Field notes
Playbooks, teardowns and the occasional argument — everything we have learned helping creators grow across every major platform.
A giveaway that attracts the wrong audience costs more than it gains. Here are the rules to publish, the entry mechanics that work, and how to draw a defensible winner.
Instagram fonts are Unicode substitutions, not fonts. They work in bios and captions, and they are unreadable to screen readers. Here is how to use them anyway.
An Instagram Reels cover is shown at 9:16 in the Reel and cropped square in your grid. One image has to survive both. Here is how to position it.
Instagram carousel size is 1080x1350 per slide, and every slide must share the first one's ratio. Here is how to split one wide image so the seams disappear.
Extract a brand color palette from an image you already have, then turn five hex codes into a system you can apply consistently.
Every platform recompresses your upload. Compressing first, correctly, is how you control the result instead of letting their algorithm decide.
There is no public monetization badge. Here is what a channel's public page does reveal, what it cannot, and how to read the signals honestly.
Your YouTube channel description is truncated early and appears in search results. Here is what belongs in the visible part, and what belongs below it.
YouTube has no comment search. Here are three ways to search YouTube comments anyway, and what each one can and cannot reach.
How to cite a YouTube video in APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard: which fields you need, where to find them, and how to handle a channel with no real name.
A YouTube subscribe link opens the subscribe confirmation instead of the channel page. Here is the format, where to use it, and the rule about not begging.
Every YouTube channel and playlist publishes an RSS feed. Here is the URL format, how to find the ID it needs, and what the feed does and does not include.