If publishing content is part of your daily routine, you’ve probably felt frustrated at some point because you weren’t getting results, didn’t know how to capture your audience’s attention, or struggled to create engaging content. This is a common challenge for many, and you’re not alone!
We could give you a magic formula, or we could tell you the truth: there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer, but you can find your own path! How? We asked Veronica Tati, a bookseller who reinvented her career thanks to Instagram by using creativity and a lot of experimentation!
What you’ll learn:
- The importance of experimentation
- Overcoming common challenges with creativity and innovation
- Practical strategies for keeping your audience engaged
- Using analytics tools to optimize your social media presence
Who is Veronica Tati?
Veronica Tati is an excellent example of how to reinvent your career and overcome the challenges of content creation. She holds a degree in foreign languages and literature and is passionate about books. She started her career as a bookseller and later created the Instagram account @nicabooks, where she shares her work by creating engaging content. Her constant experimentation and creativity have helped her build a strong community and collaborate with major publishing houses.
The challenges
One of the biggest difficulties Veronica faced was finding her own way to consistently create engaging and original content. Coming up with fresh ideas for a niche audience like booksellers wasn’t easy, and it often led to fluctuations in her engagement rate and follower growth. The pressure to maintain high-quality content while expanding her online presence tested her creativity and motivation.
Capturing attention in a content-saturated environment meant figuring out how to stand out and keep her followers interested. Like many of us, Veronica experienced the frustration of not seeing immediate results.
Balancing her work in the bookstore with the growing demand for online consulting was another hurdle. This dual responsibility led to periods of stress and burnout, making it difficult to maintain the quality and frequency of her posts. Eventually, she made the bold decision to focus entirely on her online work and consulting, a choice that required courage and determination.
Veronica’s solutions
Despite these challenges, Veronica managed to build a strong community. The key was authenticity. She experimented with various formats and content until she found what resonated with her audience, demonstrating the importance of creating engaging content.
She didn’t rely on complex strategies: at first, she thought that being professional meant producing a lot of highly polished content (from her outfits to the aesthetic reels). However, over time and through trial and error, she discovered that the most important thing of all is authenticity. Veronica tested many approaches and tactics that turned out to be ineffective, until she realized that the best approach was to try out different formats and content until she found what worked for her community and then replicate them.
Here’s what she discovered:
Interactive content: Veronica used Reels to boost interactions with her community. She invited her followers to “pretend to be booksellers” by commenting on their favorite book and recommending a book to others based on that. This format significantly increased engagement, reigniting interest in her profile. By asking followers to participate actively, she sparked conversation and strengthened the sense of community, leading to higher engagement and growth.
Regular Q&A sessions: Hosting weekly question-and-answer sessions helped Veronica better understand her audience’s needs. Every Tuesday, she opens a question box in her Instagram stories, which not only generates ideas for new content but also strengthens her bond with her audience. The followers’ questions provide inspiration for new posts, keeping interest and engagement high.
Using analytics tools: Tools like Not Just Analytics have helped Veronica monitor her performance and adapt her strategies. She uses these tools to track her engagement rate and her profile’s growth charts. These insights allow her to test different formats and find what works best at any given moment, ensuring that her approach remains effective and targeted.
The next challenge
While Veronica’s Instagram community is more curated and supportive, TikTok has proven to be a tougher environment, with more negative comments. Learning to handle criticism and not let it get her down was an important process for Veronica, challenging her resilience and requiring extra effort not to feel discouraged.
The strategies she applied on Instagram can also be applied to TikTok: experimenting with different content and finding what works. This strategy isn’t exclusive to the book sector; it can and should be applied to any project aiming to improve its social media presence by creating engaging content. Continuous experimentation, regular engagement with followers, and data-driven decisions are universal tactics that lead to results.
Our Advice
In our conversation with Veronica, it became clear that finding new content ideas isn’t always easy. Our advice is not to be afraid to repeat concepts. Repeating concepts, while experimenting with different ways of expressing them, is essential. Don’t assume that everyone who follows you sees all your content or always remembers what you say. Often, the message gets lost, and repetition helps reinforce it. It’s also important to consider that new followers may not have seen the concepts expressed previously. Repetition is beneficial, especially if done in different formats to keep things interesting.
Veronica collaborates with publishing houses and shares her Media Kit. Our advice is to use the new Not Just Analytics feature, which allows you to have an always-up-to-date Media Kit with your profile data. This tool will help you present precise information, truthful data, and further increase your collaborations.
Conclusion
If you’re feeling frustrated when creating content for your profiles, remember that continuous experimentation and innovation can make a difference. As you’ve read in this article, Veronica Tati overcame these challenges by diversifying her formats, using interactive content, and maintaining a close connection with her audience through regular Q&A sessions. By using analytics tools, she adapted her strategies to continually improve and create increasingly engaging content.
You can draw inspiration from her experience and apply these strategies to enhance your content and build an active, loyal community. Even in tough, saturated niches, a good dose of creativity and experimentation can make all the difference. Veronica has shown that with the right mindset and a targeted strategy, any niche can become fertile ground for growth, as long as you maintain an authentic relationship with your community and experiment with new approaches that resonate with your audience.