming more and more important for social media and understanding it is extremely important. That's what this class is going to focus on. It's going to cover the fundamentals of AI. Then they're going to move on to what exactly do you need to prepare before you start social media as a business owner, as a freelancer, as a UGC creator, or as a content creator. Then move on to content creation, content editing, posting, analyzing the results, and we're also going to touch base on UGC business fundamentals. As I understand that a few of you still want to focus on that too. Thank you for hearing me out, and I'm very excited to get started. 2. Role of AI in Social Media: Did you know that 80% of all top performing content right now is influenced by AI in one way or another? Social media right now is faster, more competitive, and AI driven as ever. Top creators right now are not afraid to use AI to generate content ideas to analyze their performance, to edit their content even or to optimize it as well. Feel like AI also advanced so much that it can now talk in your own tone of voice in your own words as well. I feel like over the years, it really became a tool very useful to be used in social media to make some tasks a little bit easier just generally to grow your personal brand, to grow your business faster. Let's not forget that algorithm that drives social media is also AI. If you don't know what algorithm is and easy to understand words, it basically decides who sees what. For this reason, we need to focus on content optimization algorithm pushes our content to the wider. 3. ChatGPT Fundamentals: First things first, let's talk about HHIPD the tool we use on daily basis and we all know about, although everybody knows about this tool, it is essential understanding it as well. What I believe not a lot of people think about when using HGIPD is that it is a language model. It is not a search engine like Google, let's say, what does it mean in simple word? Basically, when you enter a question, you enter a query using Google, Google thinks. Okay, let me find an answer. Whenever you answer that same question, the same query into JGIVT it thinks, let me write a response to you from the knowledge that I already have. I found a really good quote that compares these two that I want to read to you so you can understand it better. Google is like a librarian who finds the right book for you. While HachiPT is like a writer who creates a brand new page based on everything it has. See the difference here. Why I believe it's so important understanding this fact is because how you say it is extremely important using HGPT. It's not only about what you ask, it's how you ask it. Maybe you also notice that using HGVT previously, but whenever you give some vague instructions or you don't fill in all the gaps, HGVD just hallucinates everything else, fills in the gaps itself. If we want to avoid this from happening, we would need to learn how to write good prompts, how to write good requests. And there are a few characteristics that I want to run through that basically define a good prom, a good ask. I would always recommend including some context, as many details as you can about, let's say your brand, yourself, what you want. I would also recommend including the purpose, what do you want the HGPD to do? A formatting or line that is required. What do you need? A bullet point list, a number list, how many paragraphs, everything. You need to define that in your prompt. Right now, I'm going to read a bad prompt and a good prompt so you can understand the difference between them. Bad prom could be something like write a caption for my post. It is super vague. What caption? For which social media platforms? What the post is going to be about? What is your target audience? We don't know any of these details. A better prom, a better ask would be something like this. Write five short punchy Instagram captions for a real about why creators use AI tools to save time. Tone, conversational, slightly humorous and confident audience, beginner, female creators in their 20s, 30s goal inspire them to start using AI without making it sound to tech heavy and format each caption under 15 words, includes animogy and doesn't include any hashts. Do I think this prompt this ask is an excellent ask? I don't but I think it's much better from the first one because it defines the audience. It defines basically what it needs, the purpose, write five captions. It defines the length, what not to include and things like that. Provides quite a bit of context. HGBT knows what exactly does it need to produce. Once again, a few best practices when using HGBT is to give as much context as possible about your brand, about yourself, give a purpose. You can also introduce any rules that you wanted to follow. Let's say act as social media manager act as dermatologist. I don't know, you name. Besides this, define the format that you need, don't be afraid to ask for multiple variations as well because it's really hard to get that one ideal option that is going to fit you 100% on the first. 4. How to Personalize ChatGPT: Have you ever used HATUPT and felt like the response doesn't really sound like me? I have, and that's why I want to talk about HachiBT personalization as well. Not a lot of people know about it, but you can actually personalize HATIPT to use the same tone of voice to use the same wording or to use the same context in every single response that it gives you. You can do that by heading to JAGIPT and clicking on your name, clicking on personalization and starting from. Personalizing Chachi Bit you're going to see a few boxes. The first one is going to be the base style and tone. Let's run through the options real quick. You have an option to be very professional and receive professional responses in a corporate, formal, trustworthy tone. Then you have friendly, meaning approachable, warm, conversational, candid, meaning honest, straightforward, basically no sugar coating. Then you have quirky, tone of voice, that is very fun, very playful, of beat then you have efficient, so concise, direct gets to the point very quickly that tone voice nerdy, so informative, detailed, analytical. Cynical, meaning sarcastic, skeptical age. From there, you can choose whichever tone of voice and style fits you the best. Then you have a field for custom instruction. What would you like ChatGPT to know about you to provide better responses? In this field, I would recommend including your role, brand, audience, content goals, tone preferences, preferred formatting, and any recurring cuttex as well if available. Then ask yourself, how would you like ChatGPT to respond? Include any style rules formatting, tone reminders any optional creativity guidance that you think is applicable over here. An example could be for this field, something like I run glow up, a skincare brand for women, aged 18 to 35, interested in wellness and self care. I create social media content for Instagram, TikTok. My brand voice is playful, friendly, and approachable. I want captions, hooks, scripts, and social media content that feel fun, relatable, and authentic. Avoid technical jargon and keep content concise. Include Moji sparingly, write and conversational, VT tone, keep sentences short and engaging. Use second person perspective, where appropriate. Provide options if possible, three variations for captions hooks include playful CDAs mojis when relevant, avoid sounding robotic or generic. Then we have about he section which speaks for itself. You have a nickname, occupation, and a field for more about hues. Here I would recommend including any additional context that helps HGB D tailor responses, things like and style, common ***, content goals, audience information. Example would be, I focus on skincare education, lifestyle content, and engagement on Instagram and TikTok. The goal is to entertain, educate, and build trust with our audience while keeping content playful and fun. Of course, lastly, you can enable if you want HAGPT to remember contexts across conversation as well. So have a look at it. I think it is extremely important and extremely useful to personalize GBT. It saves you a bit of time to not have to repeat the exact same thing all over again. Have a look at it and see if it's going to be helpful for you. 5. Defining Social Media Goals: Now, I would like to help you to start preparing for posting on social media. I know that you may be at different parts of social media journey, some of you maybe are thinking about starting social media for your own business or your own personal brand. Maybe some of you are already very active on social media and just want some tips and tricks on how to increase the following, let's say, or how to increase views. But I feel like no matter at which point of this journey you are at, it is extremely important to see whether you prepared for this journey in the first place because a lot of people forget to do and they start straight from posting on social media, whatever they think is right, post the right or just following trends and doing things like that. While it works a lot of times, it also can be a little bit tricky because sometimes we can lose a direction to which we're heading clarity of what the post next and it becomes a little bit overwhelming. For that exact reason, we're going to be starting with defining our social media goals. What a social media goal is in the first place, it is an outcome or a result of what you want to achieve by posting on social media. And why it is so important to have these goals defined before you get started is because I already briefly mentioned, but it helps us to know where we're heading. What do we want to achieve in the future, for our business or our personal brand, whether we want following or we want some views of our website or things like that. These goals also help us to measure our progress over time. If our goal was to increase the following, increase the awareness or something like that, then we can see how many views we were getting, let's say, half a year ago versus right now. It also helps us in a way to save time because we no longer need to question what to post. Kind of know what we want to achieve exactly. We're posting the content that is going to help us to come closer to that goal. Right now, I'm going to be talking about the six very common social media goals. I'm also going to be providing some examples, some formats of the content that you could be posting to achieve that goal or get closer to achieving that result, that goal as well. Let's get started. First very common goal would be building awareness, reaching the audience that doesn't know about you yet, doesn't know about your brand, basically reaching new people. There are a few formats that you could explore for that. Those formats often include something like before, after shots because we gain that interest if we see before after shots, even myself to this day, I still feel intrigued to look into that product and to see if that service that product still makes sense. Then for building awareness is also important to focus on very fast, very short clip. I would always recommend kind having fast visuals, let's say visuals, the little clips changing every one to 2 seconds and things like that. Because building awareness means that we're stopping other people, new people that don't know about us from scrolling to look into our videos. We want to provide some value. We want to provide something interesting. Maybe you want to do some trends. That's why they are so popular and that's why they build that brand awareness so quickly and so effectively. The first goal is all about the views and the second goal would be about growing your community, growing your followers count as well. And how do you build up connection? I often happens through sharing some stories, talking to the camera, appearing in front of the camera, doing voice overs, telling people about your life, telling people about certain situations in your life, even being vulnerable, doing Q&As, doing get to know me videos, doing get ready with me videos and things like that, where you often appear in front of the camera because I don't know if you notice, but I myself also form connections with creators that often appear in front of the camera because I see their face very often right when scrolling and I connect with them, I resonate with them. And at some point, I even get a feeling that I know them. Usually, by using storytelling, by using day and life formats, get ready with me formats and things like that, you gain that community and you increase your following as well. But once again, it is also often combined with the first goal of building awareness because the more awareness you have, the more views you have, the more following you're also going to attract. Of course, it depends on the content you. Also believe that firstly, you would need to focus on your brand awareness and then you can build on community as well because I feel like you need to have some community, some audience to start posting these videos because unless you have a very interesting story about yourself, you're working for Google or you just restarted your life from scratch in your 40s, people may not be interested in watching your videos of day and life, let's say, if they don't know you at all. My personal recommendation would firstly be build on that awareness and then move on to growing your community and building the relationship with your community as well. Third common goal would be driving that engagement. Engagement is talked about a lot, especially important if you're planning to be a content creator and your brand deals and everything like that also highly depends on your engagement, the rates that you get from the company you're working with. But besides the rate and content creation, it is also important to have good engagement because it helps you to understand what relationship do you have with your following if your videos are relevant, et cetera, although it is extremely important to get those views in the first place, it's also important to see how people respond and what they're interested in and if they left a comment, if they left a lie, if they save a video, so you know what content works. As a creator myself, I started understanding how much engagement means. Whenever I started posting beforehand, I can admit that I wasn't engaging with other creators as much as I would like. As a creator, you need to include that reminder to people to engage with your video in one way or another. To do so, I would always recommend including CTA in your video in your post captions, you name it, basically everywhere. And if you don't know what CTA is, CTA is called action and it basically encourages people to act. So an example could be something like a line set in your video. For instance, fall for more videos about this and that or don't forget to save the video if you're coming to X location or tag a friend who you're going to take to wil location. All of these lines are CTAs and all of these lines are encouraging engagement. I feel like CTAs are extremely important because it reminds people to act. From my personal experience, I feel like whenever I use CTA, my engagement is better than that I don't use it. CTAs is just one way on how you could drive that engagement, but there are, of course, other formats as well, so you could express your opinion, other people may not agree with it, and they may be prompt comment. Another technique that was really commonly used by creators was to spell something wrong, let's say, in their real in their texts and their story, you name it because people will be prompt to correct them and they're going to engage. Then you could also be prompting other people for discussion, saying, what do you think? So it's up to you on how you use it and what you agree with, but there are lots of different techniques of how you could increase engagement and how you could get a better rate. The fourth goal would be increasing website traffic. Of course, you may think that it's only applicable for business owners, but it's not that. We may want to drive people to visit our website if let's say we're creating blogs or if we have our own website, if we're offering any services, et cetera. And if your goal is that, I would highly recommend including a link in your bio. That's the most effective way, at least in my opinion, these days on social media. There are a couple of ways on how you could use that link. So one way could be just creating, let's say, a real and talking about a certain topic and then directing people to visit the link in your bio to learn more. Maybe you are talking about a certain products, certain service, maybe your video is educational and they can learn more. From the link in your bio, et cetera, it really depends on the content itself. But yeah, this is one of the most effective ways to direct people to act and go to the link in your bio. Another way that I used quite a lot was to create an automation. So you could be using any website basically that offers those. Just enter word automation Instagram and you're going to see lots of companies that offer this, and I'm sure you may be seen it performing on social media. Basically, comment this word on my real post or message me this word and then I'm going to send you a link. Um, to design that. Once again, you could be creating a real, let's say, talking about a service and saying, come in this and I'm going to send you a link and when people come in, the automation automatically sends them a link and things like that. That could be also a way of increasing that website traffic for you. The fifth common goal, especially for business owners, once again, would be getting more leads, getting more sales, signs in clients, um, Things like that. I feel like it really correlates to the previous goal of increasing the website traffic because techniques are similar. One way could be by creating, let's say, a real talking about a certain service, certain product and then saying, come in this and I'm going to send you the link. Another way, I'm sure you've seen it online was also using the same technique, but providing a freebie that's going to have some information and then at the end, maybe it's going to have more information about your service and try to convert people from that freebie to the actual product or service. Then another way would be creating content once again and directing people to visit the link in your bio for a specific product service or just to learn more about Those two are very close to one another. But of course, there are different formats. You could be sharing, let's say the results. You could be sharing content, talking about problem and solution that would automatically drive people to act and want to explore the service or the product more. It could be sharing very positive reviews. Let's say you are a virtual assistant and you had very great reviews previously. Maybe you want to share them in a post and that's also going to drive people to want to explore your service if they need a virtual assistant themselves. And the sixth common goal would be building an authority. I'm sure that you could name at least one person that in your eyes have the authority on social media and that they seem to like an expert in their field. From my experience, for example, I know this person on TikTok. I found them a year ago or so and they're talking about makeup and skin care and they're analyzing the ingredients of certain products and they're telling us whether is a due to a very expensive product and whether it is the same and where we could save the money. To me, over time, this person really became an authority in that particular field because they understand ingredients, they analyze them, and it makes me trust them a little bit more. If you are a specialist and you want to explore getting into social media, I would highly recommend doing it and I would highly recommend considering this as your goal. And you could be building that trust. You could be building that authority by creating different educational content. I feel like right now our attention span is very, very short. It's very hard for us to focus. Seeing that educational content under 1 minute and finding that we don't need to read an entire book to find an answer is extremely, extremely valuable and extremely interesting to us. This was the last goal that I wanted to cover there's plenty more and you can name the goal that is closer to you, something that you want to achieve in the future, that maybe I haven't mentioned even, but I would recommend listing them and also listing the formats you are willing to create content about as well because it's going to be very useful in the future. 6. Defining your Target Audience: Another aspect that I would recommend considering before starting posting on social media or reconsidering if you already started posting would be target audience. Let's start from the basics and let's define what a target audience is. I very easy to understand language, target audience is basically a group of people that is interested in your content that is interested in your story and what you're sharing on social media. Why having target audience is so important is because it helps us understand what content we should be focusing on. It helps us if we want to use AI to help us create content ideas, let's say, or optimize our content to perform a little bit better. It helps us generally to help our content perform better and optimize it, which also results in higher engagement. So there are three very quick questions that I would recommend asking yourself to define your target audience. The first one is who they are, their age, their gender, their job, their lifestyle. The second question would be, what your target audience wants. So what are their goals? What are their dreams? What are their desires? The third one would be defining what are they struggling with. Maybe they have certain issue, maybe they have certain questions they want answers to, maybe they have certain problems, certain pain points that are very common for the target audience. Let me provide an example so you can understand me a little bit better. For audience, who they are, I could name something like new content creators. For the goal, what they want, I could say that they want to build a personal brand. For the problem, what are they struggling with, I could say something like they don't know what to post about. Of course, it's a very basic idea and you'll need more details to be a little bit more precise. But this is just a general idea of what your target audience could be and how to define it. But right now I also wanted to dig a little bit deeper and walk you through the six steps that I believe will help you define your target audience a little bit better if you're struggling with it right now. So the first step would be to identify your niche. I know there are mixed opinions on that. Some creators are saying that you don't need a niche when you start posting, some are saying that it would be better to have a niche. My opinion on that is that having a niche helps you to target certain group of people a little bit easier and faster because people follow you for a few reasons and one of them are because you posted something they're interested in and if your content is consistently about that topic, they may be prompt to give you a follow and see what else is there from you. So whether you decide to follow this step or not, I'm just going to name it and you can decide for yourself. If you want to identify your niche, I would recommend writing down what your content is about. So ask yourself, what topic do I consistently talk about or help with? Examples of the niches that are very popular could be something like beauty, fitness, travel, social media, productivity, business, you name it. Step number two would be to think about who needs this the most. Once again, let's ask ourselves who will benefit the most from what you share. You could think about the age, lifestyle, interests, career when considering this. An example for it could be something like new creators, busy moms, small business owners, students, et cetera. Step number three would be to understand what they want. Generally, people follow content that helps them move closer to their goals. To answer this question, ask yourself, what is their dream outcome? What do they want to improve, fix, learn? The step number four would be to identify their biggest struggle. This is a key. Your audience problems tell you exactly what to post about. Ask yourself, what confuses or frustrates them? What are they stuck on? What do they ask Google or TikTok to help with? Examples could be something like, I don't know what to post. I'm scared to show my face. I can't stay consistent on social media. Step number five would be to summarize all of the previous steps in one sentence. Use this formula. I help who with what they want by solving and their biggest problem. An example would be something like I help new creators, new creators is the who grow online what they want by giving them simple content tips. Their biggest problem would be something like not knowing what to post, not knowing how to say consistent on social media, et cetera. I'm helping them by providing the simple content tips to fix that. The sixth step would be to seeing whether what you define is working or not. I would really recommend posting for around two weeks, boosting different content and seeing how well it performs. I would recommend seeing which videos get the most engagement, which topics your audience response to the most. And who follows you from those videos? Of course, remember that your target audience becomes clear with the more content you post. If it is still hard for you to define the exact target audience, don't beat yourself about it. It's okay. Just start posting with that defined audience, whatever you have till now and see if it's working, if it doesn't change a little bit, see if that is working, et cetera until you understand what is your real target audience, what is really working, what doesn't, and why? Later on, you're going to have more analytics, more real numbers, let's say on TikTok and Instagram, you will be able to define your target audience to the most specific details, the most specific interests that they have, everything is going to be on a plate for you. But for now, try to define it and then see if it's working by posting. 7. Defining Content Pillars: Define your social media content pillars. As I previously mentioned, you can define your content pillars. You can define your niche, but you don't have to. It all depends on what you think will work best for you and what you want to focus on. But if you decide to define them, stick with me. Content pillars and your niche are very similar. Basically, it's the topics you're going to be posting your content about. Is very broad idea. For me, it would be something along the lines of beauty, travel, and lifestyle. Typically creators choose 2-5 content pillars, I would say, they continue to posting about these particular subjects and their social media channels. Once again, I think I already briefly mentioned, but why I believe it is important to define what your content pillars are is because your potential followers know what to expect from you. If they see one video that they really like and they see other videos about that topic, they're more likely to follow you. Then it also helps you to understand what content you could produce. You never run out of ideas because you know what to focus on exactly. And of course, with AIS, well, it is easier to brainstorm content ideas when you already have your content billers defined. So you can already ask Chat directly to, let's say, brainstorm some content ideas for travel in location. And of course, I already mentioned my personal examples of the content pillars I'm focusing on, but I really want to dig into them a little bit more and tell you the exact things you could be posting about each content pillar. I'm going to take a few common ones like beauty. For beauty, you could be posting tutorials, skincare tips, product reviews, for travel, you could be posting itineraries, budget tips, hotel reviews, and things like that. For lifestyle, that could include something like routines, habits, wellness, home organization event, right? And then we have also business, so maybe you want to share some marketing tips or maybe you want to share some behind the scenes contents or maybe you want to share your client results as well. These are just a few ideas, but of course, try to think about the content that you want to focus on, about the subjects that you want to concentrate on. Then from there, you can define the exact topics that your content is going to be about. But once again, defining the pillars is useful to understand what your content generally is going to be about and stay consistent with 8. Defining Content Types: Already spoke about content ideas about defining target audience, content pillars, but what we haven't discussed yet is the different types of content that exist right now, so let's chat about it. First of all, it is important to understand that people start following us for different reasons. Some people may find you inspiring and that's why they decide to give you a follow. Others may think that you are entertaining. Others may find your content very helpful and that's why I decide to follow others may like your story, where you came from, what you're sharing, any details about your family and things like that. And there are other reasons, too, don't get me wrong, but these are the main ones, I believe, at least in my opinion. What is extremely important to understand too is that we need to cover the entire follower journey, and for that reason, we need to post different types of content because if you decide to only post one type of content, let's say Dayan Alive or something like a number list of things to do in one destination, you may limit yourself and you may not get the highest growth in the long term. For this reason, it is extremely important to combine different types to cover the entire journey and get your full potential. Let's talk about the main types of content. One of the main types is educational content. When people think, Okay, I can actually learn from that creator, I can actually learn from that person, and that's the reason they decide to stick watching the video or even follow. An example of educational content could be something very valuable. Let's say you're talking about tretnoin and the benefits of this ingredient and you're teaching people how to use it or things like that, that is educational content. Educational content is typically very valuable if you want to get views and if you want to get good following from it, because once again, people see value in it and people want to stick with you. The second type would be storytelling. People thinking, Okay, I can resonate with them, I can relate with them. I have the same issues. I have the same problems, struggles, et cetera, something going on. This type of content builds trust's loyalty. It is very important to maintain the following and gain that trust from your existing followers. Storytelling is not often used to, let's say, gain very high views or very large following. Usually storytelling is used to build that trust, build that relationship between you and your followers. And examples could be something like, let's say, I moved abroad and I struggled finding friends and I'm just telling a story about it or something like I started my own business, I didn't know anything about it. I failed, let's say, and things like that. These are just a couple of examples that could work for storytelling. Then we have the third type, which is authority. People thinking, okay, this person really knows what they're talking about. In the previous class, I already gave an example about that person who talks, right? From their knowledge because they graduated and they got the bachelor's and master's degree in chemistry, they understand ingredients very well, and they're talking about certain products and certain topics that are extremely popular based on their knowledge. Authority once again could build that trust between your followers and you could help to grow the following over time. I also feel that authority also helps you to increase your sales or for you to even sell something because people already trust you. You already have authority. If you say that a certain service, a certain product is extremely good, they're going to be and the four type would be stories. The format that is the most temporarily, it only last 24 hours, but it really helps us build that relationship with our existing followers. Also stories can help us convert. We can talk about something relatable, we can talk about the service we used. We can link a product directly in our stories. I not only helps us to build that relationship, but also to sell a lot of time. 9. Defining Messaging & Tone of Voice: Another couple of things that I believe are important to define before you start posting on social media, before you start building your personal brand are brand voice and messaging. Let's define both. Messaging is basically what you say, the core idea behind your content. It could be sharing your beliefs, your opinions, your values, your mission, or even the key points that you want to repeat in your content. The brand voice is not what you say, but how you say it. That would be your tone and style that you use in your content. And the reasons the main reasons why these are important is because it helps you to stay consistent and it helps you to be different from other brands and differentiate your business even in a very crowded niche. A few brand voice examples could be something like friendly, casual, expert, confident, inspirational, bold, direct, minimal calm right. You can decide which ones resonate with you the most and also use these styles when requesting hGBD to answer something for you, to create something for you or to optimize your content better. 10. Defining Posting Schedule: Last thing that I want to cover when talking about what exactly do you need to prepare for posting for social media is the posting schedule. The name speaks for itself, but a posting schedule is basically a plan of how often are you going to post on social media channels? The reason why it is so important is because it helps us to avoid a burnout. It helps us to plan content beforehand, have everything ready. All we need to do is based on a plan is just posted. This could also help to train our audience to expect content on certain days. If they know, let's say that you're posting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, they may check your profile after those dates to see if there's something new. Another question I'm seeing everywhere online is how often you should post on different social media channels. It really depends on which channels are you focusing on. I'm mostly active on TikTok and Instagram and TikTok is focusing on content that is less polished, more raw. It also requires you to post quite often, more often, at least on Instagram. Instagram is still a little bit more polished, a little bit more built on content, of the best content from what you prepared for TikTok. You're also required to post a little bit less often than on TikTok. If we're talking numbers, it also depends on how fast you want to grow, but on TikTok, ideally you would want to post every single day if you want a fast growth. Some creators are posting two, three times a day if they want an extremely fast growth, let's say, and if they have resources for but I would say, if you want to stay relevant on TikTok, posting at least three to five times a week is required, expected if you still want to see that growth. Instagram on the other hand, if you want that fast growth, where on TikTok, you need to post every single day. On Instagram, it would be I think three to five times a week with the minimum being at least one to two times, but that's on the lower and of course, once again, l planning your posting schedule also makes up the content types, your audience receives a variety and you can also analyze your content better because you're going to be posting different types and it's also going to be easier for you to understand what is working, what is not working, what schedule works the best for you et cetera 11. Script Writing Fundamentals: Move on to the most entertaining part of social media, at least for me personally, which is creating content. I would like to start from the basics, which is script writing. Of course, I understand that some of you are going to be creating different type of content and not going to be talking maybe directly to the camera or doing voiceovers. But I also know how essential voiceovers and talking to the camera is. I wanted to include this. I believe even if you're not planning to do content speaking to the camera or bit voiceovers, this class may be still interesting for you to understand the overall structure of reels on social media. Let's get started. First of all, let's define what a script is. A script is basically a written plan, I would say that gives you direction of what to communicate your real during your content. The most basic script structure would be something like a hook it could be a visual, it could be a verbal or text hook, then it would be a body, any value, any problem discussing, things like that, then it would be call to action. We already talked about what call to action is basically that encouragement for your followers, for your audience to act on something. Right now, let's walk through every single part of the script. I'm going to tell you why is it so important and basically how to create it or what it needs to focus on. And we're going to start with a hook. As I mentioned, there are three types of hooks typically which are the visual, so what you see. Let's say there's a movement, there's something going on very fast, and that hooks you to start watching that particular video, that particular content. Then it could be a written hook. So text on the real, some text on the pictures you shared and things like that. It could also intrigue us raise our curiosity to start watching that piece of content, to start looking into it, reading about it more. And there's a third part which is an audio verbal hooks. Basically what is being said. Now, why having a hook is so important and why all of these people are talking about having a hook is because our attention span is extremely short right now and we need to do everything to keep people entertain. But before that, we need to do everything to hook people into watching our content in the first place and how to do it is by creating something in the first 2 seconds of your video. That is a ho basically, if you don't get people's attention in the first couple of seconds, maybe 3 seconds stops, then they're maybe just going to scroll past your content and not even bother to see what value your content brings. That's the reason why it is important to have a very strong hook. Now, as I mentioned, there are three different types of hooks, and I would often recommend combining all of them possible because some people may listen to your video, your real without sound. So they may not hear what you're saying, what you're trying to communicate. For that reason, having very strong visuals, something going on in the beginning is also very important or having some text that would intrigue us to watch the video is also essential. Right now, I'm also going to walk through a few categories of hooks, especially verbal hooks that are very popular right now and that could be potentially used in your content as well. The first type would be problem based hooks. An example for the problem based hook would be something like struggling to grow on Instagram, try this. The second type is contrarian. Basically expressing your opinion that may be different from what other people think. An example for it could be something like everyone tells you to post every day, that's wrong. That's going to encourage people to see how come it's wrong, right, try to understand why you're even saying this in the first place, and that's what's going to keep them entertained and at least hook to watch your video a little bit further. Third type would be to tease the payoff. Saying something by the end of this video, you'll know exactly how to fix it. This type makes people want to watch your video till the end to understand what you're saying. What value are you bringing over here. The four type, very simple one, very highly used would be a list number hook. So three mistakes, killing your engagement, five things to do here and here, three things I wish I would have known before moving to X location and things like that. These type of hooks often bring very good engagement and very good views because people want to see that list is very easily consumable. Then we have questioned hooks. Once again, speaks for itself, introducing a question as a hook. Something like ever wonder why nobody engages with your posts, something that is very relatable to other people that other people may pot about before. So they may be interested to hear an answer from you. Then we have relatable hooks, telling about your struggles, telling about your problems that people could resonate with. For example, if you overthink your content, listen to this. If you overthink, your content would be the common struggle that mainly creators struggle with. And basically, you saying that listen to this is going to indicate people that you're going to tell the answer to this question. Then the last type that I want to discuss would be shock curiosity hooks. Something unbelievable that would spark our curiosity. An example that I have here is I grew 10,000 followers by doing the opposite of this. How in the first place you grew that 10,000 follower. Right, maybe a lot of you want to have it and that's what prompts us to watch that piece of content, to read about it, to explore it a little bit further and try to understand it because maybe we may be able to apply that knowledge to our own content and achieve the same results at the end. Now, once you have the hook, you would want to move on to the body part. In the body part, we can discuss things like authority, the value, payoff. First authority, I already mentioned you a few examples of showing authority and building that trust with your followers, with your viewers. But few examples, a few other examples that I could provide for building authority in a script, would be something like saying, I've achieved X amount of followers in seven days and let me tell you how. We already talked about authority hooks and we could elaborate on your experience in the authority body part. You could also have a one liner saying who you are. Maybe you are a specialist in the field that worked for X years for this and that. Or maybe you have a bachelor's, master's degree in a certain subject and you really know what you're talking about, so people can trust you better. Is that make it easier for people to trust you in the first place. The value part could be discussing already an answer or could also be discussing why this is so important. No telling the answer to payoff part. Let's say a hook would be something like three things I wish I knew before moving to X location, then my authority would be something like, I've lived in this location for X years now, so I know basically what I'm talking about. Then the value of it could be something like, it would have saved me that amount of money. It could have saved me why amount of time, then I could move on to the payout part, which would be the answer if I didn't give it up in the value part of what exactly are those things that could be helpful for my view. And I would finish off the script but call to action. We talked about call to actions already quite a bit, but basically it is an encouragement for your viewers to act. You can be asking for a follow. You could be asking for a save for a comment, for a like. Basically, you name it. At action that will help you to get closer to your social media goals. 12. Where to Find Content Ideas for Social Media: Already talked about content pillars, how to define the target audience, and we covered all the preparation bits. But what we haven't talked about is how to brainstorm those content ideas and how to know what to post about. I just wanted to share a few ways that I found useful over the years. Maybe you can explore them on your own and see which ones work for you if they even work for you as well. So let's talk about them. The first one would be HachiBT. I'm going to share what exactly would I enter in HAHIBT to help me brainstorm those content ideas. The second one would be Creator Search Inside that is an available tool on TikTok. How to find it if you haven't heard about it before would be if you go to TikTok, if you go to the search bar and Enter Creator search Insights, you're going to be shown a tool that you can click to V once you enter it based on your existing topics, you're also going to be provided with ideas, some content themes, and you're also going to see how well they perform, which are performing the best and things like that. You're also going to be able to see the content gap. That means basically what people are looking for but cannot find on TikTok particularly. I believe it is an extremely useful tool and it's also very easy to use. You can simply click on the idea. Some of them already have even captions or scripts written for you, keywords that you should include in your post so that you content is more discoverable and things like that. 100% recommend exploring it, you could even apply those content ideas for other social media platforms because at this point, we're all over. We're using different type of social media, but we also use a bit of H. So content ideas that you find on diktok may also be relevant for Instagram and other way around. That third option where you would find your content ideas would be the search bar. I know I understand that it sounds very basic and maybe even haven't thought about it. But basically, once you enter a few keywords of your niche of the topics you want to post about, you're also going to be shown some other options. I would recommend noting these options down because those are going to be your keywords you want to use in your videos and you want to create content about because these are the exact wordings of what people are looking for. On those platforms like Instagram or TikTok. The last and very useful option would be Google Trends. You could see what people are searching for on Google. Maybe there are specific product specific topics they want to explore and if you see that they're trending, they're performing very well, you want to create a video about it because that just indicates that people were looking into this topic, so they're more likely to also look for it on TikTok and on Instagram. Because I feel like overall for the search engines, people today rely on platforms like Instagram TikTok, especially when it comes to tutorials or answering very easy questions or how to do XY and set. What is trending on social media? Could be also trending on Google and other way around as well. 13. SEO Fundamentals for Social Media: Last bits that I want to cover when talking about creating content, particularly, creating those scripts with big captions, ACO generally, and hashtags. I know that some people think that let's say captions or hashtags are just extras and you can include them, but you're okay without including them. While it isn't completely wrong, I don't agree with it. I think you should focus on your captions as much as you focus on your content, just to make those chances of getting high views, high following a little bit better. So once again, let's start from the basics. What is a caption? A caption could be a description of your video, and we're also referring to captions when we're talking about what is being shown as text on our videos that reflects what is being set verbally. If you are referring to captions as a description of your video, once again, I mentioned that algorithm is AI and AI scans your video and see what keywords have been used. And if you repeat the same keywords in your captions, it just gives you more chances of getting the right target audience and for your content to be shown to a larger audience generally. When you're looking for ideas of what to post about, that's why I'm recommending to know those keywords, something that appears right because we could later on use them in our captions. For my captions, particularly, I keep the structure very similar to my script. I'm always following a structure of a hook body call to action once again. Of course, not for every single post I make, but generally I try to follow it just for the best results just in case some people review my caption so that I can increase my chances. In the caption, we also have an option to include hashtags. I know there are mixed opinions about hashtags, whether they're needed or they're not relevant anymore. Both TikTok and Instagram allows up to five hash tags and I still recommend including them. Once again, it's not going to hurt you. It may increase your chances to be shown to the larger audience to the correct audience that would be interested in your content, why not to add them? I typically mix the hashtags and include a couple of broad ones, a couple of niche ones, and something very descriptive. The examples that I have in front of me for the niche ones would be something like content creator tips. For broad ones would be something like social media marketing and for descriptive, it could be something like TikTok strategy. Right now, moving on to other type of captions, which is what is being said verbally basically shown as text. Why is it important? It is because we consume a lot of social media without sound, without audio generally. We may watch social media on our way to work from work, I don't know, while waiting for an appointment and things like that, and we may not have the audio on. That's why it's so important that if you have a voiceover, or you've been talking to the camera that you would have those captions on because your video can still be watched by people without having their sound on. They can still benefit from your video without having the audio on. And I believe it's also important because once again, AI scans your video. If it sees some keywords, it knows where exactly to place you on social media and which audience to show your video. 14. Writing Better with Grammarly: Let me ask you something. Have you ever sent an email and then immediately spotted a mistake or stared at a sentence thinking, does this sound professional enough? Is this grammatically correct? Why does this sound weird? If yes, you're definitely not alone. And today, we're talking about Grammarly, what it is, how it works, when it's helpful, and when you shouldn't rely on it as well. So let's get started. What is Grammarly? So Grammarly is basically a writing assistant. It checks your writing while you type and highlights grammar mistakes, spelling errors, punctuation problems, awkward sentences, or even tone issues. It works in your browser in Google Docs, in Word, or even on your phone, as well. So when you write, it reviews, it's just improvements. It's really that simple. So how does it actually work? When you type something, Grammarly scans your sentence in real time. Let me give you a real life example. So let's click on No Do. And let's write something with a mistake to see how Grammarly would assist us in this moment. So let's type something like I have much information about this topic. As you can see, it underline informations and gives you a suggestion to switch it to information. You can accept it over here. Besides this mistake, it also underlined much. And it even suggested something that would sound a little bit more natural, such as, I have a wealth of information about. You can accept it or you can dismiss it. And that's where it becomes super helpful because it doesn't just fix mistakes. I also improves clarity. What I personally like about it is that it's one of the best features in tone detection. So, of course, I love to use it for any punctuation problems, any grammar mistakes. But I also love how it improves the wording. It suggests how to make sentences more clear, how to make our wording sound more professional perhaps and things like that. This is extremely important in our day to day life for anything, starting from job applications to professional emails, customer communication, LinkedIn messages, social media captions, scripts, and everything else, you name it. What I haven't mentioned yet is that Grammarly is a free tool, but of course, they have a pro the free version is enough for basic grammar and spelling. It will catch any verb tense issues, article mistakes, lural singular errors, basic clarity problems, and the premium version adds more advanced grammar suggestions, sentence rewrites, tone adjustments, even plagiarism checking. So if you write professionally on day to day basis, it may make sense for you to subscribe to a premium. So I haven't mentioned yet. Haven't specified that Grammarly can be accessed from a web page, but it can also be installed as an extension. So once again, you don't need to copy the text and paste it here. You can simply have an extension that corrects anything in your personal emails, text, everything that you're working on at the moment. If you would like to install it, you could go to your Chrome web store type Grammarly is the first one and click on at to Chrome at extension. And just like that, it will be now active. As you can see, a logo would appear, and you could also see it under the extension tab. You could also pin it if you'd like. So right now, let's give it a go on Google Docs perhaps. As you can see, Grammarly logo is over here, and whenever I would type something, and if I would make a mistake, it would reflect over here as well. So let me type something for you so you can see how it works in real life. For example, Gabby and I'm creating of course now. As you can see, it underlined a few words where I made some maybe grammar mistakes, where I haven't had the perfect punctuation, et cetera. So if you move to the highlighted word, it's going to tell you what the problem was in the first place and how you could correct it. So it's very easy if you want to accept the suggestion, you could simply click on it and it would simply correct it itself. The same here. Correct your spelling. If I click on it, it is now corrected. Now, as with every tool, none of these tools are completely 100% perfect, I would say, of course, you should be careful if you're writing more creatively, if you're using any specific technical terms, if you need any precise wording because sometimes it of course suggests some changes that don't fit your meaning or it over corrects creative writing or it doesn't fully understand the context. Of course, you need to be careful Always remember it's a tool and not a replacement of your brains. Of course, use it with caution and have a look at it, explore it yourself and see if you would like to introduce it into your day to day basis. 15. Design Basics with Canva: Not everyone is a designer. But the thing is that visuals matter, whether it is social media posts, presentations, TVs, marketing materials, thumbnails, e books, design affects how professional and trustworthy you look. And that's exactly where Canva comes in. In this class, we're going to cover what Canva is, why it is so popular, its most useful features, who it's best for, and various limitations lie. So I'm sure that majority of you have heard about Canva before, but if you haven't, let's start from the basic and let me tell you what Canva actually is. So Canva is an online graphic design platform. And it allows you to create a variety of designs, everything from Instagram posts, reels covers, YouTube, thumbnails, presentations, posters, flyers, business cards, TVs, e books, social media graphic, or even simple videos. And the most important part is that you don't need any design background. It works in your browser and also has a mobile app too. So you may be asking, why is it so popular. I mean, I already mentioned a few reasons obvious reasons, but it basically removes the technical barrier to design. So instead of starting from a completely blank page in a very complicated software, Canva gives you ready made templates, drag and drop editing, built in fonts, stock photos, icons, graphics, color palettes, and things like that. So all you need to do is customize instead of creating from scratch. So in simple words, it makes design feel accessible. So let me show you how everything works on the web version. And let me introduce a few useful features in Canva or just give you ideas of what exactly you could create using Canva or how I find it useful from my personal experience as well. So to begin with, Canva is a free app, a free website, but they also have a pro option. So once again, pro similarly to other apps. It allows you more features. It allows you more graphics and things like that, even more advanced complex templates, too. So if you're planning to consistently post on social media or if you're a business owner and you need materials like that on day to day basis, I think investing into Canva subscription is essential. But if you're mostly creating, let's say, videos, and you don't need the graphics on day to day basis, but you may sometimes also need it, then the free version is or should be sufficient as well. So let's get started. Once you go to conva.com, you're going to be redirected to the homepage and you're going to be able to login from there. Once you've logged into your account, you're going to see this view. So on the left side, you're going to see the Create button. So once you click it, you can choose your design from there. Then you're also going to have the home button speaks for itself. So that's where all your previous projects are stored at. Then projects as well, similar to the homepage, right, like all the projects stored there templates, you can also explore all the different templates that Canva has from here too. So you have a couple of options, whether you want to click on create and choose the design based on the options over here, or you can go to the templates option and choose the template from here after choosing what exactly you're looking for. Very conveniently, Canva has a search bar over here. So if let's say you're looking to create an Instagram post or something like that, all you need to do is kind of just enter a few keywords over here and you're going to be redirected to the templates. So you don't need to scroll for hours and look for the specific design you're interested in. Canva also has integrated AI and lots of different apps and even a content planner right now. So it advanced quite a lot. But let me show you how you could be creating your post, and let me show you a few useful features right now. So let's say we are creating a social media post, and we're choosing something that we're going to post on Instagram. Maybe, let's say we are interested in posting an Instagram story, so we can select the Instagram story option over here. As you can see, it already gives you the accurate size of the content based on the platform. So you don't need to think about anything. You don't need to look up this information or anything like that, which is extremely useful. Once you click on the option suitable for you, you're going to be redirected to the main editing page. And from there, you have a few options. So you have a design option over here. So from here, we can look for an ideal design we're looking for. So maybe we are creating a story let's say for our pricing list, and let's say I am a hairstylist. All I would need to do is enter a few keywords. This case, hairstylist price list, click Enter, and you're going to be shown some results. As you can see, the ones with a crown are paid designs, and the ones that don't have a crown like these ones are completely free of charge to use. So you can see quite a few of them are paid, but you can also find some designs that may fit your style and that are completely free of charge. If you see the design you like, you could simply click on the design, and it would reflect on your page. And from here, you could edit all of the pricing and all of the style and graphics from here, right? So you can either start with a template or you can start completely from scratch, from the blank page as well up to your preferences. It depends how advanced you are in design, and if you find something suitable for you. Keep in mind that in Canva, you can edit everything from the image you see over here in the background to the font, the style, the size of things. You can even delete some things and change it, add your own logo and things like that. So Canva really allows you to change everything, but you also have some templates as guideline to start with. Then on the left side, we're also going to see lots of other different options. So besides the design, you have elements option. So here, we can add any elements that are relevant to us. So maybe we want to add, let's say, a phone, and then for the image, we're going to add our website picture over here, right? Or maybe we want to add something else like some graphic over here. Once we have a graphic, right, CapCut in lots of cases, allows us also to change the color of the graphic. So you can explore it here and you can change it up to your preferences from here. Let's say, like this, something like this, right? So in the elements field, we have everything from images to graphics, to shapes to frames, video options, mockups, as well, which is extremely useful for business owners, freelancers who are selling their own services or products online, let's say, let me show you what they have because they have things, they have images that could be useful for any digital products, let's say, to promote your websites, to promote your products, right, even things like that. So it is very useful. Then we have the tax option, so it speaks for itself, as we can see here, we already have some text. If we want to add any new text, we just add a text box. We can change the font, the size from here, the color, transparency effect, animations, things like that. If we don't need any text from here, we can simply remove it by deleting it or by clicking on backspace if you're editing on your laptop. You also have some text templates over here. What does it mean? It means that it already is edited and you can simply change the text to your own. You can, of course, change the font and everything like that, but it's already kind of a template, right, ready to use. Then we have a brand option, so super useful for business owners, once again, if you want to keep the consistent brand image, right, and use the same, let's say, colors, have the same logos saved and things like that or use the same brand voice, it is for paid version only. But it is useful if you're using CapCut quite heavily and need to stay consistent and use the same let's say colors overall. I saves a lot of time. Then we have uploads. So you can record yourself on the spot or you can also upload any files. So any videos, any pictures, for the background, for let's say screens, for any graphics over here. And once you have it, it's going to reflect here. You can upload images, videos, and once it's uploaded, you can simply drag, let's say, the image to where you want it to be and then adjust it based on your preferences and things like that. It can literally go anywhere. It can be a background. Let's say, it can be on top of it anywhere you want, basically. A kind of speaks for itself. Then, of course, you have a tool to draw some lines, draw something on the image on the piece of content that you created. Then you also have an option to move from this project to another one without having to exit it straightaway. You also have the option for the app, so to connect anything you need to to your content. So let's say you are creating a price list, right, and you want to include a QR code, so that I could add it somewhere here and that my clients, once they scan it, let's say, they could make a reservation, make an appointment with me, right? So you can add things like that using Canva as well, and I would really recommend exploring what you could be doing with Canva from here because there's plenty of options and apps available over here that can be connected to your Canva account and to your design too. Then we have magic media, so AI integrated that could create a particular style design for you based on what you describe. And you can see some options that AI already created over here. Then you have Google Maps, so you can add Google Maps the location on your design super useful in, let's say, PDFs and things like that. So your client, your customer can simply click on the map and be redirected to the maps and just go from there, right? So it is convenient to add then we also have the BID, so we can link any website of ours, any social media accounts here as well. So our clients, our viewers could be redirected from the design to a particular channel. And we also have the typefm, so you could be connecting it. And then, let's say, I use typefm on the website upgraded with Canva because it allows people who are interested in your services or other brands who would like to, let's say, collaborate with you to email you directly from the Canva page, and that email would end up in your inbox. So that's where you would use Type form. Of course, there are different other ways on how you could be using it, but at least that is what I personally used it for. As I mentioned, Canva is extremely useful for website creation as well. As far as I know, this is relatively new. And yeah, basically, you can create a website free of charge. It gives you a free domain to use. So you can explore it, too. Let me show you my website as well, so you can kind of see what you can achieve using Canva, as well. So this is the website that I've created using Canva. It is quite basic, but it has my portfolio, let's say over here. It has some services that I provide and some information about my courses and, of course, an option to contact me, and this is how it looks when it's live. So you can access different sections from here. And yes, I mentioned it gives you a completely free of charge domain. And if let's say you create a website and want to use your own domain, you can, as well. You can purchase it directly from Canva or you can associate it. I'm pretty sure with the domain you currently have. So have a look at Canva, see how you could use it, explore the features, and see if this could be useful for your future social media posts. 16. Video Editing Essentials with CapCut: If you're creating content today, video is no longer optional, it is essential. Whether it's TikTok, Instagram reels, YouTube shows or even short educational clips, video gets attention faster than almost anything else. But here's one thing. Editing can also feel very intimidating for a lot of us. So that's where CapCut and this lesson comes in. In this lesson we'll break down what CapCut is, why so many creators use it. It's most useful features when it's a great choice and when you might need something more advanced. So let's get started from the basics. Just in case you didn't know you aren't familiar with this platform. CapCut is a free beginner friendly video editing app, and it works on your mobile phones, desktop and I believe the browser, as well. I have an app installed in my laptop. I mentioned that it is free, but it also has a pro option, the one that I also have because it allows you to use every single feature they offer. So it is very convenient, and I currently pay nine euros a month for it. And I believe if you're very active on social media, if you plan to post lots of different videos, I believe the pro subscription is extremely useful and it's not even that expensive. The only tip that I have here is to subscribe from your settings under the subscription tab. At least that's how I did it on my iPhone, and for that reason, I only paid nine euros because I've seen that if you subscribe it directly from the app, it was, I believe, 16 if nothing has changed over time. So yeah, it allows you to save a little bit more. Talking about CapCut once again, it is especially popular for short form content because it is fast. It has all the built in features that social media would require. And you don't even need the technical editing knowledge to use it, which is why we see lots of graders using it, enjoying it. And although lots of creators wanted to find an alternative, I feel like a lot of us come back to CapCut because it is very simple to use. It has all the features that you would require typically, and it doesn't even cost that much, so it is a good tool still till this day. And although there are lots of different platforms, I don't think that any of them will replace CapCut in the near future, at least. So as I mentioned before, why creators love it so much is because CapCut removes the technical barrier to editing. So instead of learning very complex editing tools, you can simply import your clips, trim unwanted parts, add music, and certex, add transitions, export all in just a few minutes. And you don't really need experience to start using CapCut, which is why it is an ideal tool. Right now, let's dive in into CapCut and let me show you what you can actually do. So right now, you can see the web, desktop version of CapCut. But of course, if you're going to look at it from your phone, you're going to see it in a bit of a different way. Some features are going to be in other parts of the Av, but overall it is very similar. So what you can do on the main screen, homepage, you're going to find things like AI photo editor, you will be able to remove background of any images. You're going to be able to use any marketing tools, meaning that you will be able to generate any smart ads, any product photos, any AI posters, AI fashion models to showcase your product, et cetera. So once again, it is a highly AI influenced app, and I feel like it is catching up with current trends very rapidly. Besides these things, the main tool that I'm using for my social media is, of course, video editing tool. So how do you even get started? Basically, you would click on a new video on your phone with a plus sign or on your laptop. It would be most likely create project. And you would be prompt to select a video of your choice. So let's try it out right now. Once I click on it, I'm going to be redirected to the editing page. And I know if you're seeing it for the first time, it may look intimidating. You may not understand what all of these letters and features everywhere mean, but I promise you, it's very easy once you get used to it. So under the media, the first step that you're going to want to do is to import your media, of course, so videos, photos, and anything else you may want to use for your video. Once you click on it, you will be redirected to the page to select the video you want to edit. Once you add it, you're going to see it and then you have two options on how to start editing that video. So you can either click on Plus and it's going to appear on the track over here or you can also just simply drag the video over here up to your preferences, right? The second important feature that you want to know about that I recommend fixing straightaway is the ratio. So right now, if you would like to change it for, let's say, a YouTube video, it would be this one. TikTok Instagram reels, we're using 916 over here like that. So if I would change it, of course, the screen would change and would show us a different ratio that we could we adjust. And it's very easy to adjust the video itself. You can simply drag it to basically fit the screen, right? And once it's done, you can move on to other features. What I'm going to do is quickly run through all available features, so you can see what you can even achieve with CapCut and so that you have at least an idea of what this tool is used for. So the first thing, very useful thing, of course, is cutting out any parts that are necessary in the video. So let's say we want to cut out any awkward pauses. To see them a little bit more clearer, I'm going to increase the volume, so you can increase the volume of your video from the audio section, of course, over here. Or you can also drag this line up and you can see the entire track where I was talking, where the poses are, right? These ones where there's no wise, are the poses, and these are the parts that we want to cut out. So for example, if I would like to cut out this part, I could simply start cutting out here, so drag the arrow over here, click on split. And then drag the line where I want to cut the ending, click on split. And then we can either delete this part by clicking on, delete the trashman over here, or if you're editing it on laptop, you can also just click on backspace and delete it like this. Another way, you could be erasing, deleting some parts of the video is, for example, if you drag the line over here, you click, let's say here, right? You click Split. And then you can click on this video part and simply drag this part to raise only the part of the video that you don't need. So these are a couple of main ways on how you could cut out the parts you don't want to see in the video. Besides that, if you click on the video you want to edit, you're going to see, of course, lots of different options over here. So let's have a look at them for scale, basically zooming and zooming out, but we also did manually adjusting it through this point over here, right? Then we have the positions. We have the option to stabilize the video. So let's say if you're talking to the camera and the video is moving a little bit, we can also adjust it. So it is less shaky, enhance the quality, reduce image noise, um, any other features that you may find useful, I would recommend having a look at all of them, there's lots of different ones that are super useful that I don't even use or find useful, but you may. Then we also have an option to remove a background. So if, let's say, once again, you're speaking to the camera and you want a different background, you can do it, right? So you would just have to click Auto removal, and the background would be automatically removed. You can also add a stroke, meaning these lines over your body, you can choose from the ones over here. It also has an option of custom removal. Basically, you can choose which parts of the video you want to delete in terms of background. Then, of course, we have a mask option. For example, if you want to blur a certain part of the video only, then also we have the retouch option. So if we want to retouch, let's say, any blemishes, whiten our teeth or plump our face and stuff like that. It has everything from hair to face, body, body presets, et cetera. So you can find everything under the retouch button. Then we have the audio already mentioned the volume, then we have fade in, fade out. Which are typically used. Whenever you add, let's say, a sound, you add an audio and you don't want it to start straight away. You want it to fade in. So kind of start gradually, right before increasing the volume. Then we also have these options that I use quite a lot, which are normalized loudness. So if let's say you recorded some video speaking to the camera outside and it was busy, right, it is a great option to use to make the background sound less busy. And then we also have options to reduce noise. So once again, similar feature, enhance voice so that our voice sounds a little bit higher than the background sound, right. Isolate voice. So once again, AI simply takes out your voice and isolates it, so you don't hear any background noise and things like that. So yeah, once again, this is only audio. Then we have the speed option. So if we want the video to speed up in any parts, you can speed up the entire video or you can cut out the specific part of the video that you want to speed up, let's say, and increase it over here. So only one part would increase, and the rest of the video would be in exact same speed as it was. Then we also have curve options, so kind of speed up templates that are great for visuals, let's say. For animation, once again, I use it quite a lot and you may also find it useful. So you have in option out option and combination option over here. So the in one, right, would be for the video to start in a certain way. So let's say swing in like that, swing left like this, Zoom out and things like that. For the out, it would be how the video would end. So let's say we want to change this part of the video, we could select slide left. We could also reduce the timing on the duration of how long the ending is going to last for how long it's going to slide out or for how long it is going to appear in the beginning as well over here. And then you have the combination. So for both parts of the video as well, you can have a look at this. There's plenty once again. I'm not going to show each of them. Then we have the adjust option. So it's mostly color correction, right, and any correction to the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, any other effects, right? And then on the left side, we also have some tools. So in the media section, once again, as I mentioned, you can either record the video straightaway there and then, or you could import the videos you want to include, the visuals that you want to include, perhaps, you can include several of them and just drag them or click on the plus sign. Then you have the audio section. So basically, any music that you want to add from here, you can also import any music of your own. And what I also find useful are the sound effects. So, of course, they keep us more entertained, especially in speaking to the camera videos, and those effects could be something like this. I'm sure you've heard lots of these one scrolling on social media. They are quite popular, and you can search for the specific sound effect over here, and you can include them once again by clicking on the plus sign. And you can, of course, also increase the volume. You can drag it to any part of the video as well, where you need it to be. Then we have the text options. So once again, very useful. CapCut has some text templates that you can explore like these ones, right? You can also start it, so you can come back to it later on if you see any that you like and you think you're going to be using in the future. But you can also add your own text by clicking at Text and clicking on the plus sign. You can, of course, once again, drag the text to the part that you want to apply the text to like this, and you can change the text over here. You can also change, of course, the font that you want to use and very see the diamond sign. The ones are paid, so those ones can only be accessed with the paid option of CapCut. So that's why I'm kind of recommending using a pro version if you're into editing, and if you think that you're going to be editing videos every single day or at least a few times a week because there's plenty of features that are super useful that could only be used once again with a pro version. So where have I stopped? Yes, so once again, you can adjust the font font size, pattern, color. You have different styles for the fonts and things like that over here, the background as well if you need to enhance your text to the bubbles, other effects over here. Then we have the stickers. So once again, I use it plenty for things like stories, for Instagram, TikTok, right, things like that. You can also include it in your videos if they fit them. Once again, if you want to apply, it is very, very easy. All you need to do is literally click on the sticker you want to apply, and it's going to appear over here on the track. Once again, you adjust where exactly you want it to be. How long do you want the sticker to appear for, et cetera? You can also simply adjust the size of it like this. You can also, of course, rotate it if you need it. Then you have effects. So all of these interesting effects, shaking, zooming in, right, making the video a little bit more entertaining. And you have body effects, you have video effects, and of course, once again, you can star some effects that you may want to use and find it in your favorites. Then we have transitions. I don't use them a lot, but other creators do. So also have a look at it and see if this is something you would like to use. It's basically the transitions that appear in between two clips of your video. So let's say, I'm going to cut over here and I'm going to add a transition between this and this part of my video, right? So let's say we're taking twisted signal over here. We're just going to click on it. Click the plus sign, and you can also adjust the duration of how long that transition is going to last. And right now, once you play it, it will look something like this. So once again, another entertaining way of how you could make your videos a little bit more playful and interesting to watch for your viewers. Then we have the captions. I already empathized on the fact that lots of us watch social media without no sound. So whenever you're talking to the camera or you have a voice over, it is extremely important to have those captions ready and on. So CapCut has lots of different options, even for bilingual captions, meaning that if you are talking in, let's say, English, and then if you want to translate to any other language from this list, you can select it, and CapCut automatically translates it for you and gives you dual captions. So let me show you how it would look. Let's say, I was talking in English, and I want to also translate this video to Spanish. So I would select that, and I would click on Generate and just wait. The captions now finished generating. So let me change the color of the font to black so we can see it a little bit more clearer. Okay, I've changed it, and you can see the first caption line is in English, and the second one is in Spanish. So you can, of course, keep dual captions. You can only keep the captions in the original language. You have lots of languages to choose from over here. It's not only English, of course, and you can also, of course, adjust the style of the caption. So you have templates over here. You can choose from any of these, whichever style is looking interesting to you, fits your be, or you can also adjust the font, the size of the font, the color, the preset style, and everything else, same as with a regular text for the captions as well from the text option over here. And then what do we have? Then we have the filter. So speaks for itself. Filters that we add to enhance the colors of the video of the picture, clips, et cetera, once again, simply click on it and you can adjust the duration for how long do you want that filter to apply for, right? As you can see, there's a bit of a difference. And then we have the adjustment over here. So if, let's say you want certain adjustments for color, for lightness, for any other effects to apply during the entirety of your video, you can also just simply add a custom adjustment and apply it to the entire video of yours and, of course, adjust it over here. So once again, very convenient. You don't need to click on every single video and adjust it individually. You can do it for the whole entire video like this. Then you have the templates over here. So what makes CapCut also very useful, you can get some ideas of the videos you may want to create because they already edited, and you would simply need to import your media and change the text a little bit. But yeah, basically, these are the templates that are ready to use and are edited in a very interesting and engaging way keeping social media in mind, so especially useful for Instagram and TikTok. And that is it. Those are the main features that I wanted to show you. And of course, previously in the beginning of this video, I actually mentioned that I'm going to talk about the limitations of CapCut and when you should be using more advanced tools in which situations, perhaps CapCut isn't the best option. So keep in mind that CapCut is not a professional filmmaking soft and it may not be ideal if you're creating very complex, long form YouTube videos, and if you need advanced color grading or you want very precise editing control, let's say. It is a powerful tool. It is very easy to use, but it is, of course, not for professionals in this field, I would say. It's still kind of basic. It doesn't have the features that professional filmmakers, let's say, need. So keep that in mind. It is a very powerful tool, but once again, within its category. So, have a look at CapCut, see how you like it, see if you need a pro version or the free version is sufficient for you and see you in the next lesson. 17. Productivity & Planning with Notion: In this lesson, we're going to discuss what is Notion and how can you use it to stay organized. So as we all are aware, productivity tools are literally everywhere. There are different to do list apps, project management software, no taking platforms, content planners and things like that. And somehow, instead of feeling very organized with the variety of these apps, we still sometimes end up with five different tools and even more chaos than before. And that's the reason I wanted to include this class and chat about Notion and how it stands out. So in this class, we're going to cover what Notion actually is, why so many people love it. It's most useful features. We're also going to discuss who it's best for and when it might feel overwhelming. So starting from basic, what is Notion? So Notion is an all in one workplace. And you can use this platform for notes. Task management, content planning, habit tracking, project management, databases, team collaboration, you name it. You can literally start from a completely blank page and build it exactly how you want it to look. And why this tool is so popular is because, in my opinion, it is very flexible. Unlike other apps that tell you how to organize things, Notion keeps it very flexible and allows you to decide for yourself how you want your workplace to look. So you can create a very simple daily to do list, a content calendar, a client management system, a travel planner, a full business dashboard. All in one place. And there are a couple options of how you could start creating on Notion. So the first option would be, once again, as I mentioned, starting from a blank page over here, or you could also choose from the existing templates. If you go to the marketplace, you can see lots of different templates for the things you need. So let's say you need to create a social media content calendar, right. You could just type it over here, click Anter and some options would appear over here. So I also took out a content calendar I still use from time to time right now from here because I'm not the best designing tables and designing very beautifully and neat looking workplaces for myself. So these templates are extremely useful. And let's have a look at how they look. So let's say, let's take this one. We're going to open it in a separate page. Before we commit to it, we can simply preview it, so we can see how it would look on our page. So this is how the template looks. Of course, everything would be adjusted with our information customized, personalized for ourselves, but at least we would have some blocks to begin with. Generally, everything in motion is built using blocks, and a block can be text, a heading, a checklist, an image, a counter, a toggle, a database. So one of the ways on how you could start building the page would be just looking at the existing templates and adding a page by clicking on the ad button, and then it would reflect on your account over here and you could start editing from there and another way would be to start creating from a completely blank page. Once again, if you would click on, create a new page button, this is what you would see, right? It is completely blank page with nothing on it, and here you could start typing, If you would like to start building those blocks, all you would need to do is enter a slash and then you would see all the options you could choose from, it could be a heading number list, I do list, page table, anything you could imagine and anything you need. There's plenty of options. I still don't know half of them myself because I'm keeping it very simple for myself, and once again, I'm not best at designing the pages, but Notion allows lots of different options, and you can go as complex as you'd like. So if let's say you want to start a bulletpoint list, all you would need to do is enter slash and select a bulletPoint list. And then you could start building it like this. Then let's say if you want to build a table over here, you could once again enter slash and then select table and start building the table over here. And then let's say if you need something else, once again, either click on a plus sign or Enter slash and choose something else and enter your quote or something like this here, right? So you would start building section by section until you reach your desired outcome. Then depending what you want to use that page for because you could use it for everything from receiving applications for jobs to, let's say, social media calendars, even websites. So people built their own personal websites on Notion, and then they share it with the public and they have a link to it. So if you would like to keep the page private, there's nothing you need to do, but if you want to share it, of course, you would click on the Share option, and you could then copy the link to the page and share it with whoever you want to share it. Function that I really love is integrated AI. So let's say if this was our bullet point list, but right now I want to make it into a checklist. I could simply ask AI to do it, and it would simply change it to the boxes just like that. And you can, of course, use AI for more complex functions as well. So let's say let's market and see what the options are. Ask AI, the suggested ones are improve the writing, proof read, translate to any of these languages, make it shorter, longer, simplify the language, change tone, explain, and things like that. So there are plenty of options for AI as well, which I really, really love, which is super convenient, as well. Now, I haven't mentioned that there is a free and a paid version, and the free version actually is very generous for individuals, it's usually more than enough. Bate plans are typically useful if you're working with a team. If you need advanced permissions, you want larger file uploads and things like that. For personal productivity, social calendars and things like that, the free version is typically enough. And I believe Notion can replace apps like Trello, simple ARMs, content planners, even parts of Google Docs, right, or notes apps. But let's also talk about the downsides of Notion. So the first thing, Notion can feel a bit overwhelming and a bit chaotic because it is that flexible and it allows you to build your own workplace from scratch. And it also has lots of different things that you could be doing. So as I mentioned before, you could be creating a website on Notion. You could be creating a social calendar, be creating an application process if you're recruiting for a particular position and things like that. So it has a lot of options to choose from. And I feel like it requires a bit of time to kind of get used to the functions and how they work. And, of course, for people like me who are maybe not best at building, and we may not use Notion to its full capacity, and we may feel a bit overwhelmed by it, but once again, I personally use Notion for social media calendar, for any content ideas that I want to note for any scripts, PR templates, as you can see on the left side, I have everything there. It just helps me organize to do lists and things like that and have everything in one place. So I still feel like it is a necessary tool to look at to master. But if let's say you're not planning to have lots of different workplaces on Notion. And if let's say you only need to know to do list, then maybe your notes are the better up for you than Notion is because it is less complicated and simpler. So once again, just to summarize it overall, Notion is ideal if you like structure systems, if you manage multiple projects, if you create content regularly, run a small business, or enjoy organizing ideas visually, and it is especially powerful tool for content creators, students, entrepreneurs, social media managers, and course creators, freelancers. So, have a look at it, explore what workplaces you could create, have a look at the template option to see what you could even start creating with Notion, and I hope it gives you some ideas, and I hope you find this helpful, so see you in the next lesson. 18. Social Media Scheduling with Buffer: If you're already creating content consistently, you already notice. Posting is not a hard part. Posting consistently is remembering what to post, logging in every day, copy pasting captions and trying to stay organized. That's exactly where Buffer comes in. And this lesson we'll cover what Buffer is, how it works, its main features, who it's best for, and when you might need something more advanced. So let's start from the basics for those of you who don't know what Buffer is, Buffer is a social media management tool, and it allows you to schedule posts in advance, manage multiple platforms, plan content. Track basic performance. So instead of posting manually every day, you can schedule your content for the week or even the month in one sitting. It supports the main social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Twitter, Pintres, TikTok, and how does Buffer work? So the concept is super simple. All you need to do is connect your social media accounts, create your post, a caption and image or the video. Choose a date and time, schedule. And then Buffer publishes it automatically at the selected time. So there's no need of reminders, no logging in, no last minute stress. Buffer does everything for you. It is especially useful not only on the days that you need to post and you don't want to forget that you need to post at a certain time, but also on the days when you want, let's say, to enjoy your evening somewhere. You're going on a holiday. You're busy with other work commitments and things like that, because we all know that we want to pose during the times when our audience, our viewers are the most active, and it is important because consistency builds if let's say you disappear for two weeks and then post five times in one day, it confuses both the algorithm and your audience as well. Basically, both don't know what to expect from you moving forward. So once again, Buffer helps you to plan ahead, patch your content, stay organized, and reduce that daily pressure, stress that we feel as content creators, business owners, virtual assistants. Of course, I want to show you everything in practice. So right now, I logged in through the web and I have a couple accounts of mine already linked to Buffer. So if I would like to create and schedule a post using Buffer, all I would need to do is go to either one channel you want to post on or if you want to post on both, select all channels, click New Post. You can then drag an image or a video you want to share with your audience. You can also enter your caption over here. Let's say, And then, of course, you can also add any hash tags that you want. And right now you have a few options. So you can save it to drafts and finish off later on, or you can schedule the post. So over here, you have a few options, so you can publish it straight away, or you can set the date and time over here. So let's say I want to publish it a week from now at let's say 4:00 P.M. I would choose it, choose the time zone as well and click on Schedule Post. And right now, as you can say, both posts are scheduled for Wednesday, February 18 at 4:00 P.M. To be published on both of these channels. I want to edit it, I can, of course, from here, I could still change the caption and things like that and save it once again. I can also see the post in my content calendar over here. So first things first, I can see what was already posted on my social media channel sync here. And also, if I move on to the months post, I'm going to see the scheduled post over here as well. So it's very convenient because you can see on daily basis what is scheduled on which date. Is there anything missing? And, yeah, it is very convenient to have in one big calendar. Now Buffer also offers the option for the basic analytics that I mentioned previously. So if I click on any previous post of mine, I can see the likes, the comments, the views that particular video received, the reach, et cetera, by simply clicking on the previously posted content. Once again, I currently have a free version. I no longer have a paid version at the minute, so the free version allows you to schedule a limited number of posts and also link a limited number of channels to your account as well. Is great for beginners, for personal brands, for small creators, and the paid version includes the option to attach to link more accounts to your buffer account. To schedule, of course, more posts to have more advanced analytics and also team features. So for example, if you have a team of yours, and a few of you are responsible for social media. You can dedicate certain permissions to your team members. You have a shared access. You can draft approvals and things like that. So it is very useful for agencies, brands, social media managers, business owners once again. So I would recommend choosing Buffer if you are using social media every single day or every other day. If you want to stay consistent with it, but you don't feel like you're going to be able to post at specific times and you need a tool that will help you stay consistent. It is very beginner friendly, as you could see, it is very easy to schedule that post. There's nothing too overwhelming over here, and it is a reliable tool that is used by lots of different professionals, and social media content creators, and those are the main benefits of it. But of course, there are certain limitations that I would like to speak about. So if I'm being honest, Buffer is not the most advanced tool on the market, and it may not be ideal if you need very deep analytics. If you want more advanced automation workloads, let's say, or if you manage a dozen of different accounts or if you need built in design tools, and if you need any of the things that I mentioned, I would then go ahead and choose tools like Hootsuit later or sprout social because they offer more complex features, but they also come with more complexity and higher pricing, of course, Bl Buffer keeps it very simple and is ideal for content creators, small business owners, freelancers and people like that. So once again, have a look at it, see if this is something you would like to explore, see the difference between the pro version and the free version, and see if this is something that would be useful for your day to day basis. Hope this was helpful and see you in the next lesson. 19. Building Your Bio Link Hub with Linktree: If you've ever clicked on someone's Instagram Bio and seen Link and Bio and then opened the page with multiple buttons, that was probably Link three. When you're building an online presence, you often have more than one link to share. So let's say your website, your YouTube channel, a course, an affiliate link, a booking page, a digital product, and newsletter, but some of the social media platforms often only allow one link, or if they allow a few links, then it's also not recommended because often your subscribers, your followers get a little bit confused with those links. They're not named, and they're just not ideal, I would say. And that's exactly where Linktree becomes very useful. So in this lesson, we'll cover what Linktree is, how it works, why creators use it, and its advantages and limitations. So for those who never heard about Linktree, Linktree is a tool that allows you to create one landing page with multiple links, as I mentioned before. Instead of choosing just one link for your bio, you can add your Linktree link inside it, you can organize everything. So how does it work? Basically, the setup is super simple. All you need to do is create an account, add your links, so websites, products, social media, et cetera, and customize your page design. Then you can copy your Link to Linktree and simply add it to your social media bio. Now, when someone clicks on the Link in your Bio, they will be redirected to your Linktree page where they will be able to see all the links and the names of so basically what you can see here, you can see my personal link over here and you can see everything what my viewers can also see from the link in my bio over here. Once they click on a particular link, they are redirected to the page I want to redirect them to, right? And how to start building it. So as I mentioned, all you need to do is register with Link three, and then you're going to be able to start building. So you're going be choosing from different designs that they have. You can find the design option over here. Some of them are going to be completely free of charge, and some of them are going to be paid. So everything that is marked with Pro, of course, is paid, and some of them are completely free of charge. So I've used a completely basic design to not distract my viewers and to have everything easily accessible. But yeah, you would basically choose and change and personalize your link page over here, and then you would head out to the links option over here and add the links you want to add. So first of all, you're going to have your name over here that is going to reflect here. Then you will have some icons. Typically, you can add social media profiles under your name website, email, perhaps, and things like that. All you need to do is click on the plus sign and then add them from here. You can have your social media icons at the top, or also at the bottom, they would reflect somewhere here. And then once this is set up, you can also have a bio here, too, if you need it, you can add your link. So the process is super simple. All you need to do is click on AD. You can paste your link here. So I'm taking the same link to my media kit. I'm going to click on Link, and here we have it. It's going to reflect over here. I can now change the name of it here. I can also have a thumbnail, so I can either add an existing thumbnail or I can also generate a thumbnail with AI, which is very, very useful. Of course, this platform like many other platforms are using AI have integrated AI. So once you change everything, do reflect however you want it to reflect, you can easily access the link from the list over here. If you want to hide it, all you need to do is simply click on this option over here or you can also delete the entire section from here. You can also see how many people clicked on your link during the past, let's say, XD. So it is very useful because you can also see how popular your links are and what is gaining more popularity and what is not as popular as well. And why is it so popular is because most creators don't have just one goal. Maybe you want people to watch your latest video, let's say, download your travel guide, book a consultation with you, follow you on TikTok, join your email list and things like that. So is important to have a Link three page with all of these goals and all of these links in one place. So your viewers know where exactly to click and what you expect. And it is especially useful for content creators, small businesses, coaches, freelancers, influencers. You can also add, as I have here, the shop option over here and link your products that you're selling online. So for me, I have some travel guides there. I have some links to my consultations. So also my audience can access my shop from the Link and Mbo easier. There's also a free and a paid version. So I have a free version, and that is sufficient for me. It includes the basic customization and limited links and the basic analytics, and the paid one typically includes advanced analytics, more design control, priority link options, integration tools and things like that. So for beginners and for people who perhaps don't have 1 million of different links and don't need that extreme customization, the free version is typically enough. But if you're, let's say, running campaigns or selling products consistently, then upgrading might make sense. Right now, as with every platform, I want to touch based on limitations. So the main one, in my opinion would be that some people prefer direct links instead of extra links. So they want to find what they're looking for easier. So clicking on separate links, right, having separate windows open may not be ideal for these type of people. Then also, many creators are using Linktree, so the pages may similar, it's not as personalized, customized as you may wish. But I think overall, it is a great tool, especially as a free tool as well, and it helps us to keep everything organized and for our viewers to also not feel as overwhelmed, too. So I have a look at it, and hopefully we'll find it useful. 20. Understanding Social Media Metrics: On social media, you need to understand the metrics. The numbers that you see on your analytics page on, let's say, Instagram or TikTok. In this class, I'm going to be talking about what each number means. So you can understand later on how to optimize your content to improve these numbers as well. The first number, the first term that we have is reach, and reach is basically the views that your content is. Then we have impressions, which is the total number of times your content is being watched, but we're also including the repeated watches as well in this number. Then we have the engagement metrics like likes, saves, comments, story replies and things like that. Why is it so important to know that these things exist or even have strong engagement is because it shows how relevant your content was, it shows how effective your call to action was, plus the higher your engagement rate is, the more algorithm is going to push your content to the larger audience in general. Then we have an engagement rate, which is a percentage. It is calculated like this, you take a total engagement and divide it by total followers or reach. Why is it so important to know it's good to understand how effective your content is in general and if you're planning to be a content creator, lots of brands are going to ask for your typical engagement rate to understand whether it is worth working with you or not. Then we have watch time or retention time. Basically, the time that you retain, you hook people to watch your video for typically in seconds. Then we have CTR, which is click through rate. It indicates how many people actually clicked the link you were maybe promoting I'm very good to know for ads, let's say, especially for ads, add the link and you're prompting people to look into your website, look into the specific product, sign up, et cetera. In those situations, you can see how effective your ad was, how effective your content was for the specific campaign. Then you have website clicks sometimes. Basically how many times people clicked on the link in your Mo. Then you have conversion or sales rate, so speaks for itself, but basically how many sales were driven for that specific piece of content, let's say that specific ad, you name it. Then we have the follower growth. Let's say how many people were brought from a particular real, particular piece of content. How many followers did you gain in the past 30 days, let's say, past year. It basically just reflects on how effective your content was to retain people and to get people to follow you in the first place. 21. Analyzing & Optimizing Social Media Content: Already know what metrics exist, right now, we can move on to analyzing your existing content and optimizing it to perform better. I believe that this step is essential, but that this step is often missed by creators or small business owners, and that may result in slower growth or just inconsistent results. The thing is by analyzing your previous post, it helps you to understand what worked, what didn't work, what you should continue doing, what you should stop doing. Answer the questions. Let's say why that piece of content didn't work. Was it a hook? Was it the value? Was it the call to action that wasn't as strong? Right now, I would like to discuss a few steps that you could be completing with your existing content or leave it if you haven't started social media for later on that will help you answer the questions I mentioned previously and will help you later on to optimize your content to perform better, gain more viewers, gain more followers in the long term. So let's get started. As a first step, I would recommend taking three to five best performing videos posts of yours. You could even divide them, let's say, top three posts by reach, then by watch time, retention, then by engagement rate, then by website visits if that's applicable to and why I'm saying to take them and see what those pieces of contents are is because it just reveals what your audience is interested in, what they like seeing. If later on you notice some similarities between this content, you can double down on it and create more content similar to that and be guaranteed that it's going to perform good. Now I would recommend you take every single piece of content and study the first 3 seconds. For each post, ask yourself, what did I say or show in the first 3 seconds? Is the hook visual or verbal? Is it a combination of these? Did I start with motion, text on screen, a question or a bold statement? What problem, curiosity, or emotion that I trigger? The reason why I believe this step is essential is because 70, 80% of top performance come from a hook. If the retention is low early, our video is going to then as a third step, I would recommend looking at retention. Looking at at which point of the video did people exit? How long did people stay? Was there something I was saying that was too long, let's say, a video that I took too long to communicate that message? Maybe that was the reason why people stopped watching the video, why people scrolled away. The question that I recommend asking at this point is what happened at the drop point? Did I change the scene, tone or pace, and was the video too slow, too repetitive, too long? Was there something about it that I can pinpoint? Then as a four step, I would break these videos apart and pieces like hooks, value delivery, teaching, entertaining, storytelling, transitions, payoff, cold action, and I would ask, was I concise, or did I ramble? Is the message clear? Did I create curiosity and then deliver on the promise? Was the CTA specific and relevant and things like that? Then as a fifth step, I would dig even deeper. Of course, while engagement is extremely important, I would also ask questions like what types of comments are people leaving? Why they tagging friends? Are they asking questions? Because that would be an opportunity for new content ideas. Then are they objecting? Do I need to clarify the issue? Things like that or did people share or save the post? That is a strong indicator of value in my post. Then as step number six already, I would compare the videos, the content that flop versus the videos that did very well, and I would see if I can spot the difference between them. Was there a topic difference? Was there a hook difference? Was there video length difference, editing speed difference, lighting, background, energy level, caption, CTA difference. Is there something I can really pinpoint? I can understand why it is so well and why this one flop. As the seven step, it's extremely important to understand what do I need to double down on? It's identifying your winning elements and double downing on that particular part. From your previous post, highlight three hook styles that consistently perform. Two, three topics that always get traction, the length ranges that work best, editing or pacing styles that keep retention high or something like formats your audience prefers tutorials, BOB, stories, mem Bro plus texts, anything like that. These will be the things that you're going to want to repeat consistently for your results to be consistently good. As the eighth step, I hope you're not too tired yet. I know this is a lot of work, but it's super useful for the future and for the long term and I feel like it pays off, but it is diagnosing underperforming content. So ask these questions to the videos that flop to the content that flop, did it have a strong hook? Was the topic relevant to my audience? Was the pacing too slow or too fast? Was the lighting audio distracting? Was the value clear and immediate? Was the CTA confusing? Was the post too similar to something I already posted recently. And typically, from my own experience and from what I've seen online, Content fails because of the pacing, hook or clarity. As the last step, I would recommend once again looking into your metrics and specific numbers because every metrics tell a different story. For example, if your content had high reach and low engagement, that means that your hook was good, but your content was weak. Then if you have low reach but high engagement, that means that algorithm didn't push it, but the content itself was strong. Then if you have high watch time but low clicks, that means strong content, big CTA or maybe your offer is mismatch. Then we have high clicks, but low conversions, that means that landing page or offer needs improvement. Then if we have, let's say, high sales shares, that means that we would need to focus on this type of content because it's valuable, people see value in it clearly and we need to double down on that. Understanding this funeral also helps you to diagnose the problem and sold 22. UGC & Content Creation Business Fundamentals: Also promise that I'm going to briefly talk about the business side, the business fundamentals for UGC and content creation specifically. So let's chat about it. Of course, if you're a business owner and you're not interested in UGC or content creation, you can simply skip this step, skip this class because I'm going to be basically talking about monetizing social media platforms about making deals or contracts. I'm going to be talking about rad cards, media kits, outreach messages, where to find clients as a UGC or content creator and things like that. If you want to be present on social media and start creating content, there are a few ways on how you could monetize this. The first way that I personally like would be being an affiliate. Getting a commission based on the sales you made through your personal affiliate link. If you Google X brand affiliate program, you're most likely going to find it. I feel like majority of the brands nowadays have an affiliate program, and you can gain quite good commission from it, especially if let's say you love that brand and you know that either way you're going to be posting content about the brand, why not become their affiliate and maybe gain a bit of commission from? Second way would be through TikTok Shop, maybe, once again, I said it's not relevant to business owners, but it is maybe you want to sell through TikTok shop or maybe you want to become an affiliate for a particular product on TikTok Shop, you can do it. But of course, you need to have over 1,000 followers and you need to register with their affiliate program once you're Invite. The third step would be by creating a digital product or of course, by providing digital service. Let's say, it's an easy way to start a business, to start monetizing your social media. You can be giving advice on particular topics, creating guides. You could be using platforms like at C GoPay Hip to sell your products. It's very easy to set up, it doesn't require for you to spend a lot of money or anything doing it, it is a very easy way to start gaining from this if you have any valuable knowledge that you could be sharing with your viewers, then the fourth way would be by being a UGC creator, this field is competitive, of course, same as being an influencer, but it still is very commonly requested by the brands. UGC content is basically the content that you produce for a brand, but that you don't post on your own social media channel. Basically, you get paid to create content, send it to the brand and the brand uses it for their own website, their own social media channels, emails, you name it and the fifth way, super relevant for content creators would be getting paid collaboration. A lot of times brands reach out to creators to start collaborating, but you can of course reach out through DMs or email and offer them paid collaboration and tell exactly what you could create for them, how they could benefit from collaborating with you. Make a partnership that way. Now, you could be finding clients as UGC or content creator. It really depends what exactly you decide to focus on. But the first thing that I recommend is adding your email in your bio because if the brand discovers your profile on social media, they can reach out easily. I know it sounds a little bit sketchy. I know that you're going to receive a lot of spam emails, et cetera, but it just helps brands to reach out to you quickly. If you're not a big creator, nobody is going to spend time searching for your email address or any contact details. If they can't find it, they're going to move on to another creator. Although it sounds harsh, that's the reality. And the second way, I already mentioned it briefly, but basically emailing or damming the brand that you would love to work with that you would love to work for as a UGC creator and basically introducing yourself, telling what experience you have, maybe providing the link to your media kit, your portfolio, explaining how you could collaborate, explaining what are your fees and things like that. Maybe the brand is going to show interest in doing this third way would be through different freelance platforms like fiber of people per hour. There's many of them. You can explore them. Of course, the competition there is very high, and the rates are typically more competitive, so you would have to charge a little bit less to stay competitive with other creators, but you can of course explore it, especially in the beginning, it is use. Then the fourth spot where you could be finding your clients would be through different UGC or creator marketplaces. Once again, there's lots of them Aspire IO, I believe it's called influi ISNS Just Research. If you enter UGC Marketplace or content creator Marketplace, you're going to be shown lots of options out there. You can register with each platform and each platform collaborates with certain brands. Basically, you can secure collaboration once the brand reaches out to you or maybe they have a campaign that they post and you apply. So, if you get selected, then you can start collaborating and getting paid for it. Now let's talk about the outreach messages. If you decide to outreach to the brand by DMing them or by emailing them, it is important to have some structure in which you approach the brands. I would always recommend introducing yourself in your outreach message, telling the brand what value you would bring, how you could collaborate. Maybe you saw that they launched a product recently, maybe you've been using their products for a few years. You found them useful, something that would spark their curiosity and something that would be different from other creators, let's say, because we have a very saturated market and we want to be a little different from how other content creators are and I worked for quite popular brands and we would receive lots of these outreach messages. So it is very important to also work on personalizing it to the specific brand you're outreaching to because that increases your chances of getting selected, of getting a reply even or getting a call book so once again, in your message, try to introduce yourself, try to show the value that you could provide. We're following the same structure as in a script, I would say, introducing ourselves, value, and then at the end call to action. So we're encouraging Brand to act, to email us back to ask for something else, to maybe review our portfolio, media kit, et cetera. Now let's move on to a more boring part of content creation and UGC, which is C keep in mind that you can get a structure of a contract for a collaboration as a content creator or AGC creator using HGBD. It does a very good job, especially for the basic contracts. But basically, there are a few things that you should include into your contract. I would always recommend signing a contract if you decide to collaborate with a brand, if you decide to work for a brand because it just ensures a little bit more security for you and the brand itself. I know that a lot of brands already send you a contract and ask you to sign it before even talking about the brief and things like that. But if they don't, you can also prompt them and send a contract to sign before you decide working with them. As I mentioned, there are a few things to include and those things are scope of work, exactly what you're delivering, number of videos, photos, posts, then payment terms, so amounts schedule and payment method are usually the most important things to include. Then deliverable and deadline dates and expectations for that rights and usage, who owns the content and how it can be used. Typically, the base payment would be for organic rights. Then we have ads rights usage, for which we charge on top of it, 30 50%, then we have extended usage rights for UGC content, particularly and things like that for which we charge extra. It is also important to define what who owns the content in the contract, so it can be clear for both sides. Then we have revisions and approvals part. Typically, how many times they can ask for revisions and basically the approval process briefly mentioned, then it's good to have termination clause. Of course, what happens if either party cancels. Of course, as I mentioned, you can use HAGVTs to draft a contract for you to assist you with that. And I also love to use. I love PDF to sign any contracts and to make it easier for me to edit any PDFs. Then of course, as a content creator, as a UGC creator, you expected to have your portfolio or media kit. Basically, it is the same thing, to be honest, if I'm being completely transparent, but basically media kit is focusing more on the numbers, while portfolio is focusing more on the actual work that you've done. So what you would typically include in your media kit would be things like bios, your story and niche, then audience statistics, so followers engagement rate, demographics, then content samples, so photos, videos, past UGC, or content creation work. Then maybe you could include something like brands you collaborated with, if you have any examples, testimonials, if you have any reviews, pop it in there is just going to make the brand trust you a little bit more. Of course, contact information or call to action that would make it easy for a brand to contact you. I have actually a website that I use to create my own media kit, which is called beacons.ai. You can have a look at it, but you can also feel free to create your portfolio or your media kit using Canva. I typically recommend creating a website instead of PDF because of course, if what you provide is reels, let's say, majority of the time, it would be good for the brand to actually be able to see those videos playing because a PDF static document. Before you start outreaching and trying to secure those collaborations with other brands, make sure that you also have your rate card. Basically, how much you charge for, let's say, real on Instagram, real on TikTok, store you mentioned, maybe you have different let's say packages, maybe you have different add ons that already mentioned, like, organic usage is included. But then for ads x percent more than for extended usage to use, let's say for lifetime X amount on the initial fee if they want to use it for a year, which is extended, then they need to pay X percent on top of the initial fee, et cetera. Again, for the fees, I would look into the followers count, the engagement rate and also it's important to understand that let's say if you're a content creator on TikTok and you have 10,000 followers, you're going to be paid less than for a real on Instagram with 10,000 followers because the weight on Instagram Uh, for the follower count is higher than TikTok. It's easier basically to gain followers on TikTok and the hardest is YouTube, I would say. It also depends on the platform, what fees you're going to be charging. You could have a look at ChatGPT and basically see what it advises you based on your target audience, what percentages you should be charging for extras and things like that. It's always good to explore. Have a look at how much other creators are charging too. It gives you a better understanding because to be honest, these fees are all over the place for different creators. There's not one wrong or right answer. You really need to evaluate your work, your effort, and see what works for you. I also think depends on the country you live in and how expensive the cost of living is in the country you live. The rate could also depend on that. Just have a look at all of those factors, consult with our best friend AGBT and create a rates card that you could later on send to the brand. 23. Conclusion: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this class. I really hope it was informative and I really hope that it was useful and it's going to contribute positively to your social media journey. As a favor, I would really appreciate if you would follow me to see more of my content, more of my classes later on. Of course, I would really appreciate a review to see whether you enjoyed this content or not.