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Do you remember when DVRs first came out and we were able to speed through the commercials? Welcome to the Muthership Creator Strategy. This idea just became so much more relevant in my mind when I realized how quickly I'm scrolling through ads on my for you page. It is insane to think about how we went from a society who and as a person who's been at in advertising my whole career, I'm so painfully aware of this, When we were able to initially skip the ads when we were watching a show, and we loved it. We could and then sometimes an ad would catch your eye and you'd actually wanna watch it, and then you'd go back.
Helen:But overall, we wanted to skip the ads. And now social media has become our new TV, our new medium for consuming content, and we're scrolling. And then as soon as we see something that's an ad, we can actually manually just swipe right by it, and we have that choice. But what creators are forgetting is that we don't want to watch commercials. And I'm starting with this because I have seen so much content and I've made a TikTok video about this, about how hook lines are ruining social media.
Helen:And in general, these formulas that the gurus are sharing are ruining the experience. Because when we first were on social media, it was so much fun to watch people's interesting contents and family things and funny, you know, okay, it was maybe funny dances or funny little moments. And now, the 90% of the content is ad feeling. Not necessarily promotional content, but everyone every video is someone trying to hook you in with this formula, this sales formula, which is what we were exactly avoiding years ago trying to speed through commercials. And now we're stuck doing it as creators.
Helen:Anyway, just think it needs addressing, and we need to figure out how to get ourselves out of that mindset and back into something that's gonna make social media valuable again instead of just another way to find something you wanna buy. It's great for that if you're looking for something, when you're searching for something. But when you are trying to just enjoy content and consume for the pure fun of making connections, and you as a creator are trying to make connections, build community, and make an impact. There's so many creators that are just trying to figure out how to monetize, how to monetize, that it becomes one commercial after the next. So we gotta back it up.
Helen:Here we go. Once enough creators use the same hook templates, stop scrolling. Nobody's talking about this. I was today years old when I learned this. Why is no one talking about this?
Helen:Those types of things. This pattern interrupt type of thing. The formula itself becomes visible to the viewers. So it stops working as a hook and starts working as a telltale sign, oh, this is an ad. This person's trying to hook me in.
Helen:Audiences develop pattern recognition for being manipulated. It is so true. I'm sure any of you listening know exactly what I'm talking about. The people that constantly fly the phone in. You know, I've talked about that before.
Helen:That moment where the phone's flying in and they're trying to be talking as if they're setting up their phone. I just think people just need to stop doing it because when everybody's doing it, it becomes a recognizable pattern, and there is your telltale sign. I'm an ad. You get it? Where the whole idea of the hook line was you weren't supposed to know that it's an ad.
Helen:It was something that was supposed to attract the viewer. Oh my god. So now we're caught up in this crazy cycle of multiple, many hundreds of creators using the same opening lines, and it's so obvious. Okay. So that is the first thing.
Helen:And if you really think about it and you realize I'm in that trap, you've gotta get out of that trap. I'm begging you because none of us want it. We don't want it anymore. We are sick of it. We scroll so fast.
Helen:You're ruining your retention. Boom. Your watch time goes down because the trust even if somebody instinctively gets hooked for that moment, then they're not interested because it didn't necessarily deliver because you're just using a hook line that doesn't necessarily, I guess, deliver on your content because you've been told to use this hook line. And that is not every content that starts with that hook line that isn't gonna deliver on that. And so therefore, you become less real and you're losing viewers faster than you're gaining.
Helen:You are losing followers faster than you are gaining them. And the minute you start doing it, you're believe me. People are like, I don't know why my followers count is going down. I'm like, your content's lame, and it's just going it's saying the same things over and over. And it's the scripties, you know, the people reading from the teleprompters again and again and trying to sound natural and authentic, but it's so obviously not.
Helen:So we have turned our our search and desire for expertise and learning and courses and all of it has ruined our authenticity. It has. It's just so unfortunate. Oh my god. You can't think and this is the other thing, like when people say just be authentic.
Helen:And even that itself is becoming a guru niche of telling people just to be authentic. That doesn't even explain what it is because it's it's not like you can fake being authentic. It's just who you are, and you're not even learning how to be who you are because you're reading the fill in the blanks. You're reading, like, okay. Start with this, then and then a hook, then a call to action.
Helen:And it's a formula that ad company ad agencies have been using. Believe you me. I've been in it for forty years. That's the formula they've been using. And you might say, okay.
Helen:Well, there's a reason you're using it. They're using it because it works. Yeah. It works until everyone is doing the same thing. Then it no longer works.
Helen:Then the interrupter is gonna be the thing that isn't the formula. Oh my god. I just solved it. Right? I just solved it.
Helen:So how do you avoid falling into this trap? Okay, you've taken the courses, now you're stuck. It's all in your head and you got to think, oh my God. What, it really goes back to, and I did this previously on an episode which I should link in this show notes here so you can go back to that episode. And I didn't share hook lines in that episode.
Helen:I shared, here are the ingredients that you want in your opening line to keep people interested. It's not a hook line. It's not. It's what is this video going to say, and what is the point of it that's most important that I wanna make sure I highlight in the beginning so people know what they're getting. And a lot of times this is done simply from just recording, recording, recording, And then you'll realize when you're listening, when you said the thing that is most crucial and most intriguing, and maybe it's editing that out and putting it on the beginning.
Helen:Or recording your whole thing, yada yada yada, and then saying, oh, that was a really good thing. I should start with that. And so then just say that at the say that as you're opening and then add that onto the beginning. So there's ways to do it, but it's that makes it more organic to your video itself. And I've just, I've tried to do it myself often now because I find myself going, oh, what's gonna keep people interested in this tutorial?
Helen:Usually for me, it's always a tutorial. So it's like, this is trending right now, so listen to this. Or if you want to learn how to do this, or I'm gonna show you how to do I even myself, I'm getting sick of my own opening lines even though they're not hook lines from a template. They're just my traditional opening lines that I use to share what's coming in this video. So mine are still authentic to me.
Helen:They're my own, what I think works hook lines. I don't like calling them hooks, but my engaging openings that I know is, going to be enough information to tell people what's coming and why to stick around and listen. So even for me, with my ones that work, I'm trying to be different in them and not always start them the same way and think, okay, well, why would somebody wanna watch this video if they already know how to edit? Or why would someone wanna you know, they know how to use templates already. Why is this template video gonna be more interesting for them to watch?
Helen:So even within my own content, I question myself. I question my openings. I wanna make sure that I'm sharing what's coming in this video. What do I wanna say in this video? What's the value of this video to my audience?
Helen:And so what would make them interested without it being a template, like a fill in the blank? I wanna beg you to please all. I I want I personally would like to fix social media with this episode, literally. I just wanna say stop. Don't do it.
Helen:It needs to stop. It's so boring and horrible now, and every video is like, if you wanna grow on social media, no. No. No. No.
Helen:If you wanna here's the way to do it. Tap and create creator insights. And make sure when you start a video, press the plus, then move up here and do go here. Oh my god. I am so sick of it.
Helen:Those are I I mean, I know we all get fed the type of content. Unfortunately, it's really bad now. I'm getting fed more tutorial viral hook lines because my content is about tutorials, which is really a bummer. It wasn't like that before. It used to be content that I most watched that I would get fed more.
Helen:But I'm now knowing noticing that the content I'm getting is more gurus, more people trying to be experts that have very low following, low view count, low views. If you look at their videos and they have on their thing TikTok expert or TikTok growth coach, and I'm like, take your own advice. You're not growing. Like, how are you a growth coach with a thousand followers? Not to be mean, but that's doesn't if you anybody watching that video that has a brain would tap on your username and see that you have low growth.
Helen:So why are you advising people on how to grow? I just it baffles me. But it happens again and again on my on my feed because of the type of content I'm posting, so the platform is now feeding me more of those other experts. I hate it. I didn't I used to have that kind of For You page.
Helen:And it's just obviously the algorithm has changed and it's feeding people similar content all the time. I scroll so fast to try and avoid getting that type of content, but unfortunately, it keeps coming back to me. Anyway, the point here is, and I'm I know I'm sidetracking a little bit, but I I I want to give you a solution, not just a problem. Okay. So let's just start with how do you avoid falling into the trap.
Helen:You need to find the hook, find the opening within the context of your video. If it sounds like a template, you're immediately throwing it out. If it's if you sound like, oh, that's a hook line I've heard before, don't use it. Don't please don't use it. Try something different.
Helen:Be a little creative. Don't go to AI and give me 20 hook lines. Believe me, it's gonna give you the same 20 hook lines everyone else is using. That's another problem. We everyone's using AI to write the content and then put it on a teleprompter and read it.
Helen:You sound like everyone else. Sorry, not sorry. So judge your own content by whether you would wanna watch it. And are you saying the things that immediately would make you scroll on someone else's video because you know that's a hook line? That's a hint right there.
Helen:Try not to add to what is taking down social media and why everyone is having trouble selling now because every sales video has the same structure. And we are not trying to even, and it's hard because so many of us are making sales content. And I know so many of the creators in my studio, they're trying to sell products, do TikTok shop, do UGC, and all the things. So those formulas may work if you're a UGC creator and you wanna put it on a UGC platform because the brands want the hook lines. Fine.
Helen:Do it over on those platforms. But on your own page, your own social media, if your goal is growth community to gain like minded followers. If that's your goal on your social media page and it's not, you know, product sales, product sales, product sales, I know we are all in this, like, the sales funnel. And I used to really kind of reject it when it was first presented to me, and I don't I still don't love the thought of a sales funnel. I don't know why.
Helen:I've always been against the grain when it came to that, even though I know it works and people will say again and again, it's proven, it's proven, it's proven. I get it. It's proven. It is. But I think if you start thinking instead of growing from the top of the funnel, grow the people who come back.
Helen:Grow the people who are your your loyal commenters, your consistent viewers. Think about those people, and did they wanna hear you doing hook lines? Talk to those people. Oh, that's the that's a little that's it in a way. That's a little trick right there.
Helen:Talk to the people who already know you. Maybe trying that instead of this formula of every time you put a video out, you might be in front of new people. I've never thought that way. Every time I post a video, I don't think this is going to new people. I automatically presume this is going to the people who watch my videos and like my content.
Helen:And maybe that's why I've had better luck with this because I don't think I'm talking to a new audience every time. And I do think I make assumptions that when I show up on someone's For You page, I just speak as if I'm talking to people who already know that I'm an expert. I don't feel the need to say, you I'm know, a content creator. I have all this experience. Blah, blah, blah.
Helen:I never feel like I need to say that because I always assume, assume and presume that I'm talking to people who already know me. And maybe that's part of the strategy that will change how you think about your content a little bit. Interesting. Okay. So and I would also say to add to that, to give yourself permission to not worry about making big numbers so that you have time so that when you're experimenting with different engaging lines, different types of content, different ways of saying things than you're used to, you allow yourself the permission to fail.
Helen:Just be okay with it. Be like, oh, wait. I tried that. It didn't work so well. And maybe in three days it picks up traction.
Helen:Don't delete it because it didn't work well. Because sometimes somebody will find something different on your page and actually be more attracted to that instead of your usual content. I think it's okay to, I think now more than ever, since everybody's like, views are low, views are low, use that as an advantage. Say to yourself, what the hell? Views are low anyway.
Helen:I'm just gonna post something different. I'm gonna try something different to get people interested in what I have to say. And trying to let yourself have, you know, let yourself have a bad week even. A bad month. Just go, I'm not gonna have a great engaging month this month because I'm gonna try a lot of different things that I've never done before.
Helen:And it's like, okay, then you could sit here and think I don't have enough creativity to have a lot of different things. Okay. Pick one or two different things that you might wanna do. A different way to say something. Try a loop video.
Helen:Try starting, taking the end of your video and putting it on the beginning. Who cares if it flops? Like, that's the thing you have to think. Who cares if it if it flops? If you can have that mindset, it's a win.
Helen:And I will tell you, I am a I am a 100% of that mindset. I was like, I'm just gonna walk through New York City and do a fun video and then put text on it and see if that works. Whatever. I don't care if it works or if it doesn't work. I truly don't.
Helen:I had a good time making the video. I had some fun, like, walking around flipping my phone up and down in crowds of people. I just found my own fun in it. And so even if people don't deliver on the views for me, I know it was fun for me and it was also a fun experiment to try it. So you have to just be okay with you have to be as people will say, be comfortable in your own skin.
Helen:It truly is be comfortable in your own social media, you know. Let yourself be let yourself screw up, sort of, you know. Anyway. So I'm gonna add to this. The fix for the whole thing is not to stop thinking about hook lines or stop thinking about engaging opening lines.
Helen:That's that's not what I'm saying. Not what I'm saying. You still want to think what's going to attract people, which is why I'm going to link that other episode so you have all the ingredients. You still want to think about what's going to attract them to this video that you're making. But what you want to do is find what's going to attract them from the video itself, not from a page of hook lines you got from a TikTok expert that you went to their link in their profile and you downloaded their PDF of hook lines.
Helen:Have a little fun and if you have to have a little failure, just have fun with the failure and then try something different. Don't be a clone. The end. See you next week.