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Twice weekly show providing social media updates, trend alerts, original content ideas, strategy session, industry guests, tutorials and more!
Welcome to the Social Media Strategy. Another Friday is upon us. Time flies when you're having fun. I've had a bit of a cold this week, so my voice is a little hoarse, but I always push through. And here I am with kicking it off with some unsponsored by new finds that I love.
Helen:Okay. And the topic is lip stain. Why? Because I keep seeing all these lip stain products on TikTok, and I don't want, like, a peel and stick thing. I think I even ordered one of them, and I'm like, this doesn't even work.
Helen:It feels like it's ink going on my my skin or whatever. Anyway, I come to you with something good. Buckle up, ladies. At CVS, I love to look in the makeup section. I just get I don't know why.
Helen:I just I'm like looking, and I'm looking at the testers and all the things. And I found something that I swear to God, I want to actually contact CoverGirl and say, Can I make a video? Like pay me because I will make a hot ass video about this. The CoverGirl Outlast Lip Stain. It looks like this.
Helen:Let me show you up close. I'm also going to show you the brush. Okay? It's got like a little paintbrush on the tip. I'm wearing one right now.
Helen:And this is what I have to say. As we get older, you know the lip color fades. That's just a fact of life, you know, with other things. That should be the least of our problems. But our lip color tends to fade.
Helen:And so I'm always, especially because I don't really, I'm not a person who's constantly applying lip color all day, even though when I'm sitting at my, on my, when I'm sitting here I can't even talk. When I'm sitting here in my content creation mode, always have, like, the lip stuff near me because I'm recording. But when I'm out and about, I'm not constantly reapplying my lip balm. So I am pumped for this because it's it's just good. It's not a lip stain that feels weird.
Helen:It go and I the colors this color is so natural. It's almost like just the shade that my lip color was before I got to be 60. You know what I mean? It's just good. So I got this the first color I got was darker actually, and then I wait a second, this is the darker color.
Helen:And then I got the lighter color that matches my lips more. So I can even tell you what the colors are maybe, if I can find them on here. But one of them is a bit darker and one of them is a bit lighter here. Take a peek. And this one goes on and it's like just putting my teenage lips back on without it looking like I'm wearing lipstick even.
Helen:It just looks like I have color back in my lip. This one is a little bit more dressy, darker. It's like if you were getting dressed up to go out for dinner or something like that, so it's just a shade darker. And it stays on longer. And it feels a little, I want to say tingly maybe.
Helen:I don't even want to say that because I don't like when things are heavy menthol or burning or anything like that. It's just slightly there. That's all I can say. That's how I'll say it. It's like slightly there to know that it's there in a nice way.
Helen:But on top of that, this is another find. LA Girl, what? LA Girl Sheer Tint Lip Balm. Why? I don't know, but I found it and I'm like, oh, this looks interesting, and I just bought one.
Helen:And it's also, again, light shade. This actually feels a little minty. This is the one that feels a little minty when it goes on. I kinda like that. Not as much as the Blistex blue jar with the menthol, not as much as that.
Helen:But enough to go, feels good. So I bring you two good lip things. I'm so excited about them. I'm always searching for the right lip stuff. I also think I don't have to constantly reapply.
Helen:I notice that my lip color lasts a lot longer, And it's also not a color that's so stark and loud. And they have really good colors too. They have reds and things. But I kind of like a more muted tone. That's So check it out.
Helen:The CoverGirl Outlast Lip Stain gets my vote. And if you really want to have some fun with the LA Girl Sheer Tint, that's another story. You can also just use the lip stain and use like a regular clear lip balm, which I'm using also BeautyStat. So I keep that just regular lip balm in my bag. So if I just wanna use the stain with the lip balm, also A Okay.
Helen:I'm so excited about the new finds. Yay. Okay, the topic for today is really going deep into lives. And not just live like going live by yourself, but we're going to focus further on group lives. Because I think that whenever I talk about lives and I do here's tips for going live, because I don't do group lives a lot myself, it's not on my radar to talk about the etiquette for going live as a group.
Helen:And I know a lot of you do. As a matter of fact, I can think of one of the creators who joined the studio recently and she just went live right away, and now I see her always in group lives, which is really fun to see. Okay. So let's start with first, tips for going hosting your live, expectations from your community, and then reminders as a viewer and a guest. So we're going to break it down into three chunks.
Helen:Guess why? Because Lorna, bless her soul, asked me if I would make a tutorial for this for TikTok because she has a lot of creators that she works with, with not works with, but she goes into their group lives and she's friends with in her community, and they have a lot of trouble trouble with some of these things. So she's like, would you make a tutorial? And I said, sure. Send me notes.
Helen:Lorna, she's like the best student. Not only did she send me notes, she sent me like an outline this long. And I was like, Oh no, Lorna. I don't think this is a tutorial for TikTok. I think this is a podcast topic.
Helen:So I decided that I'm gonna record the whole thing here as a podcast topic, but I also recorded just my five top group live tips as a tutorial. So you'll be seeing that video separately. But this is the whole ball of wax. So again, buckle up. Ready?
Helen:First, as I always say, plan what you would like to accomplish in your live. Have notes ready to go in case you get off the topic. If you decide you're cooking, have the recipe ready, have the ingredients ready so that you're organized. If you're gonna have a guest, make sure that you've gone over the plan before you go live. If you're gonna do like a team live with someone, that should be more planned out.
Helen:That should have notes. You're gonna go over this topic, know, she's gonna take that, you're gonna take this, he's gonna do that, you're gonna do this, whatever it is. Make a plan. That's clutch. And if you're going live by yourself, I always say just make a few bullet points.
Helen:If you just want to chitchat, that's fine too, but have some topics top of mind on the list. That way if things get derailed, you always have a place to go and get yourself back on track. As you build Now, next tip for hosting. As you build your community, make sure you pick your moderators. This is so key, and thank you Lorna for being one of my moderators.
Helen:They need to know the rules that you live by, the things that you want and don't want, things that they can do to help you. You can give them certain permissions. It's all customizable when you set them up as a moderator about what they can do. But having the understanding with your moderators is really important. It's so funny because a lot of times I'll say something off the cuff like, alright, I'm only gonna be on here for another ten or fifteen minutes.
Helen:Lorna is immediately putting a clock on it and reminding me, for example. So your moderators can help you in a variety of ways. They can bring people into your live if you want to do a guest thing and you want them to manage who's coming in and out. So helpful. I really lean on, especially Lorna, for that one because when I do, I very rarely do group lives, but when I do, sometimes it's too overwhelming for me because it's not something I do a lot.
Helen:So I like the help. I'm always open for help and learning. Okay, the next thing is to create an understanding with your moderators about what's acceptable and not. So you don't want them blocking someone immediately if they say one thing. You want them to have, they're a reflection of you.
Helen:So you want them to have the same kind of, I guess, I'm gonna say at the fuse or the courtesy level that you have. So for example, a lot of times, and this happens recently, a few times, someone would come into the live, the same person, and would say the same one thing over and over trying to get me to talk about something political, like again and again. And I'm like, I'll tell you what, ma'am, or whoever this person was, I'm gonna ask you nicely just to take that off the table and stop making that comment. And if you don't, then my moderator's gonna have to block you. Like, I'm so nice to the trolls even, you know?
Helen:I have to just, like, set the boundaries, tell them, like, if you're not behaving, we're gonna have to let you leave. That was such a goofball. But it's true. Like, I just treat it like real life. Like, I give someone the benefit of the doubt.
Helen:Okay, this person's trying to get my attention. They're saying it over and over again. They're getting annoying now. So let me just say, Hey, you're getting annoying now. So this is your last warning.
Helen:If I was a teacher, I'd have like, this is your last warning, and then you'll be leaving the classroom. Okay. You get it? So that's it. Okey dokey.
Helen:And also, I guess remind your moderators that they have that power but not to abuse it. Like you don't want them all of a sudden blocking people because they get pissed off or if it's someone they don't like. You want to make sure there's an understanding of like, here's the protocol before someone gets blocked or muted. Next, as a host, this is expectations for your community. So you want to set clear boundaries for the people who are in your lives so that when you bring people in as a guest, they will stick to the topic.
Helen:So if you decide, hey, want to do a group live, but we're going to talk about, I'm make something up right now. Oh, I can do something very easy. So I wanted to go live and teach some of the studio members what it was like to go live. So we did a group live. And what was really nice, and I didn't even have to say, was I'd like the topic of the live to be about what you're learning in the studio as this is a lesson right now that we're doing live.
Helen:So first of all, my studio people, could they be more wonderful? I said this is almost like an infomercial, and I didn't even intend it to be that way, but they were so excited to share what they loved about the studio and trying to convince people to come in. It was beautiful and really, really nice. But that's what I'm saying. Like, your people, you want them to know that this is the topic, this is what we're staying on today, this is what we're talking about today, stay with me.
Helen:And so that your guests aren't derailing things and then bringing up other topics. And this is going to come to when I get to reminders for viewers and guests and the guests that come in. But before I even go down that path, I think it's the responsibility of the host to set the expectations for, hey, we're going do a group live, let's have a conversation beforehand. Because typically you can DM with people if you're gonna do something like that beforehand. And you know, I don't know if you know, but you can, you can set up a group chat with your live fans that come to your lives a lot.
Helen:So you can have a group chat where you saying, listen, we're gonna bring in these people today. Please, nobody else asks to be joining or whatever. You can set those things up ahead of time in a group chat, which actually can happen right in TikTok. I have a tutorial for that. Just so you know, tutorial for everything.
Helen:Okay, you want to realize that everything that you're emulating online is like same as real life. So if you invite people over to your house, you want to be a really nice host, you want to let people know like this is what I expect, you're going to bring an hors d'oeuvre, you're gonna bring an appetizer. You know, you set the expectations for your life. Here's what we're gonna do tonight. I thought we would do this and that.
Helen:And I think that's communication is so important if you're gonna go down this path and do a lot of group lives. And you will start to set those expectations in the lives as you learn and as you communicate in real time in the lives. Like, set the boundaries then. If someone says something, you can say, No, we're not talking about that right now. We're going to stay on this topic.
Helen:In a nice way. I've done it before. Like sometimes people will start bringing up yet another topic and I'm like, I can't really I can't really get into that right now. That's a topic for another day. Very nicely.
Helen:Like, we're talking about we're gonna be talking about this right now. We're talking about how to go live. We're not gonna be talking about how to do a great transition. That's not what the topic is for today. Whatever.
Helen:So you get it. You can, in real time, set those boundaries because your community needs to understand that there are boundaries and guidelines. And if you're not setting them, of course they're gonna walk all over you because everybody wants to be the star of the show. And most people, like, they wanna get your attention. So they're gonna poke, poke, poke.
Helen:Just like when people are inviting themselves over and over and when I turn on my live and it's like tons of people inviting to join. So we're gonna get to that next because boy oh boy, that can be a real headache. Okay, now, so before I wrap up this expectations thing, I just wanna say one more time, it's just important to be consistent about what you expect each time. Because if you're changing, like today you're letting any willy nilly person come in, and then tomorrow you're setting boundaries, and then today you're, you know, five people joined that weren't expect you know, that's gonna send out a funny message to your regular viewers. They're going to be like, Oh, the other day she was fine to let everybody in and today she's not.
Helen:And I've had this problem just in a simple Facebook group where I said we're not going to have people promote it was like something where I didn't want to have people promoting their business at that time. I mean, somebody got so offended. Well, everyone else in here is promoting their business. I'm like, I don't think so. But people will right away get annoyed at you if you are going left, right, left, right and you can't make a clear decision about what you're doing.
Helen:Okay? Okay, sorry for my throat. I don't want to have to edit this, so I'm gonna keep powering through. Reminders for your community. And this is where I'm gonna get into the things that I put in the tutorial actually, which is number one, don't invite yourself into someone's life again and again and again.
Helen:And if you do it once because you, Oh shoot, I guess I did that by mistake. Sometimes you do it by mistake, sometimes when you're scrolling. It's okay. Don't do it again and again. I have people, I will literally decline, decline, decline.
Helen:Five times the same person keeps inviting themselves. Listen, if I was going to have you in, would have hit one of the five times, I would have hit it and said, Okay, Stop inviting yourself in again. It is very annoying. And as a creator, as a host, you don't want to have to turn that option off altogether. Although I tend to say mute for ten minutes and I stop the madness because when I first come in, is like boom, boom.
Helen:It is incessant. Okey dokey. The second one is, if you do get invited in, stick to the topic and don't like immediately talk over the host and take over. If you were on a talk show, if you were invited onto the Jimmy Fallon show, you wouldn't go sit in there and hop in the seat and then start telling Jimmy Fallon how to run his show. You would be the guest.
Helen:You would let him lead the interview. You would let him lead the topic and steer the boat. That's what you need to do as a guest in someone's life. You're not there to totally take over the life. Okay?
Helen:I can't stress that enough because that is the most frustrating thing, especially when you have people, multiple people in the life talking over each other. Like no one wants to listen to that, honestly. It just gets it's irritating. It's almost like listening to someone have an argument, but it's not even a juicy enough argument to listen to. You know, if it was juicy, you might want to stick around.
Helen:Anyway, but I digress. The next one is if the host invites you in and they're talking about their product, their business, their service, etcetera, you don't want to be the person that's asking for something for free or trying to get product for free or suggest things that they do. Let the host promote as they plan to. If they want to offer you something for free, trust me they will. They will reach out to you later.
Helen:It's not something you want to do in the comments section. It's not something you want to do over and over again. Talking to them, it's just awkward. You're going to put the host in a really awkward position. It's going to be uncomfortable, and you're likely never going get invited in again.
Helen:And so then you're going to have bad feelings. You don't want that. We want lives to be good vibes because community and seeing the people that we like seeing in our comment section and making them feel welcome is a two way street. It's like you also have to be respectful of the person who's invited you into their home. Okay?
Helen:It's so basic. It's so like, sometimes I think it's human nature that just in real life people are obnoxious and take advantage of things, right? So I guess it's the same online. But I do like to relate things to real life more. Okey dokey.
Helen:Next one is don't tell them to invite someone else in. So if you say if you're in a Live and then you want you don't want your friend to suggest them, Oh, bring my friend in. She can talk about such and such. No. If that's not planned ahead of time, you could reach out to them in a message privately ahead of time and say, Hey, if I come into the live today, it would be really great if you wanted to have my stylist in, if you're talking about fashion.
Helen:Give them the opportunity to say, Yay, that's cool, or No, without presuming it's okay once you're in there and then you're making them feel awkward to have to say no. Flip side to that is the host needs to be clear and not feel bad about it that actually we're not doing that right now. I'm going to pass on that for today. That's not what I had on the agenda. You can say it nicely.
Helen:You don't have to be mean. But I mean set your record straight, I think. I don't think anybody would be hurt by that if you were honest and to the point without being rude and mean. But that's just me. Okay.
Helen:Now, lastly, well, I don't know if it's lastly. I'm gonna read all the rest of the notes and see if Lorna left added something else in. But my last thing is to just really respect, well, so two last things. One is to respect the host and the host's decisions on how many people they want to have in the live. But my last one is really for the advice for the host, is set those boundaries at the start.
Helen:So if you know I can only handle four people in the live, it's gonna get too overwhelming if I have six, seven or eight people in there. That's what you have to decide. Tell your moderator this is the max. That way they can bring someone in, boot someone out, or manage who's getting in and out. Okay?
Helen:Because that's really important. I think that the whole root of this thing is communication and having clear communication is when no one gets hurt. And I don't mean hurt physically, I mean hurt emotionally. No one's gonna feel bad if you've said your things clearly up front and if you are acting respectfully back. Like there's gonna be no hurt feelings at that point.
Helen:When it gets weird is if you're pushing your agenda and they're not able to clearly say, No, we're not doing that right now. And then they get annoyed, so then they have to avoid you down the road. And then there's bad feelings and then all of a sudden this one's blocking that person. It's tough. It's also tough when you have people coming into the lives and let's say there's drama on TikTok, we know it, there's drama everywhere.
Helen:So let's say you invite someone in and there's somebody that they know but you've blocked them because there's somebody that you don't want seeing your content for whatever reason. It becomes awkward because now they'll be able to see the live because of your guests opening up that door. So you've got to really be mindful for yourself, protect yourself as a host, but also know when you're inviting your guests in what cans of worms you're opening up in case there is a thing where you're like, you know, don't wanna once I invite that person in, it's gonna lead to down this path x, y, and z, and I don't wanna have all those people in. I don't know. I'm making it up.
Helen:I have to I'm so welcoming. It's hard for me to think in the terms of drama. I know it's out there, but I'm like, well, I'm sorry. You know, if I hear someone's not talking to someone, I'm like, can we all be nice? Like, let's just all get along.
Helen:So I struggle when it comes to advice for things when there's drama related because I'm just like, I don't like confrontation. I was always a mediator in my family. I was the oldest and it was twin sisters and my brother. I was always mediating things. So I think that's an innate quality that I have.
Helen:So I'm always like, Everybody's welcome. Let's all have fun and be nice to each other, can't we? And I just like everything to be happy. So, you know, what can I say? It's a flaw?
Helen:I don't know. Maybe it's a gift. I'm gonna go with that. And that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed my little rant about lives and my lip discovery.
Helen:I want to know how many of you are going to get this. I know, I feel that I can think of a few of you that are going to go straight to the CVS and look for this because it's also, I didn't mention this, but the way it goes on with the brush. It's just more it's not like one of those, dipstick things like lip stain. It's like an actual brush, like a paintbrush. I like it.
Helen:I'm gonna end with that. Way too much about the lip stuff today. Thanks for listening as always. Always fun to be here. See you next week.