This is a long form bit of content right here. To reassure you it’ll be worth your while this post will be taking a deep dive in to what it’s like to start a social media account in 2024 and will cover:
- Setting up accounts on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts
- Scheduling content on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts
- Which social media platforms get most views
- Which social media platforms got the most subscribers
I’ll be scoring each platform out of 5 for each bit to give a final total. I’ll then scientifically and officially be able to crown the best platform for setting up a new account – and answer the question “Is it hard to set up a new social media account in 2024?” But first
A bit of background
I’ve been working in social media for over 14 years now. As part of my work I get a lot of people asking if it’s a good idea to set up a new social media account. My go to answer is usually:
“Please don’t set up a new account. it’s hard work, needs a lot of time and attention and ultimately if it’s an add on to your day job it’ll not get the exposure you want and it’ll be a massive failure.”
I know what I’m talking about, I’m a professional. The accounts I manage have a strong engagement and great reach. To be blunt, I’m amazing. I smuggly send a similar response on on email, job done.
Now that’s one less account to worry about and that person is saved from depressingly low return on time investment.
But recently I’ve been thinking “is it really that hard to launch a successful brand new social media account in 2024?” Like, completly new, with no followers, no promotion and absolutely zero market awareness?
Then I took a two week holiday from work for some serious life admin (exciting reality of being over 40 with 2 kids) but my brain couldn’t turn off. It really wanted to know:
What is it like to start a new social media account in 2024?
So without the distraction of full time work, but a massive list of chores to avoid, I set myself a challenge. Find out what it’s really like to launch a new social media account on the buzz channels of 2024:
- TikTok
- Instagram Reels
- YouTube Shorts
To make the challenge extra hard, the accounts had to have:
- Absolutely no brand recognition – a complete fresh start
- Regular content posted – at least one post every day for 30 days
- No memes or trending content – just original hand made content day after day
- Zero cross promotion through existing accounts
And because I’m in my 40s and clearly going through some kind of mid-life crisis, I decided the accounts would focus on me learning how to skateboard and do an Ollie. Something I have tried do to on and off since 1997.
Welcome to the chat – Rate My Skate
The Rate My Skate logo – yes as well as make all the content I also designed a logo and animated it for the videos – when I go in, I go all in.
Those 30 days are now over. And I’ve got a lot of lessons learned. Most of them about setting up social accounts in 2024. But also some things about skateboarding in your 40s.
Were the accounts a success? Did I learn how to ollie? How many chores on my admin holiday did I actually complete? Read on and find out. Starting with getting the accounts started.
Setting up an account on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts
YouTube Shorts
Getting a new channel sorted on YouTube Shorts is pretty simple. All you need is a Google account, go to YouTube and then “Add an account”. Add you branding, some bio and descriptive info and away you go. Time to start uploading.
Nice and simple – 5/5
TikTok
I’m old school. I like doing things on a laptop rather than phone or tablet. TikTok’s website made me believe this was no problem. It even guided me through the whole account set up process. Did I want to use email or phone number? What’s my age (again)? Prove you’re not a robot by picking to objects the same. You know the drill.
Then I had to scan a QR code on my phone to finish the set up. Which then opened up TikTok. Which then asked me to set up a new account. Which then asked did I want to use email or phone number? What’s my age (again)? Prove you’re not a robot by picking to objects the same.
This was annoying to say the least but the account got there in the end – 3/5
I’m used to Meta’s arrogant disregard for user experience so wasn’t expecting huge things for this. But even I wasn’t prepared for how frustrating setting up a new Instagram account could be.
Going to instagram.com there’s a clear “sign up” option. So I clicked it and filled out the form. On submitting my info I got an error. So I tried again and was told the username was already used. So I tried logging in with the username to be told my account was deactivated for violating content policies (having never posted anything or even set up my profile picture this was impressive).
So I tried the set up again in a different browser with a variation on the username. The process repeated.
So I tried the set up again on my phone with a variation on the username. The process repeated.
So I tried the set up again on my iPad with a variation on the usernamd. The process repeated.
Then I got 4 emails saying Meta had noticed someone was trying to log in to my (new) instagram accounts and they didn’t think it was me.
Then I cried.
I finally managed to get an account set up on the 5th attempt by turning off wifi and using my phone’s 5G connection. The joy was in line with that of becoming a new father.
I did wonder if this was just something I’d struggled with now I’m getting old. But I had an email today from someone saying they had struggled with the exact same issue. So sort your shit out Zucks.
Overall, an absolute shambles from start to finish – 0/5
With the accounts all set up it was finally time to get scheduling content…
Scheduling content on TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels
YouTube Shorts
YouTube Shorts on desktop runs through the main YouTube interface. If you’ve ever uploaded a video to YouTube you won’t have a problem. Just upload a video that’s portrait and under 60 seconds and it gets shoved in to the “Shorts” feed. Uploading and scheduling content is theoretically really easy.
Apart from this was a new account. As an unknown account YouTube would not let me schedule more than 10 videos in a 24 hour period. Considering I’d batched up a load of content to help me get through the 30 days this was an inconvience.
However, it didn’t take long to fix. I just had to verify my identity by sending Google a short video of me moving my head 🤷
With my face now being used to train an AI model that will destroy the world, I was good to bulk upload some more sweet sweet content.
It’s worth noting during the scheduling process you are unable to add any additional “flare” to content like stickers, text or trending audio. It was just as I’d edited on my laptop.
Pretty easy process with a slight hiccup – 4/5
TikTok
It is possible to schedule your content on TikTok through their desktop interface. Which is great for convience. You can even add trending audio and do some basic edits.
You can upload in batches and set the time you want the posts to go out. Perfect for my need to post a video a day for 30 days.
The uploading was painless. The only limitation was you can only choose dates up to 7 days in the future. Not great when I had 10 already in the chamber to go.
But at least 7 days were scheduled with little effort – 4/5
Instagram also has a desktop interface you can use to schedule content. But if you want to schedule a Reel or multiple videos you’ve got to first access the Meta Business Suite.
Having managed many different pages and accounts through Meta Business Suite already, I thought this would be simple. But trying to do it with a brand new account was an absolute nightmare.
Once I finally managed to get in, avoid setting up a new Facebook page and avoid posting content to one of the other brands I manage, I found the tools pretty good.
You can upload just one Reel while being able to add text, stickers and trending audio. Great.
You can even bulk upload many many Reels, all while being able to add text, stickers and trending audio. Amazing.
You can even schedule these to go out any date in the future. Super win.
But this being Meta, these features were all just an illusion of usefulness. As in practice they were complete dog shit. After spending ages uploading things, adding descriptions and sorting the music, the upload would hang. Or it would upload but then not confirm anything and no videos would appear in the schedule.
I then went to the mobile app and found I didn’t even have the feature to schedule Reels. I have it on my personal Instagram but for some reason as a new account I couldn’t schedule content anywhere.
It just didn’t work. A complete failure – 0/5
Which social media platforms get the most views?
Now I had my accounts set up and content going out on a daily basis, how did they perform for views? To keep things as fair as possible I shared the same videos on each channel, and wherever possible used the same music clips. This is where it really gets interesting.
YouTube Shorts
Due to the scheduling limitations I first started sharing content raw, with no interactive features or music. And it did fine.
The videos were regularly getting 400-450 views with no subscribers or any other means of pushing them. Just the algorithm using the hashtags to find people to watch them. Which was nice.
Then one video got no views for no apparent reason. Then the next one got 650. Then the next one was back to the baseline 450. A little blip?
Then I discovered you could add interactive features if you add videos through the YouTube app (not YouTube Studio mind). This had no impact and that baseline continued. Until it stopped.
September 10th 2024 – the day I got zero views. And zero views continued. Nothing had changed. The style of content the same, the hashtags the same, the posting time the same. It just dropped off a cliff.
Then on the 18th of September I posted a clip and used Nirvana’s Something In The Way as the audio.
This opened the proverbial floodgates of views. They zoomed up to 1,000 overnight. And along with it, the content that had 0 views started to get seen. It was like Kurt himself had shone a light on my humble offerings to the content churn.
In the end, the month’s view stats looked like this:
YouTube Shorts Views – a hell of a rollercoaster
A wild ride with no descenable logic to how or why it worked that way. And it’s not just me:
Post by @gavin.wrenView on Threads
Total views for the 30 days – 12,497
TikTok
Although TikTok had scheduling features on desktop, I only scheduled the first post. It got an uninspiring 8 views:
@rate.my.skate Rate My Skate 1 – Day 1 of trying to nail an Ollie #skateboarding #skateboardingisfun #ollie
Not a great start. I then posted the second video direct in app for no reason in particular. Compared to day one this one soared with a massive 500ish views! Happy days, but time constraints meant it was back to scheduling content and views back to single digits:
I started to think TikTok was never going to win, and the For You Page would never see my content grace its hallowed screens. Until my conspiracy brain kicked in and thought:
What if scheduled content on TikTok gets penalised in the algorithm?
So I started posting directly in app again. And what do you know? It started to take off biggly:
TikTok Video Views – A hilly rollercoaster
There were a couple of duds that got nowhere but over all videos tended to get 400-600 views. No major blow up in the For You Page, but then I wasn’t chasing trending audio or capcut memes. Just using hashtags and descriptions to do the heavy lifting.
Total TikTok views for the 30 days – 16,000
Things hadn’t been going well with the Instagram account so expectations were low for the reach of the content. And Instagram did not disappoint.
The first video went out with barely a couple of views. As did the second. The third went out and had 200 views in 24 hours before I was brought back to earth with a streak of 0 views again. It was like Instagram was cursed to fail.
Then a week in, something clicked in to place. For some reason this video broke the 400 barrier:
Again, like TikTok, there was no difference in strategy. Same hashtags, same kind of content, similar duration. The algorithm just pushed it a little further.
And then a few days later I dropped this video and things really started to take a turn:
Over 500 views and some comments. Instagram was starting to do something. And then someone left an angry comment.
Craft insult levels were high
And then it really took off. More comments, more replies, more likes and more views. It’s currently sat at 16,000 views which I’d be very happy with if it wasn’t for this video:
Bearing in mind when it was uploaded I had about 20 followers, mostly from the anger comment video, this smashed through all expectations and did numbers.
It’s still going today, sitting at 88.8k views and is responsible for 550 of my account’s 654 followers. Each morning I wake up to at least another 100 engagements and a couple hundred views.
After dropping that video I saw all my other videos start getting more views. And the following videos I posted all tended to land around the 1,500 – 2,000 views as a standard.
Safe to say, Instagram wins on views – 117,556
Which social media platform gets the most followers?
Accounts all set up and content getting posted on the regular, you’d hope to start collecting followers. Otherwise what’s the point?
With the focus on portrait video content, which is famous for driving content discovery but very little follower growth, how did these new accounts perform?
YouTube Shorts
To put it bluntly, YouTube Shorts sucked.
Maybe because I didn’t say “like and subscribe” every 2 seconds on the videos. Or maybe because no one subscribes to a channel dedicated to posting Shorts.
Either way, by the end of 30 days the Rate My Skate YouTube Channel had just 17 subscribers.
TikTok
I’m a big believer that followers on TikTok are not the end goal if you’re going for mass reach. Getting on the For You Page does a lot more of the heavy lifting than cultivating followers.
Rate My Skate on TikTok did neither. No major For You Page success, no major follower growth. TikTok narrowly scraped past YouTube with a paltry 21 followers.
Followers on Instagram are important if you want your grid posts to be seen. But for Reels it’s a different story. As you can see from before, hitting the algorithm sweet spot can really get your content seen. But did it also help bring in followers to the main account?
Well if you’ve read this far, you’ll already know cause there’s a spoiler up in the content section.
Instagram blew all competitors out of the water. By the end of the 30 days the Rate My Skate Instagram account had a whopping 642 followers.
That’s more than my personal account that’s been active for about 10 years
The final scores
Time to add all the scores up and see which is better, YouTube Shorts, TikTok or Instagram Reels?
| Category | YouTube Shorts | TikTok | Instagram Reels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Set up | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| Scheduling | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Content performance | 12,497 | 16,000 | 117,556 |
| Follower growth | 17 | 21 | 642 |
| Total | 12,523 | 16,028 | 118,198 |
So that’s it, scientific proof that Instagram Reels is the best social media platform for setting up a new account in 2024. But getting that account set up is really really difficult.
Conclusion
What did we learn from all this? For one, if you’ve got this far, you enjoy really really long form content. Way to have an attention span. But other than that, I’m not sure exactly what has been proved?
If you’re setting up a skateboarding focused social media channel in 2024, there’s a chance Instagram Reels is going to do you well. If you want to set up a niche shoelace review channel, I’m not sure (although considering StickTok is a thing maybe that would work).
There are so many variables to take in to consideration there is no definitive answer. If one of my videos had blown up on TikTok’s For Your Page out of some random occurance, there could have been very different results.
The only thing for sure, and I said it at the start, is it is hard work to set up a new social media account, regardless of content theme.
What you need to set up a social media account in 2024
To properly run an account you need to dedicate time and effort to:
- producing enough content to keep posting regular
- respond to comments
- engage with the wider communities
- shout far and wide about your new presence
Throw all that on top of a full time job and life’s other demands and it. Is. Exhausting.
Influencers are called many things, and people seem to think it’s an easy way to make money. But if you’re working at the coal face of social content and trying to build up a presence, it’s really hard work for very little reward.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, kudos to the content creators and hang in there social media teams of one, it’s incredibly hard work and you don’t get enough praise for what you’re doing.
Even if your thing is just eating tonnes of noodles, getting really big then secretly losing all the weight over two years (google it).
Postscript
For those that hang around for the post credit section this bits for you. Did I actually complete the goal I set out to in the beginning? To learn how to skateboard and do an ollie?
Well dear reader – you tell me.
@rate.my.skate Rate my skate – Don’t think my old man knees are going to get much higher – think it’s time to start these rolling? #skateboarding #skateboardingisfun #skateboard #ollie #tiktokpoll
