After sharing how our page grew from 143 to 20,000 followers, we sat down to compare notes.
Reaching 20,000 followers on Facebook gave us a good excuse to ask what actually helped us get here.
Some lessons involved editing and timing. One involved accepting that a few seconds of footage can require several hours of waiting.
We’re still learning. We haven’t cracked monetization, and we’re still figuring out how to make our food and travel content stand out. But these are the lessons we’re taking into our next chapter.
1. Reels have been our strongest way to reach new people
Across the channels we use, short videos—especially on Facebook—have been our clearest route to audience growth.
That doesn’t mean every reel performs well. It does mean video has been worth the effort when we want people to discover our page.
We’ve also become more selective about what stays in the edit. A clip might matter to us because we were there, but a stranger scrolling past needs a reason to keep watching.
2. The pace inside the video matters
Making a reel shorter is only part of the job. A long pan across a room or dish can lose momentum, while a quicker sequence—a glimpse of the restaurant, a dish, another dish, then a detail of the surroundings—can hold attention better.
Sometimes those shots last only a second. We’re treating that as something to test, not a strict rule. The useful question is whether each shot gives viewers something new to see.
Apparently, our lovingly filmed five-second pan isn’t always as gripping to everyone else as it is to us.
Our Zou Zou’s reel is an example of the food-video pacing we’re experimenting with: giving viewers a taste of the meal and the setting in a short edit.
3. Familiar faces bring attention. Loyalty takes more work.
Our celebrity and sports coverage has driven many of our views and followers. A video featuring LeBron James already has an audience of people who want to see him. Events and timely moments have helped too, including footage of a New York building evacuation that we discussed as an example of how current events can attract attention.
But when someone follows after seeing a favorite athlete, how interested are they in our page?
We don’t have a neat answer yet. There’s a difference between enjoying one familiar face in a video and wanting to follow the people behind the camera. We want to give people more reasons to return, including our own experiences, observations, and perspective.
A small pregame moment can interest fans as much as the game itself. This reel shows the kind of access our sports audience comes to us for.
4. Short clips can require a lot of waiting
Covering athletes, celebrities, premieres, and sporting events takes effort before editing begins. Sometimes we stand around for two or three hours. Sometimes the person appears; sometimes they don’t.
The finished reel rarely shows that part.
For anyone considering something similar, this has been one of our clearest lessons: be prepared to put in the time without knowing whether you’ll get the moment you came for.
Comfortable shoes deserve more credit in content creation.
This is the kind of brief moment we hope to capture when we arrive early and stay ready. The finished clip shows the encounter; the waiting usually stays off camera.
5. Fresh content benefits from moving quickly
Publishing while something is still fresh can give it an advantage. That means moving efficiently from capturing the moment to choosing the clip, editing it, and preparing the post.
The longer that takes, the further we get from the moment people are discussing. For us, the key is keeping the process manageable enough to publish promptly.
6. Posting is the start of the conversation
The period immediately after posting matters, particularly the first hour. Comments and reshares have been useful early signals, and we try to respond quickly instead of posting and disappearing.
We can’t claim to know exactly how a platform weighs each interaction. We do know that being present when people start responding has become part of our routine.
It also makes the page more enjoyable to run. There are real people watching, asking questions, and sharing their own stories.
Our post about the building emergency in Midtown prompted hundreds of comments. It reminded us that people also come together around what’s happening in their neighborhood.
7. Reach communities that already care
On Facebook, tagging relevant larger accounts—including NBA Philippines and One Sports Philippines—has helped expand the reach of our sports clips.
Our audience can extend well beyond New York, and connecting content with communities that already care about the subject makes sense. The word relevant matters: we’re thinking about who would actually enjoy the moment we captured.
We’d like to apply the same idea to our food and travel content.
8. Consistency means making room for quiet posts
We’ve been posting almost every day, sometimes three times a day. Some posts do well; others don’t.
That’s part of the experience. If every quiet post made us stop, we wouldn’t have much of a page.
Our lesson is to keep showing up while paying attention to what people respond to. Our posting frequency isn’t a prescription for everyone, but regular posting has given us more chances to learn.
We’re continuing to make room for travel alongside sports. Our Hobbiton reel is part of that mix—and a reminder that we still want to share the places we enjoy visiting.
9. AI helps us move from idea to published post
We use ChatGPT to scan for upcoming events, including who is appearing live and who is coming to New York. We also use AI to prepare posts for different channels, which has made the writing process much quicker.
There’s still plenty for us to do: decide what’s worth attending, turn up, wait, capture the footage, and choose what to share. AI helps with the planning and writing around that work.
It has yet to offer to stand in a queue for us.
10. Affiliate clicks don’t automatically become income
This was one of the more humbling parts of our discussion. When we recorded it, we’d had clicks on our affiliate links but no purchases in the previous three months.
Setting up an affiliate account can feel like progress. It is a step, but adding links alone doesn’t mean people will buy.
We still need to work out how to make that side of the page useful and effective. Reaching 20,000 followers hasn’t magically solved it.
What we want to figure out next
Our next goal is 50,000 followers over the next three months. It’s a goal, and we’ll see how we go.
We plan to keep covering sports and celebrity moments because they’ve worked for us, while continuing to share food and travel. The challenge is finding a clearer angle for those stories. There’s already a lot of food and travel content out there, and we’re still working out what makes ours worth returning to.
For now, we’re happy to have reached this point—and grateful that 20,000 people have found a reason to follow along.
If you’re building a page too, what has surprised you most: what gets views, what builds a community, or what actually earns money? Get in touch—we’d love to hear what you’re learning.
