Field notes
Playbooks, teardowns and the occasional argument — everything we have learned helping creators grow across every major platform.
TikTok publishes two documents. One says what gets removed; the other says what is allowed to stay and will not be recommended, and the second one is longer.
Instagram publishes two separate rulebooks. One decides whether a post stays up; the other decides whether anyone who does not follow you ever sees it, and it never sends a notification.
This is the one hashtag category that is a matter of published policy rather than rumour. Every network with an inauthentic-engagement rule covers these tags by name.
A universal link opens the app when it is installed and the website when it is not. A scheme URI opens the app or does nothing at all — silently.
Some of these identify a person, not a campaign. igshid names the account that shared, mc_eid names the subscriber — and YouTube's t must never be stripped.
Most creator tool lists are affiliate pages. This one is organised by the job, names what each tool is for, and says where a free tool is genuinely enough.
There is no universal best time to post. Here is how to find yours from your own analytics, and what to do when the audience spans four time zones.
An unverifiable draw looks identical to a fixed one. Here is how to run a giveaway winner picker that anyone can reproduce and check.
A QR code that fails to scan is worse than no QR code. Here is the size, contrast and error correction that make one work on a screen or in print.
Checking username availability one platform at a time is how people end up with four different handles. Here is how to check everywhere and choose one you can keep.
Most good TikTok username ideas are taken. Here is how to generate ones that are not, what makes a handle work when said aloud, and how to check availability.
TikTok growth is decided in the first two seconds and confirmed by completion. Here is what the ranking system actually rewards and how to work with it.