The presence of different social media platforms is becoming quite confusing and overwhelming, especially for content creators like me. That is, if you are present in all but are posting the same content, images, or videos across all platforms, then it defeats the purpose of not trying to differentiate its audience and the content that you are putting up there.
And while answering some questions from my friends and followers on how I manage my social media accounts, I thought of doing a TELL-ALL, NO-HOLDS-BARRED write-up in lieu of the usual seminars that I am organizing prior to the pandemic. Since I couldn’t have a face-to-face session for now, I thought this one could be a helpful reference. Hopefully this will do – though I don’t claim to be professional and super successful – but if you feel that you can get any idea or inspiration from it, then feel free to do so.
If you want to checkout our daily activities, head over to our Instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/bestlifeqatar/) since we always post our invitations and we see to it that we have a something new to offer every day (on the feed or at least on the Story) to maintain our interaction with our followers. We also try to post as many as we can to maximize the exposure of our clients/brands which was the very purpose for our invitations. Also, we try to create informative captions to remain always helpful to our audience. We try to take as much photos during events so that on days that we don’t have invitations, we could post previous invites – which usually are appreciated by the brands. So we don’t pour it out one time but save some “during drought seasons”.
Instagram was originally a photo sharing social networking site which was my escape from toxic Facebook posts (and rants) during the 2016 Election in the Philippines (and up until recently). There were no room for malicious postings and political discussions then since it was still known to a place for well curated photos and anything “instagramable” during that time.
So it was my place for posting food photos and beautiful scenery with my family. And since it became my alternative to Facebook, it also became my online photo album for our daily activities. I was also privileged to be able to reach out non-Filipino audience in Qatar.
EARNINGS FROM INSTAGRAM: Aside from enjoying some perks like getting invites to events, restaurants and hotels, there are also instances where we also participate on special projects with restaurants, big malls, and other well-known apparel brands (other social influencers are paid per posting or per project and the rates also vary depends on the client’s budget and the influencer’s reach and popularity).
FREQUENCY OF POST: DAILY
FACEBOOK PAGE
Since most of our target audience (FILIPINOS) are still on Facebook, we created an extension of our Instagram postings thru our Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/bestlifeqatar). Luckily, it became possible to link our IG posts to FB thru cross-sharing, so our FB audience who doesn’t have IG accounts then were still able to view our IG posts.
Facebook Pages are intended for businesses, brands, creators, and organizations which can be used to build a community, find new customers, and increase sales. So basically, what we tried to put on our Facebook Page aside from being an extension of our IG postings are posts being shared from our blog site. In this case, we will still be consistent in showing what our brand as a family blogger is all about – which is totally separate and different from our personal Facebook account.
It also gives me pride and joy to share posts about Filipino accomplishments, business successes, and victories. The page is like a celebration for the community.
The cross sharing feature also minimizes our work as we don’t need to create a different set of postings for our Facebook page (with one post, we were able to reach two platform audiences).
EARNINGS FROM FACEBOOK PAGE : Maintaining a page is an advantage and additional mileage for our clients given the additional exposure and audience.
FREQUENCY OF POST: DAILY (as shared thru Instagram)
BLOG SITE
Our blog site (https://bestlifeqatar.com/) is the most comprehensive place for all my content and social media posts (best viewed on a desktop for its proper placements). While we have all our written posts on one side, the side widgets contains all our social media updates as well as a few product placements.
Our blog site contains our longer written contents incorporating lots of photos and videos to make it more interesting and to be less monotonous and wordy. In my desire to be detailed and informative yet trying to avoid lengthy posts, I use hyperlinks which are clickable links to redirect the readers to my source rather than reposting it’s content. If I feel that the subject will be too long or too vague, I would make it a series and create separate parts for my readers to follow.
Being a family man myself, most of the topics that I tackle in the blog covers anything that is related to family life in Qatar. The main distinction that I want to maintain in our blog is that it always has our own personal take and experiences with it. We rarely feature something that we have no actual experience except for special features or corporate content that are categorized as PRESS RELEASES.
My favorite categories are MY MUSINGS (which contains my views and opinions about a specific matter like politics, faith, or family), and KDRAMA AND MORE (which contains my reviews and latest Korean drama series recommendations and the lessons that may have relevance to current events and to life, in general).
I also make sure to read a lot aside from spending so much time watching video contents on Youtube because in this way I get to learn new techniques and approach in presenting a topic, gain new insights and information. A content creator is someone who’s passionate not only to create his own content but also loves to see and appreciate other’s works (so I also find time to engage with fellow creators online).
EARNINGS FROM THE BLOG: There are several ways how we also monetize on the blog. The biggest part is coming from sponsorship (advertisement) and special collaboration with brands, and the rest are coming from affiliate marketing (very minimal referral fees or commissions from featured products/brands like WordPress, Airbnb, Shopee, etc.), and from google ads (based on the number of ad clicks on the blog). The income from the blog goes directly to our Paypal account which also pays for all our annual subscriptions for the blog as well as for our editing software.
FREQUENCY OF POST: ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK
YOUTUBE
This is our collection of VIDEO-LOGS (V-LOGS) mostly featuring restaurants and hotels in Qatar. Our vlogs (https://www.youtube.com/c/BESTLIFEQATAR) instantly became our online diary to chronicle Jasmine’s growing years in Qatar. Being away from our families in the Philippines, these videos (although it takes time and effort to edit) are our way to update them about our life here in Qatar. It was uploaded especially for Jasmine’s grandma whom we love to show her grand daughter’s weekly activities in Qatar – usually released during weekends (Friday/Saturday).
We had an attempt to try short documentaries but due to time constraints and many other obligations at work (in Qatar) and business (in the Philippines), we put it on hold indefinitely. And while it is true that editing takes a lot of time and effort, I always make it a point not to be consistent, honest, and sincere in putting up a vlog, whether a lot of people will watch it or not.
EARNINGS FROM THE BLOG: We started out well in our Youtube Channel but when we also opened our online business in the Philippines, time and focus became so scarce that we didn’t have time for editing anymore (still a lot of old unedited videos left but we felt it was too outdated to be uploaded anymore).
It is written in the Terms and Conditions of Youtube Partner Program that if a channel is inactive and has not uploaded or posted anything for 6 months or more, YouTube reserves the right to remove its monetization. And right now, it will difficult to start all over to reach the 4,000 watch hours to be eligible again unless your vlogs are super popular (with views of more than 10k to 100k at least to earn decent amount).
FREQUENCY OF POST: Lately, we tried to resume uploading new videos especially during the visit of KUYA JOHANN IN QATAR and we are hoping to keep the momentum with 2-3 times uploads per month.
Lately, we found new life and interest for our Twitter account (https://twitter.com/bestlifeqatar) that aside from being an extension of our blog posts (auto repost), it became my avenue for some personal interests like KPOP (Korean pop music/bands) and PPOP (Pinoy pop music/bands). Currently, I am following BTS (Korean band/group) and SB19 (Filipino band/group) for their amazing talent and inspiring success stories. And you could clearly see there that what I usually retweet are about their accomplishments, new interests, and related news.
And with the recent concert of SB19 in Manila, fans are very supportive of my post about the group and they are massively engaging into it and appreciating our support as well. We haven’t felt this much love in any other platforms and we are really overwhelmed.
And while trying to limit this “personal interests” within Twitter, it is where i share, repost, and interact for the topics that I really love which also makes me feel inspired to be more creative.
NO INCOME and NO LIMIT ON REPOSTING here as long as I feel I have secured the information that I need especially in the area of music and entertainment. RETWEETED POSTS means it has information that is valuable for me which I also allow my audience to see.
TIKTOK
This platform is something new to me – https://www.tiktok.com/@bestlifeqatar (though its been here for quite some time) – like I still have to learn the ropes. I felt it’s not my cup of tea, too. Though I like video editing, but I could see that the popular content here are more of dance as compared to reels that are more subtle and aesthetics (the vibe is different… it’s fun though).
However, I was told that TIKTOK MARKETING is poised to become something big in the very near future, and it is what got my curiosity. I am planning to learn more about its marketing potentials since the volume of engagement in this platform is so much that business are seriously taking advantage of it.
On Handling My Social Media Accounts
It should just become an extension and reflection of our offline life, online. It’s difficult to live a different life that’s far from what we are showing on social media. Of course, there are limits to what we can show and say (only those that are informative, inspiring and entertaining – these are my ultimate guide in posting)!
Everything boils down to the purpose on why you do the things you are doing. If it’s about income, there’s nothing wrong about it. But you need a product (content) that is worth the time of your audience – and quality that’s at par with the client’s requirement.
We may not be as big as others because we not a news organization or we don’t have team to do photography, videography, and to write content. We only have us, and we are happy about it… we are happy for what we are right now… a simple family who shares our food discoveries, new adventures, and life lessons. We may not be perfect, our grammars aren’t always correct too, hehehe… But kidding aside, we would love BEST LIFE QATAR to be always remembered as a source of information, inspiration, and (at times) entertainment by the community.
We hope to inspire people to do what they love to do (and when that happens, you’ll have so much unexpected blessings – like getting an all-expense paid business trip, over night hotel stays, and endless buffet around the city). We also would like to give-back to the community by using our platform to help under privilege students in the Philippines through our partnership with Real Life Foundation (coming from the sales of our merch – tote bags labeled as BAG OF HOPE).
We also want to inspire the entrepreneurs in the community through our Readers Choice Awards and pushing for Filipino identity in Qatar market. And lastly, being able to help families with recommendations for a good place to eat or to have for their simple celebrations, even guide our readers about visa concerns and recommend helpful links – are but some of our joys and fulfillment while doing this blog. Those simple thank you’s and appreciations especially when we are being tagged on their posts are heartfelt… and makes us feel that we’ve done our purpose well.
With all these, we bring back the glory to GOD, being reminded of these words from the bible: “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven“.
If you have other questions, please feel free to comment on this blog and I will be glad to answer to each one (please no private messages so we can share the replies with others). THANK YOU VERY MUCH BLQ-adas!
