this was originally published on octobre 21, 2025 as a video on my youtube channel. see video below.
when my debut single, Monica, came out early june, i had drafted a really detailed promotion plan.
for like three weeks straight, i worked on that release. i was filming videos and editing and writing captions and scheduling. i had a big plan: two months of daily posting. one weekly video on youtube and a daily post on tiktok and instagram.
i was completely obsessed with this plan.
i’m kind of ashamed to admit it, but i was consumed. i was thinking about it all. the. time.
i probably i would have burnt out, but thankfully, summer rolled around and our yearly vacation with my family arrived, and i had to stop. i couldn’t post anymore because we were somewhere where the internet wasn’t great, and i could not justify using my family’s data plan to upload stupid videos to tiktok.
when i stopped, first i panicked. “the plan! oh my god, the plan!”
but after a couple days, i started to relax and i felt so much calmer.
did almost burning out it pay off? well, no.
i posted for two months daily and honestly the results were not great:
on tiktok, which is where it worked the best, i had between 300 and 800 views, but no comments and very few likes. (300 views is basically the minimum that you get on tiktok, especially when you’re new, so that’s not a great number.)
on instagram: total crickets. nothing. i mean, most of my posts had zero views, zero comments, zero engagement. nothing.
on youtube, i had an average of 50 views per video. my best video was my music video for Monica, my debut single, which had 179 views.
and on spotify, the results weren’t awesome either. i had 75 streams from 31 different people, which isn’t bad because, you know, 31 people... if i put them together in a room, that’s a lot of people.
but i couldn’t help being disappointed.
i knew that i was going to start small, obviously, but i really thought that things were going to pick up a lot quicker.
in hindsight, obviously, they weren’t because when you look at established artists, they’ve been working on their project for years. so, you know, i wasn’t going to magically have an overnight success.
i think my biggest disappointment was on youtube because i really thought that this was going to work. i had done my research and there aren’t many videos like this on this topic in this niche.
i thought my videos were pretty good so i thought it was going to pick up a lot quicker and it didn’t. maybe it’s because my old videos aren’t that good: the color is off and i look kind of awkward.
(the other possibility is that if nobody is making these kinds of videos, it’s because nobody is interested in watching them. that’s another possibility…)
so, what was wrong with what i was doing?
i thought about it a lot and i figured out some leads as to what i was doing wrong so that i can correct it.
first of all, i let social media drive me totally. i wasn’t in control at all. i used to be scared of criticism but if somebody were to comment, you know, “i hate those drums” or “you look fat” or whatever, at least i would know why people don’t like me. but this no engagement at all, this total absence of feedback, is way worse.
i get in my head so bad.
i’m like, “maybe it’s my music, maybe it’s me, my personality, maybe it’s my face, maybe it’s my hair color.”
also, this takes so much time.
i mean, at one point i was spending two hours a day, seven days a week, filming videos and editing them and posting them and then checking to see if i got views, and then re-checking and re-checking and re-checking. it was taking me so much time. one of my videos on youtube took me 15 hours to edit and i got 15 views, which is ridiculous.
that’s just not healthy.
another thing that i was doing wrong is that i was comparing apples to oranges. i know we’ve all heard the saying “comparison is the thief of joy.” and also, i’ve heard “don’t compare your day one to other people’s day a thousand.”
sure. on paper, it sounds great.
but did i do it? no.
i’m always comparing myself to everybody, especially the ones that i see on tiktok or on instagram. the ones i see are the ones that are having success, so i’m comparing my failure to their success.
and of course i’m not measuring up. it’s not healthy.
third thing that i was doing wrong is not being consistent.
i have adhd, so it wasn’t a surprise for me that i have a lot of trouble staying focused when i’m bored or when there’s no engagement, when there’s no reward. i need a lot of dopamine.
so, when i feel like i’m talking to the void, it just feels pointless and i don’t want to do it. my brain says, “no, we’re not doing that.”
i was consistent for two months, but it was really stressful. and when i fell off the wagon, it was so hard to get back on. even now i’m not being as consistent as i should be.
i’m going to work on this. this is not something new. i have to navigate this consistency problem all over my life. so, i know how to do it. i’m going to put routines in place and it will be fine.
what am i going to change going forward?
first of all, big picture: i’m obviously going all in still on this music project. i’m not giving anything up. but this time around, my guiding light is going to be “fun and useful.” if it’s not fun, if it’s not useful, i’m just not doing it. that’s it.
the first thing i’ve done already is start two new tiktok channels. one where i post acoustic videos that i make with my husband and another where i “rockify” outfits. so, i basically take a boring or blah outfit and i make it stage-ready or rock-ready.
i realize that it sounds kind of crazy to say that i’m going to counter the fact that i’m spending too much time on social media by making two more social media accounts, but bear with me. let me explain.
i need fun. if i want to stay consistent, i have to make things fun and easy.
these are really creative outlets, so it’s going to be fun.
also, it’s easy because these are things that i already do for my music project. i have to practice singing, i have to practice playing with sebastien, i have to work on my personal style and my artist brand. so i’m going to be doing this and making content at the same time. i think this should work. at least i’m going to try this.
my main tiktok account is staying, but i’m going to shift it more towards a kind of an “advice, inspiration, older artist journey” type account. i’m still trying to find the right tone because, i mean, who am i to give advice, right? but then again, i think i can share my experience with people in a way that’s honest and positive. i just have to find the sweet spot where it feels natural and not like an imposter.
what i won’t be doing is copying trends. that’s what i’ve been doing in the past. i didn’t know how to do tiktok or instagram, so i just copied what other artists were doing. it just feels fake and i feel stupid doing it. it doesn’t feel authentic. i don’t like it. so, i’m going to be trying to develop a voice that’s more authentic. i want to be more me, but in an interesting way, i hope.
number four, on youtube, i’m going to keep vlogging, but maybe a little less often. and more importantly, i am not going to do any editing.
you need a little bit of editing, obviously, but i’m not spending 15 hours on a video anymore. max one or two hours per video. i can’t be spending all that time for videos that very few people watch. (even though the people that do watch are amazing, i really appreciate you!! really, thank you so much for being here!)
number five is that i’m going to try to find some community
maybe on forums or on facebook groups or on reddit. i’ve already started to find some interesting subreddits that i can interact with, because i need the feedback. i need connection. i think this is going to help my mental health, at least.
and finally, this time i’m going to pitch my new single to the spotify curators.
(last time i didn’t have my spotify for artists page set up, so i couldn’t do it)
so maybe i’ll get on a spotify playlist. and also as soon as it comes out, i’ll be pitching it to private playlists. i didn’t do that last time. it seemed like a whole big can of worms on top of everything else i was doing, so i chose not to do it. but this time i’m going to put a little more energy into that.
we’ll see how all this goes. lots of territory to explore!