The Challenge of Social Media: The constant cycle of producing content can feel overwhelming, similar to the “hamster wheel” of social media management. The key is finding balance and simplifying the process. Content Creation vs. TV Production: Content creation for social media isn't all that different from TV production. Both involve moving from project to project. The challenge is less overwhelming once the rhythm is found, especially when working with consistent clients.
Simplifying Content Creation: Focus on one primary platform (e.g., TikTok) and repurpose content for others (LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.). Tools like repurpose.io can help automate the process.
Stay in your lane: Define content "lanes" or "pillars" to focus on. It’s important to have a balance between consistent content and occasional spontaneous posts. Be cautious about viral content: Sometimes viral videos can attract the wrong audience. Stay true to your niche to avoid losing traction.
Balancing Content Types: As a content creator, prioritize what works best for you and your audience. Tutorials may take longer, but they’re effective; meanwhile, outfit transitions can be quick, fun fillers.
Batch content to streamline production. Set aside a day for longer, more detailed content (like tutorials) and focus on quick posts the rest of the week.
Embrace Change & Evolution: It's okay to evolve your content strategy. The audience will stick around if you're transparent and stay authentic. Even a change in posting schedule can benefit you—switching to one podcast a week allows for more value-packed content without feeling rushed.
Final Tip: Don’t feel trapped in routine. Explore new content ideas and experiment without the pressure to stick to one path. Your followers will stay engaged as long as you remain true to yourself and what you enjoy creating.
Next Episode: Moving to a Friday-only podcast schedule to allow more time for studio work and personal content creation. The Friday episode will be longer and more in-depth with Q&A.
The Challenge of Social Media: The constant cycle of producing content can feel overwhelming, similar to the “hamster wheel” of social media management. The key is finding balance and simplifying the process. Content Creation vs. TV Production: Content creation for social media isn't all that different from TV production. Both involve moving from project to project. The challenge is less overwhelming once the rhythm is found, especially when working with consistent clients.
Simplifying Content Creation: Focus on one primary platform (e.g., TikTok) and repurpose content for others (LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.). Tools like repurpose.io can help automate the process.
Stay in your lane: Define content "lanes" or "pillars" to focus on. It’s important to have a balance between consistent content and occasional spontaneous posts. Be cautious about viral content: Sometimes viral videos can attract the wrong audience. Stay true to your niche to avoid losing traction.
Balancing Content Types: As a content creator, prioritize what works best for you and your audience. Tutorials may take longer, but they’re effective; meanwhile, outfit transitions can be quick, fun fillers.
Batch content to streamline production. Set aside a day for longer, more detailed content (like tutorials) and focus on quick posts the rest of the week.
Embrace Change & Evolution: It's okay to evolve your content strategy. The audience will stick around if you're transparent and stay authentic. Even a change in posting schedule can benefit you—switching to one podcast a week allows for more value-packed content without feeling rushed.
Final Tip: Don’t feel trapped in routine. Explore new content ideas and experiment without the pressure to stick to one path. Your followers will stay engaged as long as you remain true to yourself and what you enjoy creating.
Next Episode: Moving to a Friday-only podcast schedule to allow more time for studio work and personal content creation. The Friday episode will be longer and more in-depth with Q&A.
Twice weekly show providing social media updates, trend alerts, original content ideas, strategy session, industry guests, tutorials and more!
Helen:
Welcome to The Socialize Strategy. Since our last meetup together, I have now had that viral video settle down. Things are back to normal, almost to the opposite degree where I am back down to one to 2,000 views per video. And I never thought I'd say that that's comforting after having a viral video but I'm not gonna lie, NGL. It is somewhat comforting.
Helen:
I feel that I can manage it. I'm seeing people that I can now communicate with back in the comments. I don't feel overwhelmed by the comments, and I also feel that my sense of community is back. So that's the good part. I'm going to continue to post consistently because I do think it's important to have virality now and again.
Helen:
It gives your page a refresh. It definitely brings new energy and new people find you, so that's kind of fun. What's finally happening now that it's calmed down is I'm able to see the comments on other videos. So I'm seeing what videos people are being fed. So couple of my pinned videos are getting a lot of views and comments and one of them is a bit about my background, which I just pinned recently because I had somebody asking me a lot of times, in the comments, I'll have that question, how do you know all this?
Helen:
And I have to search down my page to get to that video where I described my background. So I decided to pin that one, and I removed one of my other videos and I replaced it. So now what's happening, that's kind of cool, is that more people are aware of what I do with my career background, what I do for my day job, my little anecdote from that video. If you haven't seen my pinned video, you should go watch it. It's amusing.
Helen:
It's amusing because I tell as I give my background, I also told a little anecdote about my early years in advertising, and a lot of people when they stuck around to the end of the video commented on that story. Okay? So I'll actually put that in the show notes. I think that's a fun one to have here. But today's topic we're gonna do, and this is again self self induced to some degree.
Helen:
I am experiencing it myself, and I decided to work through it on the podcast with you. I think that a lot of times things I'm going through, other creators are experiencing or will experience at different times. And so I feel it's only fair to share and give you some insights and maybe I'll get ahead of it for you and you won't have the issue. Or if you're in the same issue as me, maybe this will help you because we'll be going through it together. And that is how to simplify your content creation.
Helen:
And what I mean by simplify, it's going to be different for everyone, but at the same time, it's a broader look at what you're doing because I have always thought, I don't know if I could do social media as a job because it's it's a hamster wheel and there's a never ending hamster wheel here because month to month to month, it's like you're on to the next month. It's International Women's Day. Then it's Saint Patrick Day. There's holidays. Blah blah blah.
Helen:
You have to keep the content fresh. Have to keep the content pumping. And it's stressful. And I remember thinking, oh gosh, I don't want to do social media production because it's a hamster wheel or social media managing because it's a hamster wheel. And the most interesting thing came out of this.
Helen:
And that is Tommy and I, my son Tommy, my oldest, sometimes he'll hear me talk about things and he'll say something because he's far enough removed that he'll shed light on it from the outside. So he said, well, how is creating content for social media different than all the years you've been doing TV commercials? So I went, let me think. And to me, they're very different. And so I said to him, when I do the TV commercial production, I do the production and then it's over and I'm on to the next thing.
Helen:
And then when I do that production and it may take up a month of my time or whatever, but then it's over and it's wrapped up and I move on to the next production. And he said, yeah, but you're moving from production to production, so how is that different? And I was like, So I was really trying to explain it to him and in trying to explain it to him I realized it's not that different and it's just my perception of it was very different. So, and part of that came from the idea that when you're doing social media you're on a monthly treadmill and that is true if you're working with clients where you're doing content for them month to month, which is what I'm doing. I actually have a client that I work on every single month and I do content.
Helen:
But somehow, now that I'm in the rhythm of it, it doesn't seem as overwhelming. I don't know what happened. I don't know what changed. I think he clicked something in me that made me realize, well, I've always been working job to job to job and now why do I think that's different? Because in a way it's maybe more consistent now, so that's probably a good thing, I guess.
Helen:
I don't know. I'll think about that for the next episode. But anyway, let's talk about how to simplify because I do think that a lot of people get overwhelmed in their content. And I have been guilty of this, and recently I have had to take a hard look at how I can simplify because I have added a lot onto my social media plate with taking on the studio and then wanting to be present for my paying members. And I'm enjoying that so much that I have, I've made that a priority now and I really lean into that.
Helen:
But I also, of course, I'm feeling well, I wanna make sure I keep my content pumping out from my my viewers that are not my paid subscribers. So I have to balance that fairly and I don't wanna now pull back on that because I have a studio. I have to figure out how I'm delivering more intricate detail oriented stuff to the studio and more personalized things to the creators in the studio. So I'm balancing things and I'm working through it. But you will have the same problem.
Helen:
If you're trying to build and grow a brand on social media, you can immediately feel overwhelmed by this endless hamster wheel that is content creation. Okay. Let's dive into some of the tips on how you can make it better for yourself, and I'm going to share a lot of personal stories here because I'm simplifying. Okay. So we've talked about this before which is you have so many platforms and people feel like they have to be everywhere and they have to do well everywhere and the fact is you don't.
Helen:
You can decide where you're going to lean, where you're going to do well, you're going to focus on that first and then you're going to figure out a way that is most efficient for you to farm out to those other platforms. So since I've talked about this before, I'm not going to belabor this point. I'm just going to, I guess, reinforce it that if you're creating content in TikTok, they do make it easier now that you can save after you post, you can save it without the watermarks. It's actually easier now than it was before to use that content elsewhere. It's just that, oh, wait, the age old question is the algorithm on the other platforms recognizing that this was a TikTok and so therefore is it going to penalize you?
Helen:
No one really knows the answer to that, so I'm not going to say yes or no to it, but I'm just going to say that's like a little looming thing out there that could be hindering. But if you lean on TikTok first and you make your content on TikTok, then you can easily, you can put it on LinkedIn, you can put it Instagram, Facebook, YouTube Shorts. You can just put it right out there because you can save it without the watermark. So that makes it easier. You could also use a platform like repurpose.io where you just copy and paste the link into repurpose.io on wherever you post your first post and then it will repurpose it to the other platforms accordingly.
Helen:
So that's a paid platform that you can use. But what you want to do mainly is search your soul and say where do you want to be first? And that's where you're going to lean and then everything else you're going to farm out from there. Okay? And that's the first thing.
Helen:
The next thing is labeled stay in your lane. But it doesn't mean that you can't post outside of a niche. It means you want to define what your lanes are. Okay? What are your areas of content you're going to focus on?
Helen:
They used to call them pillars when we were first doing social media. Everybody was talking about pillars. I will tell you by example how I consider my lanes and then you can relate to this. So I mainly post where I get my most views, I mainly post tutorials. But, I don't only post tutorials, and in fact, I post tutorials on a rhythm where it's like tutorial and then freestyle freestyle freestyle.
Helen:
So it becomes a tutorial, then it's like a lifestyle thing. Maybe it's I'm out doing something. Maybe it's a trend. Maybe it's I'm at an event and I'm showing behind the scenes, and then it's a tutorial. I keep a rhythm going where there's a tutorial coming in there every four or five posts so that if someone comes to my page, they can clearly see the ones that are labeled our tutorials and they can scroll quickly through and not have to dig for scroll, scroll, scroll to find another tutorial.
Helen:
So it's this way of balancing out your content. So if you decide you have four lanes or five lanes, whatever it is that you want to rotate through, and as a new creator, you might want to focus on less because that's how you find and curate your audience. Okay? But once you find those, you create a rhythm. So let me speak to this for a second about focusing more tightly when you're starting out.
Helen:
If you're trying to grow, it becomes very confusing for a follower to grab onto your account and then their pat one video's a your family, your cat, a birthday party you attended, at a an event, something you are talking about that you like, and then, oh, there's your baking video. Let's pretend you're doing baking. And then it's a family event, it's a holiday, it's a thing, it's a thing, and they have to and it's five more videos of like random stuff, and then it's a baking video. You're gonna have a harder time growing a dedicated audience that wants your baking videos because it's gonna take you longer. It's not it's not not doable.
Helen:
So it's not undoable. It's not impossible. But it is a longer game because you're really gonna get people that are gonna start seeing your other videos that aren't baking and they're gonna stop engaging and then you're gonna lose that traction. So if it's something where you're, you know what you wanna do, get in that lane and go hard and then only sprinkle occasional other things in there. Like lean more on the thing that you want to focus on.
Helen:
Alright? If you don't know what you want to focus on, pick three things and balance through them. Okay? You're going go one, two, three, three, and then the one that hits the most you'll start to see, you're getting more views on I'm gonna let's talk about somebody who's doing like meditation versus oh, I don't know. How can I even say this now?
Helen:
Okay. Meditation, holistic healing, healthy eating. Okay, one, two, three, four, like things that are sort of similar but then one of them does better than the rest, maybe you lean a little more on the one that does better than the rest. And then you lean into that for a while and see if you pick up more traction like that. So it's really about creating the lanes and then deciding how you're gonna keep the audience that you have engaged.
Helen:
And we have, I'm sorry Nikola, but I'm throwing, here you go again. But it's like somebody like Nikola who just had a video go viral about her doing her clothes washed out, hanging her clothes on the line outside, and it's like now she's and it was a funny video, so now she's gonna have all these people that are gonna be looking for the funny girl who hung the clothes on the line and they're gonna find a potter who does pottery. And so maybe that wasn't the best use of a viral video. I mean, was just accidental, so that's just what happened. But that's what you will find will happen.
Helen:
Like you may have something pick up traction and then it's like, oh my god, that's not even the thing I want to focus on. Alright? So just know that those lanes are fun and they make your content more fun, but they also could slow down your growth process. I've noticed people who go hard on one topic, which I can't stand. I go into their page and it's like one after the next after the next, it's the same thing.
Helen:
I personally don't like it, but that's not that's just me. That's not every viewer. Every viewer, the bulk of the viewers are gonna wanna see that person doing that same thing over and over because that's why they followed them. So the unfortunate thing for me is that I would get bored myself but I probably would even grow faster than I am now if I was only doing those types of videos. I might lose followers if I kept doing that though, like, you know, anyway.
Helen:
Because how much can you watch an editing tutorial again and again? I would, I think I'd, you'd start to feel from the creator, from me, that I wasn't even enjoying it anymore. So I have to keep the joy. That's the way that goes. You know what's funny about this?
Helen:
I was I had lunch with somebody recently and I said something about every sometimes you just gotta go left when everyone else is going right. And from the beginning of my journey on TikTok, I listened to all those people saying stay in your lane, build, you grow faster, blah blah blah. I never did it because it didn't feel right for me. And so there's something about that is not just following the school of fish, you know, just saying what do you want to do instead of listening to everybody telling you what to do. Okay?
Helen:
So a little side tip. Alright, what if the content is time consuming? Here we go. I'd like you to break it down and say, is the content you're creating that's most effective the most time consuming or is that the most easy content? And then assess to yourself what is my favorite type of content to make?
Helen:
Alright, so now I'm going to break it down and I'm going to bring it back to give my examples again. My most successful because typically tutorials or teaching something, imparting some knowledge about whether it's TikTok, editing, now it's iPhone, whatever, the algorithm, I don't know. That's what people watch for me. But what I like doing the best is outfit transitions, okay? I can do them so quickly.
Helen:
I enjoy it. Any type of cool snazzy like outfit transition or whatever, that's what I really enjoy and that's what I can do the quickest. So if I sat here and said, okay, I have no more time to work on my content. That's it. What am I going to do to keep content going if I don't have time?
Helen:
If I suddenly had my full time job took over and I had no time to make tutorials, for example. Because tutorials take me longer. I have to set up, think, make sure I get all the shots. It takes me a while to edit them, make sure I'm explaining it clearly. It's more tedious for me.
Helen:
I love it, but it's a little more time consuming. So if I had to do nothing else, nothing, nothing, Jersey girl, if I had to do nothing else, I would do outfit transitions because those are so quick and fun and they keep me energized and then who knows, like maybe if I did those again and again and again, one of those would take off and maybe I'd get some fashion brand deals or something to show off clothes for a store. I'm not going to do that because I really enjoy teaching. So I decide that I'm going to make two tutorials a week because that's about all I can do in my given week. And then in between, I'm going to throw the filler content in.
Helen:
I'm going to make a quick transition from here to there. I'm going to go from bang, you know kick the screen and I'm in another outfit or I'm going to do something quicker or have a fun thing with Jonathan where he's, you know, doing something with me or I'm doing a little dance video. I have given myself, I won't say grace because that sounds like, you know, give myself grace, but I have given myself the space to say I don't have to power out five tutorials a week. I'm tapering it down. And I've tapered it down since I've started the studio because in the studio I do one dedicated, clear and more elaborate lesson per week.
Helen:
And so that's time consuming. So I'm spending my time with my paid membership folks to make sure I'm delivering the content that they need and then I'm taking time for myself by not pressuring myself to do three, four tutorials a week for my free social media content. It's like two tutorials a week. Anyway, the algorithm is probably sending the viewers older tutorials anyway, so it's all it's a win win. Okay.
Helen:
So think about if the content is time consuming, how you're going to simplify and how you're going to decide, okay, I'm going to only make two things per week on my long the stuff that takes me longer to do, and then I'm going to figure out a quick way to do the filler content. So what we're doing in the studio, by the way, is I am helping people to say, here's quick ones if you need filler content. Here's a quick idea this week. You can you can make it right in the TikTok app or in the Instagram app. Save yourself some time.
Helen:
So I'm trying to also help my studio members balance by giving them here's a more elaborate lesson if you want to do something a little more elaborate, here's some easy quick content you could pump out without a lot of effort. And this way you're not exhausted from fulfilling your content, and it doesn't feel like this hamster wheel. K? The other thing I have to add in this bucket is also if the stuff that you do, for example with me, the tutorials, is time consuming, try to think about batching those into a day so that you have like one day a week where you're doing your things that take you longer to do and you're getting them out of the way and you're putting them in the drafts. Or, for the person who asked me this in the studio, if you're putting them, if you don't want to save a bunch of drafts, you could put them into a folder on your phone.
Helen:
Unfortunately, ultimately you have to get them back into drafts wherever they have to live. But if you're shooting and editing outside the app, you can just build a folder of your upcoming content that you want to see without putting it into your drafts. But either way, you do them all together at the same time and then you put that away for the week. You've got them done. And now everything else is just a quick, more irreverent stuff you do off the cuff.
Helen:
And that is where I help you keep a plan going. So that's like here's an easy one, here's an easy one. I don't do them all because I have to deliver tutorials on a certain rhythm. So I will have lots of suggestions for my studio people, but I'm not doing every single one of those because then it would fill my feed with too many in between videos and not enough of my meaty content. Alright?
Helen:
Okay. The next topic is to allow yourself some change to explore. Don't feel like, okay, I've been doing this the whole time, I can't do anything else now, my audience is never gonna accept that. You can allow yourself to evolve. When I was in my time going through, losing my sight and going through cancer, my whole account evolved into, I don't even know how I got back, but I went down that path where people were coming along for the cancer journey.
Helen:
I was still doing tutorials in between, but my in between content, in between tutorials took a turn. And I didn't lose an audience because of I kept them interested in what was happening and they were invested in my health journey too. So that, you know, in a weird way worked out. But if you allow yourself space to say, I wanna try something different, maybe I'll just throw up a video about something totally else and see if it resonates. It's okay to do that.
Helen:
I mean, you're not in prison in your content. You're not stuck. You can do what you want with it. You can just be yourself. Could you you know, a lot of people love routine.
Helen:
I like change, you know? Alright, so I ran right into from allowing change right into streamlining your tasks and putting them on a day where you can do them together, embracing the workflow. So I want to circle back for a second to say about change is I have even assessed myself, is why I'm gonna share this update today, that I have now come to a place where I think one podcast a week is gonna be more efficient for me than doing two episodes a week. Because when I did the episode on Tuesday and I talked about viral videos and I didn't go over the trends, it suddenly clicked into me that if I just sit here on this podcast on Tuesdays, every Tuesday, and I tell you the trends that you just read about in the newsletter, how is that adding value to you? It's not.
Helen:
I've decided that I'm going to now record only podcasts on Fridays. So I hope that's okay with everybody. Trust me, Fridays will come very quickly and I'll be right back in your ear. So what I'm going to do instead is focus more on my Friday episodes so that I can give you more value on Friday, and this way the Friday episode maybe I can go a little longer, do a little Q and A at the end, hit a topic at the beginning, a little, an opening, whatever trending thing that's happening on social media, then get into my strategy and then perhaps do some Q and A at the end. So I'm going to consolidate for myself.
Helen:
So I am proof that you can evolve and you can change. Even though you're doing something one way, it's okay to assess it and say, hold up. So I'm going to do it. I'm going to be the example. I'm going to record one podcast a week.
Helen:
So now you can look forward to me on every Friday. You can listen to it whenever you want, but it will be coming to you only on Fridays. So next Tuesday when there's no podcast in your inbox, don't panic. Don't think I something happened to me. Just be aware that I am giving myself a little space because I also on Tuesdays record a very special lesson for my studio members and I would like to take the time to do that and not feel that I'm always rushing to then also record a podcast.
Helen:
Alright? So I am proof that you can change, evolve, explore different ways of doing things. You're not going to lose your audience. I'm sure that people aren't going to leave me because I'm not now recording on Tuesdays. You'll be here with me on Friday or you can listen to the Friday one on Tuesday whenever it's good for you, I don't care.
Helen:
And it's still gonna be good. And for me, it might actually be better because I'll be able to bring you more energy, more value in one podcast than trying to piecemeal and and pump out two podcasts a week. Okay? Because there's a lot of work involved in case you didn't know. Well, I think you might know because I did a podcast about doing a podcast and it is very involved.
Helen:
So for that, to that point, I thank you for understanding and I will be here next Friday and we'll do questions. So if you can please in the newsletter drop your questions. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them at the end of next week's podcast. Then you can also look forward to at each Friday podcast, you'll know exactly what I'll be delivering every week. And I will be seeing you then.
Helen:
Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next Friday.