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Welcome to the socialized forecast. It is May 21st, and it's a Tuesday. So it's time for trend alerts, original content ideas, tutorials, music suggestions, and social media updates. And happy Tuesday. Sometimes Friday to Tuesday seems like a really, really long time depending on what's going on for me on the weekends.
Helen:I feel like it's been a week since I've been on here and it's only been a few days. Anyway, welcome back. Thanks for being here to listen. And I will say this weekend was pretty interesting because I wasn't on TikTok a lot. And I wasn't even on Instagram.
Helen:I wasn't on any of the social media apps a lot. I've been, I was busy with, being at the Catskills. Before that I was at a basketball game for the New York Liberty. Before that I was at my son Jonathan softball game for the Special Olympics. So here, there, and everywhere making content, but not necessarily with a whole lot of time for scrolling.
Helen:So I will say that anytime I was on the app, I kept seeing this pet hand holding trend. And for me, I don't know. I love a good pet trend even though I don't have a pet. So I have some theories on why these pet trends do really well. Hear me out.
Helen:In general, I think pet people share with other pet people. So you've got your dog people sharing with the dog community. You've got your cat people sharing with the cat community. And even myself, when I see cute golden retriever or Labrador videos, I tend to share them with Julie. So I do think there's something in this idea that people who love animals share with other people who love animals and therefore, those trends tend to go big.
Helen:I don't know. I'd love your thoughts on this. I also will say to dive deep into the psychology of it, I kinda love it because if you don't if you're not familiar with it, there is one linked in the show notes and, obviously, in the newsletter today. And what it is is that 2 people put their hands on top of each other just with unprompted they just in front of their pet, they sit the pet there, they turn on the camera, and they just put one hand on top of the other, whether it's, you know, hands up or hands down, however. And then they wait to see if the pet will put the paw on.
Helen:I mean, it's I don't know why it's adorable, but watching some of these pets look from one to the other to decide what she's supposed to do, what he's supposed to do, and then making the decision. And it does start to call up. For me, it shows a lot about the household and the emotion between the couple. Because I think that animals being intuitive really do pick up on the vibes of their humans. So it's really cute to watch.
Helen:And it starts to make me think, well, number 1, it made me think I need to get a pet because think of the content. It's time for a puppy. Although I'm not ready for it again yet. I did have a dog in my life. I had a Labrador for 15 years.
Helen:So eventually, there will be another pup coming coming in. And as my kids always say, think of the content. But for now, I'm gonna have to joy enjoy other people's pets just because life is a little crazy, and I don't wanna subject a pet a pet to it when I'm constantly traveling for work and things. Alright. So if you have a pet and you wanna try this, I do think it's a sweet one, and I think it's gonna be with us for a while.
Helen:Just because it hasn't been so heavy duty on the for you page, it comes up every few videos. And it's not like one of those trends where you it's every other video, you'll see a trend. So I do think it's one of these slow moving trends, but it's gonna have longer legs. So I'd love to see how that pans out. And, I'd love to see if you're on it.
Helen:So tag me if you do a pet video because I'd love to see it. Alright. Let's talk about the trends for today. We've got a nice celebrity lookalike one. And I love this because it's a quick trend and it's easy to do.
Helen:So you don't have to do one of these things where you're transforming into a celebrity. So you that those sometimes require another app to make the picture look like you. I don't know. Even this bridgerton one that I saw, it does require an effect, And I don't even know if it's in cap cut. I haven't dug deep enough into that one yet.
Helen:But I've seen a bunch of these where you have to transform into the celebrity. But this is much more simply, as we say in Espanol. I love to throw Spanish in here and there. We simply because it is simply just get 4 photos of a celebrity you've been told that you look alike. You look like.
Helen:And make a 4 a 4 shot grid. And then you're gonna show 4 photos of yourself, and you could do the same poses. You could take time and make the same poses and the same looks, or you can just pick 4 photos where you have posed and for a shot, and you think you might look like one of these celebrities. So that's a real fun one. Very easy to do.
Helen:The next one is people should know who I am. I kinda love this one, and I might have to jump on it because a lot of times I get stopped in New York now where someone came out of a drugstore the other day and, like, bolted out. She worked in the drugstore and she was closing. So she I couldn't even go in and talk to her. But she said, oh, no.
Helen:No. We're closed. I just saw you passing by, and I had to jump out and say hello. So I do think it's funny. And I don't know how we'll use the trend, but the idea is that you lip sync.
Helen:People should know who I am about not having to read your photo ID because people who should know who you are. So it's an easy lip sync. And what you're gonna do then is put text on the screen saying why people should know you. So the girl in the example that we use, apparently, she was in a news article about wearing floaties that were animal shaped when she was swimming near seals. I'm not sure what exactly happened.
Helen:We can probably infer that something crazy happened, and it wasn't a good choice. So now she's saying, like, that's what she has to be known for after all of the things she's done in her life. So that was a pretty funny example, but you can use this as a business. You can put titles about what what the thing is that people should know you for. So, I mean, I would maybe put as a tick tock teacher, people should know me or even something as fun as you just frequent a local coffee shop or a store and the employees should know you so you can have a lot of fun with it very tongue in cheek, or you can do it legitimately if you were on a news in a news article for something and maybe you are proud of it or maybe you're not.
Helen:So have fun with that one. And the other one is find your spark. And this is kind of fun because I'm not even sure how this one lit up. It's on Instagram, and that's where I saw it. And it's a creator showing off how she got her spark back.
Helen:So she mentioned that she wasn't she took she was off show social media for a while. And then she thanked her followers, sir, for letting her have the space that she needed and that she was coming back, you know, full force. And it was really cool. It's very easy to do. It's a trending audio.
Helen:So you can just edit together the clips of yourself, whether it's, you know, dancing, embracing, doing the things that you love. And it doesn't have to be dancing, obviously, if you're into boating or if you're into biking or rollerblading, whatever it is that you're you've come back and you're enjoying again. So it's a nice easy one to highlight something that you're really into. Maybe I should do it for batons rolling. I was thinking I wanna do a baton twirling tutorial at some point because one creator, there was a verified creator, can't think of who now who commented.
Helen:I really wanna learn this, and I thought, oh, it'd be fun if I gave her a tutorial specifically to learn how to do it. So you can keep an eye out for that. Incidentally, today, before I carry on, we are having a special expert workshop. So if you have not yet signed up, Lorraine Laddish, who I became connected with on Instagram, she has a huge following on Instagram. She's not as big on TikTok because as you know, we lean into the platform we love the most.
Helen:And she has really grown her following since 2014 heavily on Instagram. So that's where her presence is. She posts on TikTok, but it's just not her first love. So she has managed to monetize. She's been an influencer for much longer than 10 years, but she really started doing it for full her full time job about 10 years ago when she turned 50.
Helen:And she started a website called Viva 50 to celebrate being over 50 and what that meant to her. And it's just like, she's so much fun. We had such a great connection right off the bat. I kind of adore her. Plus, she speaks Spanish.
Helen:So maybe we'll do part of the interview in Spanish today. I'm just kidding. Don't panic. I'm not that good yet. But so she's gonna join us and talk about how she created a business out of this, how she continues to stay inspired.
Helen:And, you know, there are things that happen that aren't great. She one time commented on one of my podcasts, and she left me a long message saying it was about the podcast about negativity on social media. And she really, really left me a bunch of message about, messages about how much she deals with negativity. And people are so mean. And older women.
Helen:You would think older women would lift up older women, and she found the opposite was happening. And I just thought, that's horrifying. So I can't wait to talk to her and have her share some of her expertise, how she stays inspired, how she stays organized, how does she get her brand deals, what other ways does she monetize? I'm really excited to talk to her. So join us today at 5 PM EST.
Helen:If you haven't signed up, the link is still available, and and will be lit up and ready for you to register right up until we we do that we do the interview. And then it will be released, probably on Friday. Alright. Let's talk about the original content ideas now. Julie actually dove into some of these, and I really love her choices.
Helen:So one is that it's time for summer book recommendations, and we all love a good summer read. And I I'm really gonna try to read more than just TikTok captions this summer. Okay, Julie? I really am. But sometimes I gotta read Spanish too.
Helen:So I might be reading a Spanish book. Maybe I'll read a novella. I've gotta find one. If you have any recommendations, hit me up. So I think that the goal here is thinking about your favorite beach read regardless of if your niche's books or not.
Helen:Maybe you make a photo carousel. Maybe you throw some books on the table 1 by 1 and talk about them. You could do something fun with time lapse even. I mean, not time lapse with stop motion where your books like walk in, whatever. Have some fun with it and and share with us your recommendations for summer reading.
Helen:The next one is making a guide on your expertise. This is kind of fun because I never think of it as making a guide. Sometimes I'll talk about something that I'm an I know a lot about. But this might be a way for you to create something and perhaps oh, perhaps if you're looking to monetize, you can make a digital download. Whether it's a PDF, everything you know about getting started with x, fill in the blank.
Helen:And then you maybe become the teacher, and maybe it's something that people would want your outline. So think about that. It's a good way to build an email list if you're not interested in selling it. And you probably have a better chance at getting people to download something for free because there's no barrier of entry. But you can think about how you want to use whatever that is, whatever your expertise is.
Helen:So you can make a video that says it or you can make a video and then say, grab my template to get started on my, you know, click the link in my bio and grab the template. So that's a great simple idea. Don't have to give away all of your secrets. You can just give get people interested and share some of them. And a lot of times, I tend to I just, like, over deliver.
Helen:I wanna talk about every single thing. I don't wanna leave anything out. I'm not a gatekeeper. But even when I don't gatekeep, there's still so much in this brain about editing and things. So I know that there's a lot more that expertise that I have on editing and production and shooting that I can I never run out of of content?
Helen:So I don't know. Stay tuned because we might be starting a special series where I'm sharing even more in-depth, tutorials. Alright. We'll keep we'll keep you we'll we'll keep you waiting on that one because I'm not really sure how we're fleshing that out yet. Okay.
Helen:The next one is upcycle it. Oh, I love this. And when I saw it, I was like, oh, perfect timing because I was recently at a fashion event in New York City where the designer who was featured use it. He up cycles jeans, old denim, and he makes clothing and designs out of it. He's incredible, and his name is wait a minute.
Helen:Something Dan. Oh my god. I'm blanking out on his name. Yikes. I'm gonna come back to it.
Helen:I forgot. I can't believe I'm blanking out. But, anyway, his name is Daniel, and he does recycle jeans. I'm sure I've talked about him before. Oh, I can't stand it.
Helen:I'm gonna figure it out in a minute, and I'm gonna post it. But so think about how you reuse or give second life to objects in your home. Is there a hack for what you do with the jars from the grocery store? A piece of clothing? What what do you do with your clothing when you're not into it?
Helen:Share if you have any unique tips for reusing or giving a second chance, second life to objects that would normally be going into the trash. I think that's a great one, and I think we can all learn a lot. Oh, Dan. I'm so sorry. I can't think of your of your, brand at the moment.
Helen:I'm gonna have to pause and look it up. Alright. Before I do that, I am gonna just talk about the tutorials for the week. One of them is how to screen record. Now, why?
Helen:Because believe it or not, every time I show something on my phone where I'm showing a screen recording. So for example, I did a tutorial last week, which was in the newsletter, which was an overlay. And in this how to use an overlay tutorial, I showed my newsletter and my phone scrolling on the newsletter. And of course, I had so many people in the comments. How did you record your phone screen to show the scrolling?
Helen:And I always think it's a basic, basic lesson that everybody already knows. So it's so cool for me when I get these kind of comments because it's a nice reminder that even though you think your audience knows either everything about you or everything about the subject you're talking about, a lot of times they don't. So it's really good to get back to basics and put a piece of content out there that just shares something beginner level. So how to screen record on your iPhone is now posted. I also in the comments on that video, I had a lot of people asking how to do it on an Android, and I provided the steps of where you can find it on your Android.
Helen:So it is possible to screen record, and you don't necessarily need an iPhone for it. Okay. Next one is how to edit to the beats of the music in CapCut. Hooray. This was a question from one of our viewers, listeners, etcetera.
Helen:And it's came in submitted in the little question button, which you find at the end of the newsletter. And I always read those and sometimes I save them for a tutorial or for an entire newsletter. Because I really sometimes want to dive deep into an answer and not just provide a quick answer in a one word ans you know, one sentence answer. So for this one, I made an entire tutorial, which is how to edit to the beats and new music in CapCut. And a lot of people don't realize that you can take music because you can connect your CapCut app to TikTok, and then it will take the TikTok music in.
Helen:When you select add sound, you can pick. But a lot of people don't want to connect the app to TikTok. I don't have mine connected to TikTok. So what I simply do is the trick that I shared in this tutorial where I take the music from a video and I can import it into my CapCut app so that I can edit to the beats. So I demonstrated that in a nice neat tutorial for you, so you can check that out.
Helen:And goodness, we got through a lot today. Alright. But I in a on an up note, we did figure out, at least I did, that it's 0 waste Daniel. That is who the designer is, and I can't believe I forgot. It's so frustrating.
Helen:It just, like, pops into my brain randomly. But he's amazing, and he does hand he hand takes apart these jeans. It's quite incredible. Now he has a whole team of people working with him, and it's really, really cool to watch. So that's what that idea, that original content idea reminded me of.
Helen:It made me think about him and send out good vibes. And now he is partnered up with Nuuly. If you don't know what Nuuly is, that is a clothing rental, platform where you can I I've been using it for about 8 months now, where I get monthly rental pieces, and I can try different things on and then return them if I don't wear them that often? And I can also in the winter, it's fun for coats, for different outerwear, and I use it for dresses for nice events if I don't wanna continue to buy, you know, new dresses and have them hang in my closet after one event. So that's the story with that.
Helen:Nuuly and 0 Waste Daniel have teamed up, and he will be providing clothes in that in the rental platform. So yay to that and congrats to him. Okay. What else do I wanna say before I head out? Oh, yes.
Helen:Importante. We importante. Tango una lexion. I am having a lesson, a beginner workshop about how to edit to the beats of music, and I'm going to teach voice over. So this is a slow paced beginner lesson.
Helen:If you're a beginner to editing and you're intimidated and sometimes you can watch my tutorial and think, oh my gosh, it went too fast, this one's for you. And, you know, I love those beginner workshops. I really feel that I'm helping people and empowering beginners to be able to do what they think is not achievable. It just feels so good. I have so many beautiful comments that come at me in the beginner course and also even personal DMs, which are overwhelming at the moment.
Helen:But my personal DMs where people are thanking me for the lessons and helping them do what they didn't think was possible. It's really, really exciting. On that note of the DMs, I have to say this TikTok is really, really screwed up because now when you post a story on TikTok, instead of it showing up as comments, which was really nice, was like you'd have a story post and you could read the comments. No. Now all the people who comment or like or something shows up as a DM.
Helen:Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me, TikTok? Seriously? I I just wanna make a post about this and say, please stop. It's nuts.
Helen:Because now I can't I can't get through my DMs. And I so I have to post stories very limited at limited times because I can't have my DMs filled up with these just like somebody liking a post, and it shows up as a direct message. No. Thank you, TikTok. You've really, really messed up with that one.
Helen:Alright. So I don't wanna leave on a negative negative note. I'm just I just have to complain about something because I don't think it's working. And I think sometimes these platforms, they think they're helping us out. And they're really sabotage sabotaging things for people who are trying to at least stay responsive to the to the comments.
Helen:It's so frustrating. And that's a lot of times where people would write me requesting a tutorial. And I was able to go through them and it was manageable and now forget it it's not manageable and so it's a little upsetting. So if you have a question, if you have a request, please click the submit question button at the end of the email and put it in that way because I read that every week. And I look for inspiration of tutorials.
Helen:I look for inspiration to answer questions on my Friday podcast. And and I look for topics, which I know that when when things are repeating in the questions, that I know that's going to be a good topic for a newsletter. So do that. Do that. Okay?
Helen:And in the meantime, have a great week. And I have I don't know. I might have something interesting coming in the next couple of days. And I'll be back on Friday to talk more about it. Okay.
Helen:I'll leave you with that one. Have a great have a great Tuesday, and I'll see you hopefully, I'll see you at the workshop in a little bit. Okay. Thank you. Bye.