theClubHouse – Issue 002
Social Media Growth, Selling at Local Markets, and Work from Home Loneliness
Welcome to this week’s ClubHouse gathering:
📈 Dealing with Parabolic Social Media Growth
💸 You Should be Selling at Local Markets
🏠 Coping with “Work from Home Loneliness”
📓 Journal Entry: I finally gave in
Dealing with Parabolic Social Media Growth.
It took me over 10 years to reach 1,200 followers on Instagram.
It took me less than 60 days to grow my TikTok following to 2,000 followers. Holy shit.
Less than 24 hours after my previous newsletter discussing how I’d quickly amassed 500 followers on TikTok, I looked at my notifications again to see I’d gained another 200 followers. The next morning, another 200 followers. I checked to find a reason and it seems as though another one of my videos got pushed through the algorithm and I caught a nibble that turned into quite a catch.
What do I mean by “another video got pushed through the algorithm?” Well I’ve learned some things after posting a TikTok every single day for over a month now.
One of the big things I’ve learned is how videos get distributed and tested:
The user posts the video
The video should get around 200 views within 1 hour via random distribution
The video tests the 200-400 view range to see how people interact with it (watch time, comments, likes, bookmarks, etc.)
If it gets good engagement, it gets bumped to the 800-1000 view mark to do the same tests
Same as before, gets bumped to the 3000-5000 view mark
Tests again, goes to 10k area
Tests again goes to 15-18k area
Tests again, goes to 28k-30k area
And this continues in various increments. My highest viewed video at the moment stands at around 90k views
Now, I’ve never had such sudden social media growth like this before. It’s pretty shocking to check your notifications and see numbers in the HUNDREDS. It’s like a high, seriously. I want to keep checking, I want to keep seeing those numbers go up, up, up. Now unfortunately, I’ve seen two of my “viral” videos slow their growth. The anxiety kicks in. “Is this it? Am I done? Did I have my pop?”
My immediate thoughts rush to, “okay, what’s the next video I can make that will go viral? How do I make another one like that?” Now this mindset isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I mean I feel like I should definitely try to find a good system to get videos going viral. BUT, I’m losing sight of what got me here in the first place: POSTING WHAT I LIKE AND WHAT I WANT.
I got to the point of getting a few popular videos by literally just making videos I want to make and making the videos that I would want to see if I was scrolling through TikTok. I firmly believe the best way I can keep going is to follow that, and let the algorithm take care of the rest. I just need to carve that thought into my screen so I remember it’s not all about going viral.
Consistency is key baby.
You Need to be Selling at Local Markets.
Do you sell tangible goods? Clothing, home goods, art, anything fun and PHYSICAL?
Well then why aren’t you selling at markets?
I’ve been making clothing for 3 years now and I’ve probably done 70% of my sales in person at various types of markets. Flea markets, vintage and thrift bazaars, small business markets, and art markets. No matter what you make, you can find a way to fit into your local markets.
Here are the 3 pieces of advice I wish I knew when I started:
💸 Be a salesperson. If you’ve got a booth set up with all your delightful goods for sale, but you’re just sitting there in your chair not talking to anyone, what kind of vibe does that send to passersby? When you go to a car lot, do the employees sit there and let you browse cars by yourself? NO. They come right up to you and tell you what you need. If someone begins to walk by my booth, even if I know they’re not going to be into the clothes I sell, I make sure to acknowledge them and be friendly so others around my booth can see that my booth is warm and inviting.
🤑 People loveee free shit. Again, I know not everyone will like my clothing. How do I get them into my booth? I put out a bowl of candy. Yes, it’s really that simple. Not only does that attract people to my booth to make it look busy, but those extra few seconds could allow someone to change their minds and see something they like that they didn’t necessarily see when they first started walking by.
🧡 Your Booth is YOU. So many vendors at local markets are missing out on sales due to having boring, lame, drab displays. You may have the coolest thing in the world, but who wants to buy it from a cheap fold up table with shoddy signage? Make your booth an extension of yourself. Throw a rug down, bring some plants, spend a bit extra to get some well designed signage and price sheets. Make sure you decorate your booth in such a way that your brand is overwhelmingly cohesive.
Local markets are one of the best ways to interact with your community and get your product in front of people. In this age where online shopping has been reigning supreme, people are craving that in-person experience again.
Give it to them. And SELL to them.
Coping with “Work from Home Loneliness”
“The Third Place,” an interesting concept I heard about earlier this year, refers to the social surroundings we have that are separate from our two usual social environments of home and the workplace.
Well, what happens when you work from home like me? I only have ONE place, let alone three. I’ve been working from home for nearly a year now. I travel approximately 50 feet during any given work day, and the only other person I see is my roommate. No watercooler chat, no going over to someone’s desk, no walking down the street for lunch. Just bedroom - to office - back to bedroom. Rinse and repeat.
At first I loved the idea of cutting out my commute, being able to make lunch freely at home, and being able to do my laundry during the work day. I never considered how social I really was until I was stripped of its convenience.
How have I begun dealing with this lack of social interaction?
🧗 I started going to the rock climbing gym in August and I’m slowly becoming a “regular” there, so I'm hoping to establish that as my second place.
☕️ I want to start working outside of the house again. Whether that’s working from a coffee shop, the public library, or bookstores. I haven’t started this yet, but I’m slowly willing myself into it.
🐈 My roommate got a cat, so I guess that’s one extra living thing I get to see during the day.
This is something I’m actively trying to solve, so I’m going to continue looking for solutions and ways to be more social on a day-to-day basis. Wish me luck🤞
Journal Entry: I Finally Gave In.
I did it. I really did. After I made fun of so many people, I did it myself.
That’s right, I shaved my face and now I have a mustache. After a very bummy start to my December, I looked in the mirror last Friday and decided I needed to get freshened up. I went downtown and got a haircut, followed promptly by the first shave I’ve given myself in over five years. Five long years of having facial hair, largely in part due to having acne when I was around 20-21 years old, all stripped away with nothing left except the mustache. And honestly, I kinda like it…
3 Things I’ve learned since shaving my face for the first time in 5 years:
🐥 Chicks dig a mustache these days.
🪒 Razor burn sucks.
⏰ Finding an extra 15 minutes every few days to shave my face is a real pain in the ass.
I’m also insanely exhausted at the moment. A majority of my days are seriously lacking in the downtime department. I wake up, stretch, run, make coffee, read, journal, get into my work for the day, usually either take an online class or go rock climbing after work, make dinner, shower, and by then it’s usually 10pm and I’m so tired I don’t have any energy to do anything else.
Maybe as we get closer to Christmas I’ll find some downtime. Or, knowing myself, I’ll probably just get busier. Cheers 🥂
Great issue Alex. I really dig the style of your newsletter. You've inspired me to work on mine, so thanks for that!
great post, Alex. Work from home loneliness is way too real. Happy holidays my man