How to Grow Social Media from Zero: Lessons from a TV News Social Media Editor-in-Chief

When starting on overseas social media, the most common problem for beginners is that, despite working hard for a long time, the account still won't get going, and they don't know where the problem lies. To clarify this, we recently spoke with a long-term client of SocialEcho, the editor-in-chief of the new media department of a TV station.

The other party is not a large team, nor does it employ the strategy of spending a large budget to buy traffic. Instead, it is a team of 6-7 people who, with a relatively restrained but efficient process, have managed to get the rhythm of multiple overseas platforms running smoothly after 2-3 months of preparation and exploration. They can now update about 100 posts per day on average, and the exposure is gradually stabilizing, accumulating 600,000 exposures in half a month.

Customer Data Report (Authorized)

This article will revolve around their practical review, explaining clearly how overseas social media beginners can successfully launch their accounts. You'll see a more realistic approach, including how to build a workflow, streamline the posting schedule, and use data to determine if the direction is correct quickly.

If the release schedule is disrupted, the cold start will stall.

Workflow centralization: but a single exit point cannot withstand high-frequency releases.

The team's workflow is typical: the team is divided into groups based on content direction, with each person responsible for collecting, screening, and producing their own content; finally, all materials and drafts are compiled and submitted to the editor-in-chief for final review and multi-platform release.

The benefits of this approach are obvious: it ensures a more consistent external messaging, a more unified pace, and makes post-mortem analysis easier—you only need to focus on one point of contact to know what the whole team posted today, on which platforms, and whether any key moments were missed.

But here's the problem: as the volume of content increases, all the pressure will be concentrated on the publishing process. The harder the team works to produce, the easier it is for this "gateway" to become overflowing.

The time window is very short: 24-hour streaming meets 4-hour release.

Their content focuses more on news and trending topics, making them highly sensitive to timeliness. The editor-in-chief mentioned a key observation: the window for organic streaming is very short, basically... 24 hours. You can think of it as a "shelf life"—the closer the content is to the event itself, the easier it is to get initial exposure; the later it is posted, the easier it is to be buried.

This is especially important for beginners: don't just focus on "I've finished writing my content," you also need to focus on "when to publish it." On overseas platforms, often it's not that your writing is bad, but that you've missed the best moment for the system to see it.

The most typical example was when they were initially expanding across multiple platforms and had to post 16 pieces of content at a time, which took four hours just to publish. Four hours isn't just about "hard work"; it directly squeezes out the prime window: every minute you spend switching accounts, uploading materials, and changing formats in the backend consumes the time that the content should be used to be seen by the system. After posting and looking back, the trending topic may have already passed, and even the best content will struggle to achieve the desired initial exposure.

If you're in the process of a cold start, you've probably experienced a similar scenario: content piled up on your desktop, a bunch of windows open in the platform's backend, a flurry of frantic operations, and finally, after posting, you find that the trending topic has already passed.

They summarized the core contradiction of this stage very simply: the cold start is not "the inability to create content," but rather "the inability to establish a rhythm." Without establishing a rhythm, growth is out of the question.

Using "systematic actions" to combat time loss

Bulk distribution: First, "reclaim" the release time.

The team's real turning point came with the "distribution method": shifting from manual, repetitive work to a more standardized system of distribution.

SocialEcho consolidates multi-platform distribution into a single entry point. The process is smooth: first, select the platforms and accounts to publish to, then upload all the day's images/videos at once; next, adapt key fields like titles and body text for each platform (e.g., some platforms require shorter text, others need additional information); after previewing and confirming everything is correct, you can either publish directly to grab the window of opportunity or schedule it to maintain a consistent pace. This eliminates the need for repeatedly switching accounts and uploading repeatedly, allowing content to enter the system faster and stabilizing the cold start process.

AI intervention: Used in "basic processes", directly saving 1-2 people.

They've placed AI in the most suitable position: handling repetitive, standardized, and time-consuming basic processes. For example, in organizing and publishing English news, users first select their English news account on SocialEcho, set the translation language, and specify which platforms/accounts the translated content should be distributed to. Once the rules are set, the AI automatically monitors updates, performs basic content organization and translation, and then automatically distributes the content according to the set logic, achieving "unmanned publishing."

In their actual calculations, the intervention of this AI transcription/organization is equivalent to directly saving the basic workload of 1-2 people. This is crucial for small teams of 6-7 people: the saved manpower is not used to "get more tedious," but to do more valuable things—topic selection, angle selection, risk control, and review and iteration.

Use data analysis to determine the direction.

Review rhythm: Daily focus on exposure as a starting point, weekly focus on trend decisions.

The editorial team's review process follows a " frequent review and quick revision " rhythm: Once trending content is published, they quickly confirm whether it has achieved a normal starting point, because the natural streaming window is only 24 hours; delaying until the next day means many adjustments are too late. They regularly use SocialEcho to compare data from multiple platforms in a single panel, reducing the time spent switching between platform backends and allowing them to focus on more crucial decisions—whether to continue increasing similar content or immediately adjust topic selection, publication time, or platform-side strategies.

To ensure that post-mortem reviews go beyond a simple "glance at the day," they also export periodic data into reports ( e.g., daily/weekly Excel spreadsheets), documenting the exposure performance, publication status, and regional distribution of each piece of content. The benefits of this approach are: post-mortem reviews don't rely on memory, and trends are readily apparent; conclusions are more easily aligned within the team, preventing conflicting interpretations; and, most importantly, consistently performing content templates and effective publication timelines are recorded as reusable rules, enabling faster and more stable iterations in the future.

Review dimensions: Exposure/Efficiency/Region

Beginners often focus solely on views or followers, only to become increasingly confused. A more reliable approach is to align the review dimensions according to " goal → metric → action ": Are you aiming for awareness, engagement, conversion, or reputation and sentiment? Different goals correspond to different metrics; otherwise, no matter how much data you have, you won't draw any conclusions.

In their own debriefing sessions, clients pay particular attention to three types of things that "directly guide their actions":

The priority is exposure/views —more important than follower growth is whether the content has achieved stable exposure and whether the initial launch was normal.

Secondly, consider the release schedule and efficiency – how many articles were released that day, and whether the release process was slowed down. The golden window for news content is very short; slow release is a waste of time.

Third is the distribution of traffic by region —which regions (such as different countries/regions) are more likely to receive content, which will directly affect the subsequent selection of topics, language processing, and release time.

Use a sense of rules to stabilize the account's lifeline.

Compliance guidelines: Avoid crossing the line regarding copyrighted music and sensitive expressions.

Regarding compliance, they emphasize two points: music copyright and expression boundaries. For example, music included with domestic editing tools may not be compliant on overseas platforms (especially TikTok), which could directly affect distribution; a more prudent approach is to use available audio sources on the platform or ensure that the source of the material is clear.

They will try to be as restrained in their expression: they can organize, excerpt, and translate information, but they should avoid being emotional or overly evaluative, especially when it comes to sensitive topics, because overseas platforms are more accepting of "factual presentation" and not "over-interpretation".

Anomaly detection: Be wary if there are 0 plays within 10-15 minutes.

Don't rush to conclude that "the content is bad." They trust a more direct signal: if there are still 0 views after 10-15 minutes of posting, be immediately alert; there's likely a distribution error or the content is being throttled. The most common mistake beginners make is continuing to post aggressively, hoping to boost sales through sheer volume, which will only exacerbate the problem.

Their approach is more like troubleshooting: first, pause increasing the posting frequency, treat this as a signal, and prioritize checking whether the content expression crosses the line, whether the materials (especially music/visuals) have copyright risks, and whether the account has had any abnormal operations recently; after confirming that everything is correct, continue posting, and use the starting data of the next post to verify whether it has returned to normal.

In summary: For a cold start, first establish a successful closed-loop system before considering scaling.

The most valuable aspect of the cold start phase is actually rapid trial and error, and rapid iteration. Content not running smoothly doesn't equate to failure, and fluctuations don't mean you're incapable—often it's just that the process isn't running smoothly yet: slow releases, chaotic rhythms, and late reviews will cause you to miss the window of opportunity. An effective approach is to treat each release as a test: check if the initial data is normal on the same day, and immediately investigate and adjust for any anomalies, avoiding conclusions based on emotions.

First, get the closed loop running: Content → Publishing → Data → Adjustment. Once the closed loop is formed, growth will be more stable; scaling is simply repeating the right things more often.

If you're also starting in overseas social media and want to streamline multi-platform publishing, AI-assisted processing, and data review, you can use SocialEcho to consolidate publishing and review into a single workbench: batch distribution speeds up, AI monitoring enables automatic distribution to save manpower, and data export helps to identify patterns, leaving time for judgment and iteration.