Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Free newsletter for social media content creators!
Social media updates, trend alerts, original content ideas, music/audio suggestions, tutorials and more!
Welcome to the socialized forecast, Tuesday, September 24, 2024. And I am still traveling, but I'm here with you. So I'm recording ahead of time. And since I don't know what the trends are going to be, just like I did last time, I'm going to share some original content ideas, and then I'm gonna go off on a little fun topic q and a. So we're gonna do some questions, not really questions, but I'm gonna pick some things that I wanna talk about that I get asked a lot.
Helen:And I'm gonna cover just a random boatload of things in this episode. So I love it. It's kind of a a Helen brain dump, if you will. So let's get started. I first want to I'm gonna start this with the original content ideas just so that we can get something organized right off the bat, and I'm not running off the rails too quickly.
Helen:So as we're nearing the end of September, we can use the song wake me up when September ends. This is just such a fun song to try and tackle because when when it gets to the end of September, suddenly, all of a sudden, it's fall really quick. Like, it just, like, flows into that Halloween season. So now is a good time to take that song and then use it to your advantage. You can make your own fun meme type trend with it or you can just do a recap of September.
Helen:But take advantage of it because the music usually hits around this time. And those musics those September theme songs usually start trending. The other one is the sweater weather. I had included that earlier in a newsletter. I'm not sure if you're sure if you saw that, but that's also a good one to to bring up in the fall and see if you can get some traction.
Helen:So that's idea number 1. Number 2 is vlog part sorry. Vlog one part of your routine. So take one part of your daily routine and create a hyper focused blog about it. And this is really fun for it can be for niche creators, it can be for small businesses.
Helen:If you're a fashion influencer, maybe you create a vlog specifically detailing getting dressed for the day. So that's specifically your your wheelhouse. So do something specific in that and show the entire process, even the things that you think might be boring. How do you accessorize? How do you think about what you're gonna wear before you even get started to pick out your outfit?
Helen:That's that would be one example. And then for small business creators, it's easy to vlog one set of tasks that you have to do. Even if it's boring, people who aren't in that industry oftentimes like to see it. They wanna see where do you store all your products. Do you have a warehouse?
Helen:Do you have a place you store it? Or is it one room in your house? We'd love to see the behind the scenes. So think about doing that. And then the last idea is literally random.
Helen:Don't overthink this one. Make a video sharing some random thoughts. This could be very funny, insightful, existential, whatever you want them to be. Just share something outside of your regular content to shake it up and see if you can get some traction on something completely random. In the newsletter today, you will find the music suggestions, the tutorials.
Helen:So I don't have them yet since I'm recording this ahead of time. So in that case, I'm gonna tackle a few random topics. And I have been thinking about what I wanna talk about and I made just such a random bullet point list. So I'm gonna go down 1 by 1 in this list. The first one, copyright problems.
Helen:Oh my god. I get this question so often. For example, how can I take something off YouTube and share it on my social media? And I will cost I caution all of these people. Whatever you're taking off YouTube, you don't have the rights to it.
Helen:It's someone else's content. So in essence, it's considered theft. It's considered copyright infringement. It's considered stealing content if you do that. And obviously, people do it all the time and they make memes out of it.
Helen:So there's ways around it. If you want to do a meme and use somebody's image and put that in and see if you can get away with it. But our apps are getting so smart now. The TikTok app right away flags content when it's not yours. It will flag your own content when you repost it with a TikTok logo on it because it thinks you stole it.
Helen:It thinks you stole your own content. This has happened to me before. So the apps are so smart. It's really hard to be able to take something and not get flagged. And you don't wanna have your account flagged because you're using peep other people's content.
Helen:So I always say, listen. I mean, you can try it. You can use an app that you can download with I think it's called clip, clip grab. Oh, my god. Is that what it's called?
Helen:I think it's called clip grab. I'll link it in the show notes, But you can use clip grab and you can download the video and then take a clip of it and edit it and see if you can get away with it. It's just that you'll have to realize that there's a very good chance that you could get flagged for it. And I'm not sure it's worth it. So I'll leave it to you and I'll say, you know, I see creators that have their whole pages based on movie clips that they are reviewing or whatever.
Helen:I honestly can't tell you from experience how they get away with that. I don't know. I don't know if they somehow put in their caption something that gets them off the hook. I really wish that I could tell you. I just know that just like somebody that would take your content and post it on their page and they don't have the rights to do it, but they do it.
Helen:And tons of people get away with it. I had tons of accounts taking my tutorials and putting it on their accounts and somehow they didn't get flagged. So it's not a perfect science and there's no police out there that are perfectly suited. There's no, like, social media police that are policing it. Otherwise, we wouldn't have people stealing our content and using it.
Helen:So I have con peep I have, an actual video on how to get copyright how to report a copyright if somebody takes your videos and uses them when you haven't given them permission. So that's the other side of it. If you're a person who, you know, treat treat content like you'd want your content to be treated. If you're gonna take someone's content and put it on your pages, if it's your own, that's that's not cool. What can I say?
Helen:It's not allowed. So if you have someone that has taken your content and is using it, I do have a link of a process of a tutorial that shows the process of how you can report it. And it's really successful because I've had multiple people come to that tutorial and say, thank you. I got my accounts removed because of this video. So it does work.
Helen:But I'm telling you, it's just you don't wanna get yourself into copyright infringement where you're getting flagged for it. It's just it's not really worth going down that path. So to the same point is my next bullet point which is music usage. So a lot of people ask me, how come I can't use more than one song on my video? Why can't I make it loop?
Helen:Why can't I this? Why can't I that with the music? Why can't I use multiples multiple musics? Why can't I make the music longer on the video? Because the apps have paid for copyright usage for a certain portion of the song.
Helen:And that's typically how it works. So if you extend it, you're gonna get a violation. If you take it out of the app, go to cap cut and loop the music, you're gonna get a violation. I have many times had violations because I was teaching a lesson and I show I played the music on my phone because I was teaching how to do a trend. I even added the music back when I attached when I put posted the video to TikTok or to Instagram, I added the music that I used in the video and I still had my video muted on TikTok.
Helen:So it's so frustrating. It's so it's so tough. They're tightly watching what we do now and to protect people who own the rights to these things. You know, you have to understand as a musician, your you your music is not out there for you to be able to have promote an eyeglass commercial or an eyeglass ad or a TikTok shop thing. No.
Helen:It's not it's not okay. They can't use your image, your likeness, your sound, your original your original idea, your original music idea to promote a product. It's not it's not legal. And I think a lot of people just think, oh, well, music's out there for me to use. Well, no.
Helen:Not really an artist made it. Think of it as artwork. If you take someone's artwork, it's the same thing. Okay? So you can't, unfortunately, extend the music in a TikTok.
Helen:You can't loop it. You can't you can slide it and move it and use it in different parts of your video, but you can't break it apart. Start the music, stop the music, and start the music again. It just doesn't work that way. They don't let you mess with and change the music.
Helen:It's not allowed. Even if you try to do it in cap cut, when you post it over to TikTok, they're gonna recognize that. They're gonna post it over to Instagram. Instagram, they're gonna recognize that. There are many, many, many creators who do it, get away with it.
Helen:There are many cases where you can do it and won't get a violation. I'm just here to tell you that's not how it works. So you take a risk. Each time you do it, you run a risk of getting a violation. That's that.
Helen:Okay. Now, in the same way, if you're using other people's content, you're gonna have the same situation. So it's really a good idea if you want to use someone else's video as as I did talk about in the etiquette thing. Make sure you ask their permission. If you're gonna you if you're gonna wanna use someone's video that you know they made and that's out there for the taking, ask their permission if you wanna put it on your account if they created the content.
Helen:That's always a helpful thing to do. I've had people ask me, can I put your your tutorials on my course? And it's like, wait a minute. You're gonna sell a course and use my tutorials. That just doesn't seem right.
Helen:So I just say, no. Thank you. I'd rather I'd rather not that happen. Okay. My next bullet point for today, just because I got this as a question just yesterday.
Helen:And that is this person's just starting out on Instagram, and they would like to just the way they do on TikTok post longer videos, 3 minute, 10 minute videos. And she asked me, can we post longer videos on Instagram, On Instagram reels specifically. And the answer is yes, but you can't do it by starting a reel. You can't press the plus and start a reel and add a long video because it will cut you off after 90 seconds. But what you can do is press post, you know, press the plus, select post, select your 10 minute video or however long the video is, and then post it as a post.
Helen:And that will as soon as it posts it puts it into the reels category. It puts it into Instagram reels. The issue with that, there's always a catch, right? Never could be simple is if you do have a longer video and when you're putting it on a post, you won't be able to add music because the music on Instagram is limited to 90 seconds. So if you do have a 3 minute video, you're not gonna be able to add music on it.
Helen:So just be aware that that's just the reality. If you wanna post a longer video, usually longer videos, I can't imagine people wanna listen to a music track on their video for 10 minutes long. So usually the content is more like a podcast or more like like a workshop they're gonna share or some longer format content that doesn't require music, but which is helpful because you can't add music to it when it's longer than 90 seconds. Okay. That's a helpful piece of information for a lot of people starting out on Instagram because they think why why is my I have to cut everything down to 90 seconds and it just adds such incredible stress when you're trying to make content and your content's just a little over or it's a lot over.
Helen:And then you think you have to cut it way down. When it's a music video, yes, you do. So, I'm gonna give you an example. I often go to weddings where I make little videos for the bride and groom. And it typically, I always have so much content because there's so many people at the wedding and I'm covering so much footage.
Helen:And I end up like with a 3 minute video. Well, I I put music on it in cap cut and I send it to the bride and groom privately on a link. And I say, here's your here's a nice 3 minute video for you, but I cannot post that version. You can't post it with music when it's longer than 90 seconds because if you do that on Instagram, it's gonna cut you off and it's not gonna show the whole video. You can do it on TikTok, so that's fun, But you have to pick music that is longer and will accommodate the video.
Helen:So in TikTok, you can pick 3 minute songs or 3 and a half minute songs. There's a lot of music that is available. It's not trending. It's not gonna show up in the trending sounds or anything like that. But you can find music to put on your video that is 3 minutes long, 4 minutes long, etcetera.
Helen:So that's fun. And that's what I really love about TikTok is that I can put the music on there for a nice 3 minute beautiful wedding video, and then I can hit the save button, save the video, and send it to the bride and groom. And then they have their nice longer video to save in their memories. But the one that gets posted is the cut down version of the hot 90 seconds. The hot 90.
Helen:That's what I'm gonna call it from now on. So, that's a really nice way to kind of, I don't know, be able to be creative in longer format and then not get flagged for it. Because you just don't you just don't post those longer ones. That's the secret. This next one is just a random piece of advice and I love when I have a, like, a little light bulb goes on to solve a problem for myself.
Helen:And then I'm like, oh, I should share this because it's worked out great for me. So here's what I'm gonna tell you now. That is I find very challenging on every platform other than Instagram. So, Instagram story to be specific. Because on the Instagram story, you can put a link right on your story to whatever it is you're talking about.
Helen:You're gonna you know, you have a thing you want people to sign up for. You can just put a link on the story. When you do a post, you have to say link in bio. That's annoying. People are not gonna go to the bio.
Helen:Half of them are gonna say, what's the bio? Believe it or not. What's the profile? It happens to me constantly. So it's a problem.
Helen:So there the option for that on Instagram again, this is always Instagram we're talking about at the moment, is that you can use an app like ManyChat. And ManyChat, you can say you can set it up. There's a free version and then there's a paid version where you can set it up and it once you you say put a keyword in to the comments, like, comment the word recipe and we'll send you the rest and I'll DM you the recipe and then it will automatically send a DM in response to the comment. So it's nice and automated. It's wonderful.
Helen:I'm gonna repeat it again because it's called ManyChat and it's an app that you can download. And it's so good for Instagram. It's one of my favorite things to have discovered because it just makes your communication with your audience quick quick quick. And you don't have to be monitoring all the time if people are asking where to find something and where's the link for something. So it's excellent.
Helen:Unfortunately, we don't have that on TikTok. And TikTok is still a struggle to have anything clickable. And the only thing that's clickable is the link in the profile. And again, you've gotta believe you gotta trust that people are gonna take a minute when they're watching a video to go click the link in the profile. And half of them are gonna ask, where's the profile?
Helen:Where's the bio? I'm telling you. If I get this question once, I get it a 100 times. It's insane. You think it's the bay most basic thing, but it's not.
Helen:So what have I started to do? I'm gonna tell you and you might have noticed this on my TikTok videos. About halfway through to the end of my videos, if I'm teaching a tutorial, I just put my website on the screen and I don't do it in TikTok. I do it in cap cut because I hope that the algorithm can't read the text that I've added in cap cut. So that my website, which I make sure is easily readable by capitalizing the h and the s.
Helen:So hello socialize.com, capitalh, capital s. So it's a quick read and I've made it so that my website now, thanks to Julie, who is amazing. Thank you, Julie. Has made it so nice on the website where we can access workshops, podcasts. Anything that I'm doing, anything that I've talked about is now on the website.
Helen:So it's like a one stop shop. It has become my link. So people ask me, where'd you get your microphone? Hellosocialize.com. Click content tools.
Helen:Oh, where how do I sign up to workshop for the workshop? Hellosocialize.com and click learn at the top. Where do I find your podcast? Hellosocialize.com. Click podcast at the top.
Helen:Literally, everything anybody could ask me for is now there. And so the lesson I've learned is this, which is so cool because I kept thinking this was just gonna be, I guess, obnoxious to do. But take a page out of my book. Most people don't even watch your videos all the way to the end. That's just the nature of social media.
Helen:So what I do is when it gets to a point where I've just finished my lesson, my main topic of the video, whatever it may be, if it's a tutorial or if it's like something I'm talking about. As soon as I get towards the part where I think people might fall off, just before that, I put my website up there. And then I finish talking and talking and talking to the end with my website on there. And then sometimes I'll even say, if you need this, go to my website and I point to it. So that every piece of content has my go to at the end.
Helen:This way, it's not annoying people because it's not at the beginning. And I'm not saying after my intro, like, here's how to do the such and such. And by the way, I'm Helen Polisi, the TikTok teacher, blah, blah, blah. I don't do that. I don't like that.
Helen:It's not my my vibe. So I don't wanna have to do that every time or go here and find all my stuff and then and then do my topic. I'm not a fan of that. So I do it when I think I've given my value. I've given it out for free.
Helen:Here's my value. Here's what I'm teaching you today. And then at the end, just before they might leave, I put the website. And it has improved my website clicks. It has improved my my workshop the my workshop clicks.
Helen:It has improved and helped me to not have people asking me where to find things constantly. It's always been, like, these messages of where to sign up. Now it's, like, occasional because somebody didn't watch the video to the end. So it's such a helpful tip. I'm telling you, even though it seems like, oh, aren't you don't you feel it?
Helen:Don't you feel embarrassed? You might say to, like, say that at the end of every video. I do not. If you don't wanna listen, you can scroll away at that point. I actually believe that my core followers and my loyal followers who are watching my videos all the way to the end are not gonna mind at all.
Helen:And if they do, they're crazy. Don't mind. Ignore me. Just scroll on. I don't think it bothers them.
Helen:So why should it bother me? I just make sure it's there because a lot of times you have someone new that just discovers you. And don't you want them to be able to know where to find you or what it is that you're here for or what it is that you represent? So take a page out of my loose leaf throwback. Take a page out of my book and just throw it at the end of your videos and see what happens.
Helen:You don't have to point you don't even have to reference it, honestly. People might just look and go, what's that? And go to it. And especially if it's an easy URL to type in. And don't put http forward slash slash slash colon www.
Helen:Just put the website. Imine at hellosocialize.com. You can also check my other one, mothership.com with a u. So I have 2 websites, very easy to find, very easy to read, especially when you put the upper case at the beginning of the keywords. So that is the second to last thing I'm gonna say before I leave because the last thing I wanna talk about is just a quick YouTube tip.
Helen:Because last week I thought I did last week or whenever I did YouTube, engagement formatting and all that. And I mentioned a YouTube tip and I remembered another one. So I wanna share that before I leave. When you're putting your YouTube video up and then you click underneath as you go through, add the thumbnail, put it into the playlist, etcetera, there's a little thing where you can click show more and it gives you an option to add keywords. And you can put keywords in there in groups that will help your search on your videos.
Helen:So what I do, for example, is for the podcast, when I upload them, I will say social media marketing, social media expert, social media podcast. So I do phrases. And then I will do how I will do questions, how to find social media trends, social media trend alerts. And I do groups of words separated by a comma. And that makes the videos more findable in a search.
Helen:And I know it's working because I just had another one today. Somebody commented on a video and said, I am so happy I found you. This came up first in my search when I searched this topic. And I was like, score. The mothership is doing something right.
Helen:So there you have it. Now I'm gonna let you go. I'm on my way back. I'm on a flight as you're listening to this right now. I'm flying home.
Helen:And I will be back on the home front with the next recording for Friday. So have a great week, and I'll see you on Friday. Bye. Leave a review. 5 stars.