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Welcome to the socialized forecast, Tuesday, October 1st. Oh my gosh. It's October. I cannot believe it. Where did the summer go?
Helen:Where did September go? I'll tell you where it went. I was on a sailboat for a lot of it, so I know where it went. But I do wanna share a funny story. This is completely off the rails, off topic.
Helen:If you have been following me for a while and you saw I made a TikTok a while ago about a drone that I purchased, and it was one of those. It's called the Hover X1, and it's a self. It follows you as you walk, and it's it's a really cool toy. I thought I would play with it a lot more. But to be honest, I really didn't, and I think it's because of living in the city.
Helen:Streets are crowded. I'm not gonna be whipping it out on the street trying to navigate through people. And really, when I'm at the beach, it's just me at the beach. So what am I really gonna film there? So I haven't really used it as much as I thought I would use it.
Helen:But I decided to take it with me to Tahiti. And I thought, oh, how cool. We'll get a really nice drone shot of the sailboat that we were on. So I brought the thing with me. And there's a funny story that goes with this first, which is a long time ago, my husband had bought one of those other types of drones, DJI drone drone, and he didn't know how to use it well.
Helen:He's not techie at all when it comes to that stuff. And he we did the same kind of situation. He was on a boat, and he said, oh, I'm gonna send it up, and I'm gonna, like, get a a drone shot of the of the us on the boat. And he hit the home button when he got panicky, when it got a low bat when it had a low battery alert, and the home button sent the drone home to where the boat was and was no longer. And so that drone bit the dust.
Helen:It went into the water, and we never saw it again. So I laughed at that for for years. That's been the running joke. It's been a long time, but it's been a running joke in our family. Anyway, I take this drone that I have now, the hover x one, and I say, oh, I'm gonna use it on the trip.
Helen:I'm gonna, like, hover up. We'll get a shot of the boat. We'll get some shots of scenery. So we used it a couple of times, but on the last day and it worked fine, by the way. And on the last day, decided we wanna get a nice aerial shot of the boat, actually, and it was a little windy.
Helen:Well, it was a little more than a little windy. So I sent the drone up and the poor baby could not fight the wind. It went up and we were all waving. We're getting our final shot and the poor little drone was trying to battle the wind to get back to us and we the boat wasn't even moving and we could not get this thing to come back. We watched it kind of wind away as I will say.
Helen:It got pushed and both my son and his friend were trying they jumped onto the dinghy and they tried to go after it and catch it in the air, but it was by the time they got to it, it just sank itself right down into the back into the ocean. So there went my little hover X drone and it is no longer. The good part is that I got all the shots off it before it went in to the sea. Because every time I use it, I just download the shots immediately. I don't know why.
Helen:It's just a habit. That's what I do. Thank God. So I got all the previous shots. It wasn't a lot, but I had a few shots.
Helen:So I did have that footage, but I didn't get our one big group shot ending, which is sad. And my, my hover x one is now at the bottom of the Pacific somewhere near Tahiti. So there's that. Anyway, little funny human interest story for you there. Don't use a drone in high wind.
Helen:Lesson learned from the mothership. Now for today, let's talk about, some things that we're seeing moving forward in social media in general. And I will tell you that Taylor Lorenz, if you know her, she's a writer on all things social media. She actually published published a book about the history of social media and she and she's really, really well versed in trends and all of that. And she wrote an article which I find quite interesting, so that's why I wanna share it here.
Helen:And it looks like you have to subscribe to a publication to read the whole thing, but just from reading the title and not paying for a subscription, I'm linking it so you can you might get to get one free read on it. But it's about this wave of not editing being a trend now. So using doing unedited content and there she cites several different creators who are doing this and they just, you know, run their camera and they post their videos unedited. A lot of times, YouTubers are doing it, I apparently. And she cites a few other creators who are doing it.
Helen:And I know some creators who are on TikTok in particular that I mean, one of the guys says he doesn't even know how to edit. So he says, I don't know. I just press the button and I record. But he has a really big audience that listens to him get on his soapbox and talk about topics. Another example is Rosie O'Donnell.
Helen:She doesn't know how to edit her videos, so she just presses the button and she goes. Sometimes she stops and starts, but that's the max that she does. And a lot of people have referred her to me to learn to edit. I don't think she really cares to learn to edit. She just likes to talk and she just gets on her phone.
Helen:She's like, hi, everybody. And she does her daily, you know, talks or whatever. So there is an audience for unedited content, and I'm not saying that this isn't going to be a trend. I'm not calling the trends here, but my gut tells me it's really gonna be creator dependent because not everyone is gonna be able to get up on a microphone and talk and have do or whatever unedited content and be engaging enough to hold their audience. So I love to hear and understand and keep my eyes open to what's trending and be aware of it, but I also don't necessarily see it as black and white.
Helen:It is so personally dependent on the creator, the vibe, the how engaging they are as a person. Just like in real life, some people are more animated and keep you really interested in something. And other people, like, sometimes they'll tell a story and it's so long and you just want the story to end because it's going on and on. So I think it's just like in real life. This is gonna be very dependent on the personality of the creator who's putting the content out there.
Helen:So don't hear this and think, oh, no. I don't have to edit my content. I don't know how to learn I don't need to learn how to edit. All contraire. There's a reason editing was invented, and there's a reason content is edited for commercials and ads and things like that.
Helen:It's to keep people engaged. So I don't necessarily think I'm not gonna jump on board or get on this bandwagon to say, oh, now we all should do content unedited. I just don't. As a matter of fact, sometimes I think my podcasts are too long winded and I probably should edit them, but I don't have time for that. So you got to you have to listen to me unedited here.
Helen:But again, if I posted these on TikTok, I don't think I'd have an audience listening to the whole thing. I don't think that's the kind of platform where somebody necessarily wants to hear unedited content unless it's a story time like the way Risa Tissa took off with her just unedited stories about her her life. I mean, way interesting to listen to, so therefore, she had an audience for it. So I just like to point out trends that I see or things that I learn and just say to you that don't take it and jump 2 feet in and think, oh, this is the answer now because so and so said it and she's an expert. Not necessarily for you.
Helen:It's not necessarily for everyone. I always say that. And that's why in general, anybody can really become something on social media by being themselves because you never know when the next trend is going to be. Just like she's predicting these longer content creators and she's saying, oh, look at all the views they're getting on their YouTube videos. This is gonna be the new wave.
Helen:Well, maybe it's a new wave for them, and they decided that they're going down this path and they are getting the views because of it. It doesn't mean everybody should do the same thing. And I just wanna make sure that I give you that context so that when you hear something and you think I gotta do it too, maybe not. Maybe not everybody has to do it. Food for thought.
Helen:Alright. Let's get into the trends this week. Oh, boy. Lots of easy ones and I like that because sometimes you need easy ones. I also before I start powering them out, I wanna say to you that we have something in the hopper, Julie and I, where we are planning to create a production studio type of thing.
Helen:I'm gonna talk more about it as it unfolds. But because we are seeing multiple trends and we we pair them down to put into the newsletter, it's a lot of work. We pick the ones we think are the hottest, put them in newsletter each week, but we are finding a lot more. So I think what we're gonna do is have a place where we're gonna house trends and update them. And so it's not gonna be just 22.
Helen:2 for TikTok and 2 for Instagram. We're gonna have a database so that you can go weekly. If you don't wanna scroll back and find a newsletter, you're gonna be able to go there and say, oh, let me see what's what's happening this week. And you're gonna be able to see more more choices. So that's coming.
Helen:Stay tuned. Let's get into the trends for this week. The first one is look how far you've come. Very simple, sentimental photo trend, which shows how far you've come over the years. I wish I had more time to do some of these trends myself because I would love to go and think, like, when I started on TikTok in 2020 to now and do a show of progression.
Helen:I mean, the journey, me going through cancer, doing that whole thing coming out of it, That could be a really interesting photo carousel. I always say I'm gonna do that one. And then the week goes by, and I'm too busy to get to anything except posting tutorials for you. I need to take more time for myself. But guess what?
Helen:Work is really crazy right now. So it's like work. It's tutorials, and myself goes less. So that's just how it is. I'll get to it maybe one of these times.
Helen:The next trend is life is worth living. This is sweet and it's it's on the contrary of the sentimental trend because you can do be much more lighthearted and you can do anything that where you show something that's that's worth living and it doesn't necessarily have to be serious. So it could be just simply as we showed in the example is just like somebody loving their burger and fries or chicken nuggets and fries. Something simple like that. It might be just me and my tripod.
Helen:Life is worth living when I have my my tripod with me or my phone with me. Whatever it is, you can have fun with it. It could be your product. It could be your business. Run with it.
Helen:It's a nice easy one. The next ones are Instagram heavy. What is it you are addicted to? Another fun one. Very easy to show off things that you love.
Helen:This one's hitting harder on Instagram. You're if you're a brand, you can highlight your favorite product. If you are a TikTok teacher, you can highlight things that you love, like all my content equipment that I use to make my my videos, for example. If you're a food influencer, show off your favorite kitchen tools. And this is a nice way to do it in a trending way where you're bringing your audience potentially gaining followers because you're putting a trend out there and they will know what your page is about.
Helen:So use it to define what your page and what your focus is. And that's what that's the really the way to use trends is to have the opportunity to be seen by more viewers because it's trending, but also tell your viewers what your page is about so that you can maybe find more followers. Easy peasy. As we say, lemon squeezy. Maybe not, but we can we can dream.
Helen:Alright. Next one is, do you work here? This is fun because it's humorous. It's similar in that you're going to you can potentially use this to highlight your brand, but you you don't have to say the audio is, excuse me, do you work here? And the feature is a woman who has all the the apparel from the company she's working for, which is really obvious that she works there.
Helen:But you can use this to answer a different question. So in other words, if you have if you use the audio and put the text on screen that says, excuse me, are you a runner? Excuse me, do you love to bake? Excuse me, do you teach TikTok? Whatever the heck it is that's about your niche.
Helen:You put the question on there and then you show yourself doing those things. So it's a very all of the trends are a really nice way to show who you are this week. So hop on those if you haven't had a chance to do an intro or you don't like to do a regular introduction type of video, this is an opportunity to introduce yourself to your audience without having to speak it or do it more officially. You can do it with a trend. Love it.
Helen:Alright. Next for today is I wanted to just talk about this one thing that happened over the weekend where I saw somebody's TikToks Instagram story, not TikTok, Instagram story. And it was a question. What's your favorite tool? Or I guess she I don't know if she said tripod.
Helen:She said, what's your favorite tool that helps you record in the car? Because she was trying to record something in the car and she just had to hold her phone. So she had one of the question stickers where you answer it. So I wrote in there a tentacle. Great.
Helen:It wraps right around the steering wheel. So I I did that and she actually wrote wrote me back and ordered it. And I'm like, darn it. I would have given you my affiliate link. Anyway, because it is my favorite for the car.
Helen:You can wrap it around the steering wheel. You could you can twist it around things. You can stick it on your you can suction it to your windows. It's a really nice one for that type of content. Lots of my tools have different uses.
Helen:So I use different tripods for different things. They're all inexpensive. This one in particular is a nice one because it's light. It doesn't weigh a lot when you're putting it in a purse. And then it does it very versatile.
Helen:You could stick it to things. You could bend it, twist it any which way. You could face it down if you're gonna do tutorial type stuff like I do on my phone. It's a really nice one. So I decided I'm gonna talk about this little thing now and putting it in the newsletter that I did share it with a creator who was looking for something to use in her car, and she appreciated it.
Helen:And then she shared it with her audience. I told her, oh my gosh. I should have given you my affiliate link before you ordered it. And she said, oh, give it to me now and I'll post it on my page, and maybe somebody will purchase it from your affiliate link, which is so nice of her. And so that's what I'm putting in the newsletter today.
Helen:In case you're interested in it, use my affiliate link. Why not? How nice. Okeydokey. Onto the original content ideas.
Helen:Woohoo. It is officially October, as I mentioned earlier, so that means all things fall and Halloween. And if you know my family, my son Jonathan is obsessed with Halloween. It is 100% my fault. When we lived in the suburbs, I was so into the Halloween decorations, and I don't know.
Helen:Over the years, I just got more into Halloween. I would put mannequins on the front porch. I would have curtains where the kids would have to come through the curtains and find all that see all the mannequins, and and I would be one of the mannequins and I'd sit really still and then I'd move when one of the kids came through the curtains. I mean, I'm a crazy person. Legit.
Helen:So I think that I got Jonathan, my son Jonathan, a little hooked on Halloween over the years. And if you know how autistic people operate, they get into something and they go all in. So he's really into Halloween now and he lives in his group home and his it's all about the Halloween decorations. So he had that house decorated. I posted about it.
Helen:It was September 28th. I think he was up there with his decorations. Gets right in on it. Anyway, so it is behind us. So here's your opportunity to share what you're doing to celebrate, whether it's your decor.
Helen:I did not hesitate to public to post about my son's Halloween decorations. You could make suggestions about costumes. You know, you can do a whole thing where you're gonna do, like, a costume suggestion a day until Halloween. And that could be a fun one if that's something you're interested in, If you're a crafter, Halloween crafts. I mean, really, there's so much you can do with that.
Helen:So get ahead of it because sometimes we forget and then all of a sudden it's close and you're scrambling. The next one is, we haven't suggested this in a while, but re respond to a comment. Pick a con, a comment that's doesn't have to be explicit question to you. It could be a generic thing that said in one of in one of your comments and you use that to prompt a video. It does sometimes help engagement to do that, and it also will if especially if you get a comment from a big creator, that's a great way to, you know, get yourself some more views because then that creator might call attention to it by either reposting it because it's something that you used of theirs, and that will get you more views.
Helen:They might put it on their story. I like to when I'm tagged in things, I try to share them to my story and give people a little boost when they, you you know, use tag me for one reason or another. And the last one is, we have not suggested this, I don't think ever, oh my, is create an ASMR video that you might like to see out on the Internet. There's a lot of people that do it with food and different, niches, but you you can you can do anything with this. You don't have to make it about it doesn't have to be cracking eggs or stirring or baking.
Helen:I know that we see a lot of baking ASMR, but you can take it outside the box. Maybe it's just something like you're unboxing a product you just got or you're just using, you're using your external external microphone to capture sounds, like put it on your wrist and do things with your hands. Have some fun with it. I I like it. I never really think about doing it because it's far off my niche and, it's like low priority for me, but I like it.
Helen:I think it's a good one to consider, and it might change things up for you if you have never done it before. You never know what you might be good at. That's another thing. Discovery. Like just try things and discover what you're good at.
Helen:Love it. Okay. Now let's talk tutorials. Feature tutorials for today. I got 2 for you.
Helen:1 is setting your aspect ratio in capcut so that you make sure that your content doesn't have black at the top and the bottoms or it's too small. I've had a lot of people ask me, why is my content in a little box in the middle when I edit in Imovie? I can tell you that one. That's why I don't recommend Imovie. It's too many steps to deal with Imovie to get it formatted correctly.
Helen:But I noticed it a lot in people, and you know how I always know it, people using CapCut because they're usually more beginners more likely, and at the end, they have a little wiggly logo that they don't know how to remove. So I go up, it was editing CapCut, and they didn't know how to set the right aspect ratio to fit the phone. So I did a nice simple tutorial which teaches you how to tap the little aspect ratio button, choose TikTok, which is the same aspect ratio as Instagram, YouTube shorts and Facebook reels. You choose that one and you will always have your content filling the screen correctly. The only hiccup is if you are a person who thinks, oh, they're gonna listen to one of the gurus, type some text on the screen and slide it off so you can't see it.
Helen:That oftentimes will reformat your content and make it smaller, so don't do that. Don't do that. It seems like a good idea, but it's gonna potentially make your video a little smaller, and then you'll have black at the top and the bottom. Alright? So that's a little hot tape hot tip for that.
Helen:And then the other tutorial for today is the YouTube translation feature because I accidentally stumbled upon this when I was doing some research for a client about translating some commercials to Spanish for him. And I went in a rabbit hole, like, way in. And I found that when you turn on the closed captions in YouTube when you're viewing a video, and you have to turn on the closed captions first and put them on in your main language, the the language that's spoken. But then when you tap the little settings wheel, gives you the option to auto translate and it gives you multiple languages. I mean, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Spanish.
Helen:There was so many languages. Honestly, I couldn't believe it. So if you are a viewer and you find that you like watching content, oh, let's say my tutorials, but you're natively a Spanish speaker and you want to really I mean, I know that you're probably not. If you're a native Spanish speaker, you're probably not listening to this podcast in English. But if you know someone that could use my tutorials, but is not speaking English as their first language, they can go to the YouTube channel where these my videos are posted and watch them with Spanish subtitles.
Helen:So yay to that. I'm so excited. I wanna figure out a way to promote that a little, I think. I think that would be helpful. Alright.
Helen:So I'm gonna wrap it up for today. You can go find the music suggestions as always in the newsletter. I have missed being here on the regular, and so I enjoy I'm happy to be back, and I am in the midst of a big shoot right now preparing for some Pronamel commercials, and it's so much fun because I do this thing where I make the versions with myself pretending to be the dentist. It's such a riot. The clients then come cuckoo, but at least then I know what shots I wanna shoot.
Helen:And it's all laid out and I edit them and I get so prepared so that when I get to the shoot, there's not a lot of guesswork. Because a lot of times on these shoots, the clients can envision something. So I literally show them. I show them. Here's how it goes.
Helen:Here's how it's gonna look. And it's so cool. So that's my little, my little secret sauce that I add to my my day work, my production job. And I do love it. Okay.
Helen:That's all for today. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed it, please do leave a nice little click on the 5 star thing, whatever whatever. If you're watching this on YouTube, I love the comments. So thank you for watching.
Helen:I appreciate you, and I just really do look forward to the feedback. So thank you again, and have a great one. I'll see you on Friday. Bye.