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[playerpurpleusa]

WHY FACEBOOK?!

After all the talk about how Instagram and TikTok can be critical to the success of your personal travel & education brand, you should never underestimate the reach of the Social Media GOLIATH, Facebook. 💪

As a young person from Western Europe or the United States, one could think that Facebook is on the decline. In fact, one could bet that most people under 20, in these two areas, don't know a single one of their peers, who uses the platform regularly.😵‍💫

Here, Facebook is the platform of the old and conservative, whereas TikTok and Instagram are for the youth. 👴 This could lead to the assumption, that overall active users are declining. 📉 If you look at the overall numbers from all over the world though, Facebook has been gaining more active users than they are losing, every year. 📈 EVERY YEAR, except for 2022, shaping the first negative trend in the company's history.📉📉📉

The median age of all Facebook users is still in the 30's. 👨 Another problem is, that all those numbers from around the world don't matter that much, since not everybody understands the language you are speaking in your videos. 🗣️ For PlayerPurpleUSA, this is especially critical, since all of the brand's videos are in German, not English. 🇩🇪 

Why is Facebook still worth the consideration then? 🤔

Simply because of average watch times and audiences, with a lot of time and interest in education. 🧐 People above the age of 21, making up most of Facebook's users, are also way more likely to have the financial means to either travel or immigrate to the Unites States.💸🇺🇸

On Facebook, videos of 1 minute perform the best. 🌟 This is a huge upgrade in watch time, compared to TikTok's numbers of 10-15 seconds. Also, most videos that go over this mark, are also way more likely to go viral, than on most fast-paced video apps. 🏎️🏎️🏎️

Education also has it way harder to engage viewers than pure entertainment. Now, the median age comes into play. 👵 Think about your own experiences: Who is more likely to read a book, research information just for fun and to watch documentaries? 📚 The teenager, scrolling his feed after school 🏫 or an adult in the middle of his life? 👨

So how are people using this to their advantage? 🔥

A good example for this, is the German Manuela Reimann. 👩 She and her husband immigrated to the United States and started documenting their journey on Facebook. 📽️ This is done in the form of short Reels or full on blog posts. ✍️ Ultimately, she sparked interest in the German TV broadcaster "Kabel Eins" and got her own show on primetime television. 📺 This elevated her stardom even more, letting her reach 292.117 Followers. 🌟🌟🌟

An example of a new and fresh account, starting in this niche on Facebook, is "Sissi die Auswanderin". 👩 She is also documenting and talking about her life as a German Immigrant in the USA. 🇩🇪 Yet again, she is using small Reels and some extensive blog posts to gain followers, of which she currently has 1.050. 🌟 She also uses Facebook to push her Youtube Channel, which she uses for her longer videos. 📽️

Last but not least, there is "Auswandern in die USA". 👨 This brand also talks about immigration to the States, using Reels and longer blog posts. ✍️ What makes them unique, is their podcast they just started with OliDayTours on Spotify. 🎙️They are rather successful in their niche with over ten thousand followers. 🌟🌟

What does all this tell us? 🤔

First and foremost, Facebook is not DEAD. 💀

It has a big potential to reach financially stable, information hungry people, mostly in their 30's, with a willingness to read and watch longer content. 🧐 Another observation is, that in PlayerPurpleUSA's niche, content on Facebook resolves rather on actual immigration rather than just travel. 🧳

Personally, I won't start a Facebook account, because I'm directing my content towards younger people and am not into the immigration side of my niche. 🧳📽️ I want to go with trends, not with what worked in the past and is still the same. 🙏

What about you? 🤔

How would you approach this? 🔥

Would a Facebook account make sense for you brand, or do you want to completely debunk all of what I said? 🙏

Let me know in the comments! ✍️

Thanks for reading! 💜 

[playerpurpleusa]

WHY YOUTUBE ?!

As a content creator in today's day and age, with a shortened timespan of consumers and in times of highly saturated entertainment markets, it is fairly convenient to stick to fast paced platforms like TikTok, SnapChat or Instagram, to catch attention and grow an audience.🌟 These apps allow you to give your fans a quick fix of their daily video/post, whilst still never wasting their time. ⏱️ 

Why should you use YouTube then? 🤔

The biggest advantage of an app like TikTok, is also its biggest problem for the educational niche: Some topics can't be accurately discussed in under 3, 5 or even 10 minutes. 😵‍💫 It's a big difference, if you talk about the taste of an ice cream 🍦 or try to summarize World War 1. ⚔️

Of course, you can narrow most topics down to their very core, but as an educational brand, you should aspire to also do them justice. ⚖️ If this can't fit into 10 minutes, so be it.🧑‍⚖️ Now you can either decide to use a site like YouTube for these videos or throw those ideas away. 🗑️

But before you decide, let me name some other advantages of YouTube! 🔥

There, you can reach a wide audience, one that is more likely to click on your affiliate links, more brands will pay you for advertisements 💰 and it will strengthen your core consumer base. The latter is the most important advantage. 💪 

Ask yourself : How many TikTok-only influencers have a big and strong, hardcore fanbase? 🤔

Almost none. 🙅‍♂️ That's why you will most likely find all the big and medium sized creators, also running a YouTube. 🔥 Whereas on TikTok you sometimes get your favorite creator on your "For You" (almost no-one uses the "Following" page), in between short videos of others, on YouTube you can't randomly see videos, you did not intentionally click on or which were in a queue.🖱️ To watch a YouTube video, people are consciously making a decision to consume and on average, they also spent way more watch-time one-on-one, with the creator and his creation. 💌 This forges a way stronger connection and benefits you in the longterm. 📈

So should you directly start off with a TikTok AND a YouTube? 🤔

The answer is most likely a NO. 🙅‍♂️ The biggest advantage of YouTube, those stronger bonds and those conscious consumption decision make it way harder to start from scratch. 🙃 Whereas on TikTok, most people can arrive at 2k followers in less than 3 months, if they create good content, on YouTube you can be happy to be in the hundreds within that timespan. 🤷 YouTube will not push you as much as TikTok does, people are less likely to click on the unknown and how should people know to search for your content, if they don't even know you exist in the first place? 🤔

That's why using YouTube as a mid-term supplement to TikTok is gaining huge momentum at the moment. 🚀 If you already created a medium-sized audience on TikTok, which knows you as a creator and is thirsting for more of your content, they will most likely also watch your YouTube videos, letting you gain early momentum and a lot of subscribers. ✨✨✨ Your most loyal fans will be the fundament of your YouTube career. Getting this big, immediate push, will also result in the algorithm picking you up from the very start, placing you in the feeds of potential new viewers. 🧑‍🚀

YouTube can also be a safety net. 🕸️ TikTok, being a highly controversial app from China 🇨🇳 , influenced also by their government, being invasive when it comes to your privacy, could always be subject to bans and removals. 🚫 You can also easily be censored. If this happens, and you went all-in on the app, you lost all your cards. 🃏 YouTube is less likely to be banned by governments, censor you (even though this is getting more and more likely by the day) or lose popularity. 🤕

If you remember the TikTok-like app, "Vine", you might see some similarities, because it went through these exact observations. 🔍 People got popular very fast, created short videos, took their followers to YouTube, got famous on there as well and when Vine surprisingly closed down, they had a huge safety net. 🕸️ The most famous example of this tactic, is delivered by the Paul brothers : LOGAN and JAKE PAUL. 👱‍♂️👱‍♂️

Both started with "funny" clips on Vine, moved to YouTube, created two of the platform's biggest accounts and went on to kickstart the trends of "Influencer Houses", "Daily Vlogs" and YouTuber box fights. 🥊

On TikTok, you see the same movements forming. All big TikTokers also have YouTube accounts. If you look at Charli D'amelio's channel, she also has a huge following THERE. Nothing compared to her TikTok following of 147,9 M but certainly a loyal base of almost 9,5 Million.✨✨✨

As a cultural educational channel, this seems even more important!🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Whereas a Drew Binsky, who travelled to EVERY country on earth, might be able to create fantastic short clips on TikTok, his most valuable content can only be found on YouTube. 🗺️

As you see, YouTube will most certainly not fall out of style in the near future, with success stories being still written today. ✍️✍️✍️

What do you say? 🤔

Is YouTube worth the time and effort or do you rather stick to fast-paced entertainment platforms? 🚀 🚀 🚀

[playerpurpleusa]

Why TikTok ?!

Time is the most valuable good in Life. ⏰ How someone spends his time, is a great way of analyzing one's priorities. As a parent, when working many hours each day, your focus might be to spend the rest of your time with your children. 🧒 As a kid, coming from school, doing your homework, your focus might be to watch an episode of your favorite show or play video games with your friends. Being an adult, your free time might also be spent this way and that's totally ok! 👍

Most people you ask, will not tell you that their focus is to spend their free-time on learning new things.😵‍💫 For many, this often is more often than not, nothing less of a chore than working out, cooking food or cleaning one's apartment. Of course, there are some, that find joy in this, and if you actually love a topic, you are way more inclined to study, than to tidy your closet, but most still don't allocate much time for it altogether. 🤷‍♂️

It's not that people refuse to learn, they just don't want to invest their time and energy to do so. PlayerPurpleUSA is convinced, that learning can be entertaining, non-committal and achieved in a minute's time. 🤩

TikTok is perfect in the way, that you're limited in time as a creator, forced to cut to the point in all you posts, and people don't have to actually search for anything. 🔍 This last point has historically been the main reason for entertainment content almost always outperforming educational content. If they are able to control their content, people are more inclined to lean back and get entertained than to click on a long video of someone explaining something to them like a teacher. 👨‍🏫

You could say that the "For You Page" on TikTok, being 100% based on algorithms, not your follows, videos you actively searched or on the content you want to see in that exact moment, lowers the guard of most viewers. 💂

Between entertainment videos, An educational one is like a trojan horse. 🐴 People swipe, expecting a short laugh or emotion, learn something new instead and keep sticking around, because "one minute can't be considered a waste of time for something interesting". 🤔 Most people do not only not mind this type of educational break between simple entertainment, they end up being thankful about it.🙏 It makes people feel great and they will press the follow button. 💓

Many viewers will not see most of your videos, not even your subscribers will, but the algorithm makes sure, that the message reaches its right listeners.👂 TikTok is mostly used by young adults, teenagers and kids, but even if you focus on the smaller amount of adults using the app, you will most surely reach their feeds through the algorithm. 👨 Therefore, you can say that most creators shall only focus on the content, not the marketing, because great videos will be reaching your exact audience anyways.🌟

In a sense, TikTok is a "age-group-less", "marketing-less", viewer uncontrolled birthplace for good, straight-to-the-point, short content. 📹 It also has the biggest growth potential, looking at stars like Addison Rae or even recently, the "Corn Kid". 🌽

Let's look at someone who proofs this point like no other in the niche of educational USA content in Germany 🇺🇸🇩🇪:

ciao_eu_hello_usa !

His long name, filled with underscores, proves that its fast and convenient type-ability is of no importance in order to reach over 26 thousand followers in less than half a year. 🤩 His content, talking about moving from Germany to the USA as an Immigrant with his wife and child, is directed at an older age group, not reflected in TikTok's main demographics. 🤔 He himself is not part of this demographic to begin with and still reaches 50k+ views regularly. 👍He does not talk with an engaging, but rather emotionless and calm voice, going against the fast-paced style, associated with the platform. His videos are extremely educational, not entertainment-based, and perform extraordinarily well. 🔥

He is documenting his moving process in detailed fashion, shows cultural differences to Germany and does not shy away from more delicate matters, like knock backs in his process, or the ongoing hurricane catastrophe in Florida, where he is currently staying. 😨 His videos are rather long, compared to the usual TikTok formula being propagated.

It is fair to assume, that he would have a way harder time to achieve similar success on other platforms, like YouTube. 🧐 The best proof for this is found on the channel "LebenUSA", who talks about very similar topics, more thoroughly researched, more in-depth and in a longer video format. 😯 In 7 years, his channel amassed 92,6k followers and achieves similar or lower viewer counts as "Ciao EU, Hello USA". 😶 Of course, these viewers might be more valuable in terms of marketing value, but it still tells a lot about the results of using two different video platforms. 🤷‍♂️

All in all, it's always smart to diversify your platform presences. Even though TikTok seems to be the best starting point for educational content, there will always be video ideas, you cannot or don't want to squeeze into a maximum of three minute clips. 🎞️ It is therefore smart, to build a following there, and then start up a YouTube channel later on. Presence on image-based platforms can be handled simultaneously.

🌟🌟🌟

Do you agree with this approach? 💭

Which platforms are most fitting to your content and niche? 💭

[playerpurpleusa]

THE INSTAGRAM DILEMMA

Creating educational travel and culture content on video-based platforms like TikTok or Youtube can be very rewarding.🌟

It is a hard climb at first, but with enough dedication and work, you can build yourself an active and loyal following. Most consumers won't say "NO" to a short clip, teaching them about a topic, they are interested in. 📹

Watching a single short to medium length video, is not considered to be an activity of high effort by most people. They lean back, relax, listen and just move on in their lifes, right after the clip is over. 🕯️

There will come a time in a personal brand's lifecycle though, where it has to consider becoming a multi-platform social media destination for its consumers. Otherwise, they are not spreading their risks, not diversifying their customer portfolio and not making use of many of their business opportunities. 📊 

Now comes the "END BOSS" of anyone in this niche - Instagram. 😈

Why is this the case, you ask? 🤔

Most educational content is thorough and needs a certain time to be unfolded and explained to viewers. The more complex something gets, the harder it will be to abbreviate its ideas within 1-3 minutes. 😵‍💫

On TikTok, there are some ways to hold up the attention of viewers even past the critical 1 minute mark. On Youtube, your viewers are most likely to be even more attentive and focused than that. 🤩

On Instagram, however, being an image-based platform, most people rely on captions to get their points across. 📜 

One might think, you could easily snap a picture of a place you visited in one of your videos, post it on the "Gram" and add the same educational value in it's bio. Problem is: Most people will definitely not read such a "long" text. It is just a way bigger step, to take your time and read something, than it is to watch a short video. ✨

Sure, the picture above the caption might be beautiful, showing the sunset behind the Hollywood sign, people will like, comment under and share the post, but most of them will not get to witness the actual message behind it. 🙅‍♂️

They move to the next picture in their feeds!

As a brand that is built on education, resolving around many locations of desire and travel, the beauty of a picture is not where you want your consumer's focus. 🦋

Of course, you can also post videos and "Reels" on Instagram. Most of the time, one could seemingly just re-upload content from one's other platforms. Whereas this might give you a decent amount of clicks, tell me - can you actually be considered to be a multi-platform creator or considered to be providing any additional value for your fans? 🎯

From the consumer's perspective - why should one follow any of your other accounts, if he can expect the exact same content on every single one of them? 😯

Now, we arrived at the "Instagram Dilemma".

Either you stay true to your exact content, re-upload videos and bore already existing fans, hindering your multi-platform growth, or you run into the risk of "bastardization" of your message, shifting the focus on entertainment and beauty, rather than education. 🙃

Let's see how similar creators deal with this dilemma:

Let's start with "LebenUSA".

On German Youtube, his videos about his life in the United States are performing extraordinarily well. He often gets views in the six figures range and his videos are leaning heavily into education. 👨‍🏫

His Instagram though, is a hot mess. He chose to not only upload the least educational bits of his Youtube content but also to post memes and completely unrelated videos of him playing pool. His "Highlights" don't make sense and his hashtags are not thoroughly researched. 😕

A better example for converting your TikTok following into an Instagram fanbase, can be seen with Cynthia.nck. 😊

She is a German Influencer, moving to the United States with her smoothie business, going deep into cultural education and how this whole visa process and the journey of hers looked. 👍

On her Instagram, she deals with the "Dilemma", the same way PlayerPurpleUSA will try to handle it.

She reposts some of her best received TikToks as "Reels" while simultaneously posting pictures that accompany and form a symbiosis with her video content. The captions of the pictures also are somewhat educational but that's not their No. 1 goal! There's a perfect balance between education and the beauty of travel on her account. Lastly, she seems to be handling the hashtag situation way better, but could improve this substantially with some deeper research. ⭐

It goes without saying, that the "Instagram Dilemma" is apparent and cannot be fully eradicated. 🙃

Taking such a "Dilemma" into account, splicing it up, taking the best out of the two options available and mixing it together, seems to be the best approach out there. 🙏🏽

Let me know what you think! 💜

Is there a better way to deal with this type of situation? 💭

[playerpurpleusa]

Why am I doing this? 

"Gude", my name is Jason, Player Purple or just that "German dude talking about the U.S. on the Internet" and I welcome you to this freshly started Blog of mine.

Some of you might know me already from my TikTok channel bearing the same name. Whereas those clips are made for education and entertainment, this here is a place of reflection, giving insights into the inner workings of what it means to actually start and run a personal brand in mine or any other small niche.

Before we dive deeper into my thoughts and ideas though, I urge you to watch 2-3 of my short clips to get an understanding of what the channel actually represents. You don't necessarily need to understand any German to do this, but it will help you grasp the contents of this blog in a incomparably better way.

Just click here -> TikTok/PlayerPurpleUSA

Now that you know what I'm all about, and you had time to adjust to my weirdness, let's discuss the role of social media in this journey.

My dream was always to come to the United States and share my experience with others around me. First, I thought about sharing it only between me, my family, and friends but quickly came to the conclusion that this is not the way to go.

For my admiration of the States, I often felt ridiculed in Germany but there were always a handful people, that felt the same way as me. If I can help lift up one single person in this same exact situation as me, It is my belief, that I am doing the right thing and I should continue to do so indefinitely.

So First of all, I use my TikTok to entertain and to lift people up that have the same passions as I do.

Secondly, I want to build a great and trusting community around the topic so that us German U.S. lovers never feel alone anymore. That's also the reason why I always try to answer and respond to every single comment I get. I don't want to be a star, I want to be an approachable leader for my followers.

Thirdly, I use social media as a means to educating people and showing them a different perspective on certain topics. For me, the best entertainment you can possibly provide, always has to have a certain learning factor. Without what Germans call the "AHA-Moment", you might be entertained but most likely, you will derive no personal gain from the content you consumed. Don't get me wrong, I am by no means a professional educator, and I most certainly don't want to be, but to some degree I want to provide at least a bit of knowledge to my viewers, sprinkling it into every clip I create.

Lastly, As previously mentioned, I want to become THE AMERICAN GUY in Germany. Whereas there are bigger accounts than mine and most certainly very interesting individuals out there, creating similar content, they just don't seem to follow the same path I'm envisioning.

I want to bring American brands to Germany, like Ranch (yes...us Germans really have no Ranch at all), Buffalo Wild Wings, Wendy's or A&W Root Beer and Cream Soda. All other Influencers in my niche are creating great, entertaining videos but don't really partner up with other brands. The most I saw them doing, was working with small "Candy Mystery Box" suppliers and offering a discount code.

They also seem to not engage with their community that much, using their account rather as a place to only park their travel content. There is close to none educational value in their videos. They are showing things, hopping on every trend that comes up, but nothing more.

They did not work on a discord channel or chatroom for their fans and do nothing in terms of networking.

My biggest "competitor", "Malububeach" doesn't even have a real Instagram presence. "Marta Conti" is uploading absolutely irregularly and "Ciao EU, Hello USA" is also a one-platform channel, showing the experience of uniquely being Immigrants.

As you can see, no-one is doing what I am doing, no-one is trying to build something similar, and no-one is leveraging their social media in the correct ways.

I will do all of this, and document my journey and it's hurdles on this blog. Make sure to tag along if you see yourself deriving any value out of this type of content!

I'm looking forward to having a great time with you!

Thanks for reading! <3