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Welcome to the socialized forecast, August 20, 2024. I have a lot to get through today, so I'm gonna jump right in and start with our partner for today in the newsletter, our sponsor, who is also providing an opportunity for creators. So just to give a little more context, Plexus DX is a nutrition and medication based test. So they're 2 separate tests, and they help you understand how your genes influence your health, nutrition, lifestyle, and medication choices by analyzing up to 200,000,000 genetic variants. So it's gonna equip you and your provider with the information you need nutritionally and also medication based and wellness based.
Helen:Plexus DX is calling on creators of all sizes and all styles to consider this as a possible opportunity for creating content on behalf of a brand. So listen up and let me tell you a little bit about it. 1st, it's gonna be something that will likely appeal to nutrition based, health based, wellness based creators. But it really is open for anyone who is interested in learning more about how your genetic makeup impacts the medications you take and the things that you eat. So I decided that I was going to put myself in the hat for this one and I made a video where I shared how to use the product.
Helen:So I was sent the nutrition one. That's the one I chose. I want us to learn a little bit more about my genetic makeup and how it impacts the foods I eat. And so I did that test and I'm gonna play it for you right now. Just the process of the test itself so you can hear how that went.
Helen:And once I get the results, I'm going to share my results with my audience. I was gifted Plexus DX and there are 2 types of tests. And I ordered the nutrition one because I really wanna find out what foods my body is not able to absorb. And this is based on DNA testing. So we have a swab, a little tube, a lab baggy, and a return envelope.
Helen:You have to rub it in my cheek. Rub in, go on both sides. Isn't this attractive? Do that. We're gonna open the tube with a corkscrew motion.
Helen:Twist this around rapidly inside 15 times. Twist and pull it up. Bring the cap back on with a biohazard bag. Once it's packed up, you need to mail it within 2 days. And I'm going to await my results and find out once and for all if I just have baby taste buds or if I have some nutritional things that I need to be aware of.
Helen:Can't wait. I'll be back to report. Hopefully, we're gonna learn something, and I'm very excited about it because I have a lot of food aversions. And I'd love to know how much they are based in my genetic makeup versus just food aversions that I might have. So I'm excited to get my results and share that with my audience.
Helen:But I also wanted to put a shout out. So if you're a creator that's interested in creating content on behalf of a brand, but maybe you don't have a large enough audience to get paid for your content yet or just getting started in that content creation world. This is an opportunity where you can get yourself into the mix and start to have some experience doing it. So you'll need to go to the newsletter or to the show notes and click for the applications that you can apply to be considered as a creator. And again, it is not based on the size of your account.
Helen:It's really more about are you the person who can speak to this? And I'm gonna be a 100% transparent that this is a significant affiliate arrangement. So this is not paid content. However, this is not the kind of affiliates you're used to with Amazon Affiliates where you're gonna make a dollar for every sale. This is way more significant than that.
Helen:So if you click on the link, you can learn more about what that rate is and put in your information to be considered. It's so hopefully, we can all contribute to getting the word out about this test, and it can also be beneficial to everyone who wants to jump on board. I've personally read up a lot now. And if you go to the website, which you'll find linked in the newsletter and in the show notes, you can actually scroll through and you can see the sample of the results. So you can see it's just a generic sample of what the results would look like.
Helen:And it gives you a good idea of what you're getting into and what you're gonna learn from doing a simple swab test. And it's an easier swab test than COVID because you don't have to go in your nose. It's just a cheek swab. So it's really easy to do as I showed in my video. Anyway, if you're interested, click the link for more info, and we're hoping to hear from you.
Helen:The other thing I'm excited to share with you that I have not put out publicly is that this week, I was invited to participate in a study for TikTok, which was really, really fun. It was such a cool thing because I was contacted by a PR agency, and then I was narrowed down to 5 people who were selected for a study. And I was on the phone for an hour answering questions about TikTok, about how I use it, how I've grown on it, how I've monetized, what I've done to build my audience and community there. And it was a really, really cool experience to go through the whole my whole story in a way. And it was very linear.
Helen:And I don't think on any interview, I've really done that before. So that was a really cool experience, and I'm excited to see that come to fruition. It will be posted publicly. I will be quoted, and maybe I'll get a blue check mark. A girl can dream.
Helen:Why not? Anyway, I'm excited about that, and I cannot wait to see the results, which I will definitely be sharing here and in the newsletter. So that was a little exciting news for the week I wanted to share. And I'm not really talking about that on my social media. So if you're a podcast listener, that's how you're hearing about these things.
Helen:I get a little deeper in the podcast. I feel like I'm more 1 on 1, and it seems like a safer space. So that's why I jump in and and share some other things here. So thanks for listening and joining me. Alright.
Helen:Let's get on to the trends for this week. Some really fun ones and Julie has really sorted out and she uses a bunch of these and I've used some too. But the first one is something you're born to say versus what you're forced to to say. And a lot of creators did this about how they still have to sign their emails. They were born to say out queen or peace queen or whatever.
Helen:And then what they have to say is kind regards, for example. But think of something that's maybe in your in your niche that you were born to say, but then you really can't say that. So if you're with customers and you have to and you want to say something more fun and personal with a customer, but you know, you have to be more appropriate, something like that. I think this is a really fun trend. So hop on that one if you have something to share where you were born to say something way more interesting than you have to say.
Helen:The next one is a nice chaperone trend, and it's really cool. I'll Julie have to write on this one because she loves to do a very animated facial expression things. And so it's like you're not fun. So think of something that somebody is a bummer to you. Maybe there's a buzzkill person in your life that doesn't wanna do a certain thing that you wanna do.
Helen:Or maybe you wanna go get ice cream and everybody in your group's like, oh, I'll go with you, but I don't wanna have any. You're not fun and you're screaming at them. You're not fun. So there's a lot of ways you can do that. It can be a customer that wants to that searches on your website and then ends up not buying anything or somebody that comes in, wants your service.
Helen:And then they, at the last minute, they back down to something a little less interesting. So there's a lot of different ways you can do it in your niche. You could I know I love to talk about booktok because a lot of times people will come to me and say, what do you suggest for booktok? Any trend can be used for booktok. It could be somebody's this is a great one for somebody that might say, oh, I really I don't have the patience to read to read books anymore.
Helen:That's something I might say. And somebody that's in booktok could scream at me. You're not fun. So you can use this for so many different things. So there you go.
Helen:My book talk people. Alright. Now let's hop into the Instagram trends for this week. I love that we've separated them. And it's always funny to me when I start to see the trends that have already been on TikTok, and now they're hitting Instagram pretty hard.
Helen:And the one that's funny is if you remember a few weeks ago, the 911 emergency with the outfit changes that I had posted and shared how to do the tutorial. That one, now it's been a few weeks and now it's hitting hard on Instagram. So you can always go back. It's a good idea to save the newsletters and some so that you can refer to them because especially if you're an Instagram user, if you go back a few issues and you pull one out of the TikToks, you can actually be ahead of the trend on the Instagram. So think about that.
Helen:And this one is I look like I'm having fun and it's a it's an audio from Simone Biles where she's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes if I'm not anxious or I'm not stressed, like, sometimes I look like I'm having fun. And a lot of people are really having fun with that one.
Helen:Because in our world, we have so many people with anxiety and and stressing over small things. And I'm one of them at times, you know, I can stress over something so minor. And so this is a great audio for for that. And this one particular example that we included is the person is the minute I walk into a social gathering and she's like, completely look I look like I'm having fun, but I am as long as I'm not stressing and having anxiety, I look like I'm having fun. So that's a good fun one.
Helen:And then the last one is learning a new word. And this one is you lip sync the words and then you put a title focus on a question where you believe the answer is no. So you're gonna have to click the example and see that. But when somebody says, I should stop buying cute pajamas. And then in the scene, she's holding up 2 new cute cute pajamas she just bought and she's like, no.
Helen:So that's an easy one and a fun one if you have something that you're obsessed with and people think you need to stop doing it. Okay. Now let's take a little pause to let you know that I am going to be speaking at an entrepreneur retreat in freaking Jamaica. Like, I have never been to Jamaica, so I'm very excited for this. I was invited by Erica Vassell to Erica v, she goes by, and she invited me to speak at this conference.
Helen:I will be going there May 1st to 4th, 2025, which will be here in a minute. And if she's having a there's tons of speakers. I think it's gonna be a great learning experience even for me who's invited as a speaker. There are speakers in so many other areas of expertise than mine. So if you have any interest in a little jaunt weekend to Jamaica to learn about entrepreneurship to and there's gonna be I mean, click on the link because there's gonna be photographers doing photos for you.
Helen:There's gonna be people helping you with presentations and it's a lot of support and it looks like an incredible event. So aside from the fact that I'm gonna be there and we're gonna have a good time with social media, there's a huge amount of learning. So if you are interested, just click and you can learn about it. I put the little thumbnail of, you know, my announcement. But when you go on to the website, you can see all of the other speakers, and you'll get a sense of who else is going to be at the event.
Helen:I'm pretty excited. I I love to I like in person stuff. I think I really I when it when COVID hit, I really missed being in person with people. And then when I was able to get back to doing in person things and my TikTok had taken off and I was able to do speaking engagements and workshops in person. Oh my gosh.
Helen:Favorite. I love it, and I just love the energy of being with people. So let's do it. If you have any interest in coming to Jamaica, I will see you there. Now let's talk about the original content ideas.
Helen:Embarrass and the first one is embarrassing things you do for. And this is where sometimes your hobby, your career, your family will cause us to do embarrassing things. And we shared a creator who's showing off something embarrassing in her social media. I will link that here. And because it was such a unique idea and she went viral, we thought it would be a great opportunity to suggest maybe there's something that happened to you that was embarrassing.
Helen:And now it'll be very relatable to someone or you can have your viral moment. Be mindful though, if you have a viral moment these days, it does not always equate immediately to followers. I think back in 2020 and 2021 social media, I think people were much quicker to follow than they are now, which is unfortunate. But right now the algorithms are so smart that they're feeding us the creators we love that we don't even have to follow them, which is unfortunate because it hurts creators who are trying to grow a following because now their content is being seen and they don't need to follow. I've noticed a lot on TikTok.
Helen:I will respond to someone's comment and then I will go tap and see who they are. And a lot of times they're not even following me. And I'm like, you know, you're asking me a question. I'm responding into the comments. At least have the courtesy of following me that if you're thinking that I'm here to help you.
Helen:I find that a little odd. And a lot of times I get frustrated by that. I think, jeez, I took the time to answer. You haven't even taken the time to give me the follow. And you've and I'm here to help you.
Helen:So I don't really I I don't know. I don't really like it. I'm not gonna say it's a pet peeve because sometimes people don't even realize they didn't hit the follow button. But I would say, just be mindful that even if you have a major viral video, it's not necessarily gonna equate to followers as quickly as it once did in social media 2020 and 2021 and before that. So you might have to think more about what your content and value is that's gonna actually prompt the follow.
Helen:And a lot of people think you have to ask for the follow. I don't necessarily think that were that works. And I one time asked a question in a video and people said, if someone asked me to follow, I purposely don't. So do with that what you will and figure out how you wanna proceed. But just think about the fact that even if you do something and it's very relatable and you have and you get a lot of views, it doesn't necessarily equate to follow.
Helen:So think about why you follow someone and make sure you're providing that same kind of value back to your audience or the people that you want to have as your followers. Alright, next up. Almost all social media platforms now have the story feature and you'll see it on Instagram. You'll see it on Facebook. You'll see it on TikTok.
Helen:Now, I recently was asked the question, what's the difference between stories? And I found this such a basic question. So I had to address it because I'm thinking doesn't everybody know what stories are? But it occurred to me that if you are a hardcore TikToker and you're not on Instagram and Facebook, you might not be familiar with the story feature and how different it is. So I did post a tutorial to explain it.
Helen:And what I will say that I have found myself doing that I think is very valuable is sharing my own content to the story. In the same way, we started doing that on Instagram when stories first came and it was a good way to get people to know that you had posted something new and you'd put new post on the story. You don't have to put new post on it. But what I found interesting about that is that when you shared your Instagram reel or post to the story, those views on the story counted as views on your video. So I think I'm pretty sure it works the same way on TikTok, whereas you share your story.
Helen:Sorry. If you share your post to the story, that those views will then help your post get more views. I think they add up. And if they don't, well, at least you're getting more people to be aware of it and maybe they'll tap on it and watch the whole thing. But I gotta believe that if you share it to the story, I do it with a comment.
Helen:I press the little comment button, I type a comment on my own video. Oh, I guess I should take my own advice. Sometimes I'll do that. And then I click the little add to story and it goes to my story with my comment above it. And I think it helps.
Helen:I do think it makes people aware of something I posted because a lot of people just spend their time up in those story circles and not scrolling because they get tired of doing the scroll. So think about that as a possibility and start using your stories and see if it makes a difference on your engagement. And let me know. I would love to know if it helps. Now the last one is something I did myself this week by random chance.
Helen:I very rarely touch that little a year ago today or 2 years ago today feature. They have it on Instagram where you can tap and then it shows you where you were on that day, either last year or 2 years ago or 3 years ago. This one happened to be 3 years ago. It showed up and it was a really cool transition I had done that day where I slammed the clothes on the floor and walked out and slammed the clothes on the floor. And I kept jumping into the new clothes.
Helen:It was a really, really cool video at the time and it was very, very hot trend. And so when I saw it in my memories, I did I went, oh, I should I wonder if I should just share this again. And I normally might not have because my hair was so much longer then. But now that my hair is kind of back to a similar style, I thought, you know what? I'm gonna share this one because it was so much fun at the time.
Helen:It was so well done. Those outfit slams and then my transitions were so spot on perfect. And then there was 2 of me, one of me walking out of the frame. So I shared it. Listen.
Helen:It is my best performing video though this week. And I mean, I wasn't even gonna do it. I was like, oh, should I even bother? Okay. I even put a thing.
Helen:How was this I put a text. How was this 3 years ago? Because I couldn't believe time passed so fast. And the video I'm telling you, the video is doing better than anything I've posted in a while. So I think what I learned from this is be a little spontaneous.
Helen:Bring back something from the from the closet. Go dive back into the closet way deep and then bring something back because I can't hurt. And it certainly helped my my engagement this week. So there's that. Alright.
Helen:Now let's get into the feature tutorials. So the first one I already talked about, which is the TikTok story. I wanted to make sure people know how to find it, how to use it, what it's for, and I did all the things I demonstrated and everything. So if you need a demo of that, it is in the newsletter today. The second thing, which is my pet peeve of I'm gonna call it the pet peeve of the month because I'm gonna keep posting this video until it gets the proper amount of views.
Helen:Because how many times am I scrolling on the For You page in Instagram, in TikTok? Both. This is not dedicated to one or the other. And I hear sound coming out of one headphone. It is so annoying.
Helen:You think something's wrong. You think your headphones broken. Whatever. Okay. No.
Helen:It's because you don't have your mic. The person recording doesn't have their microphone set correctly. So their content is only being posted coming out of one headphone. And I explained why I did a tutorial and I beg you, please click on that video and send it to people. I mean, more people need to know that this is why it's happening.
Helen:I have advertisers in my ears and they're only in one headphone and they've, it's paid content. Ah. And I know a lot of it is paid content because it's creators' content that they're now promoting. So the creator is the one who made the video and doesn't know. I could see them with the wireless microphone on.
Helen:And I know it's set to stereo. It needs to be set to mono. Oh, please. I beg of you. Go to TikTok and find it or go to Instagram.
Helen:Maybe I'll post them, both here. But go to TikTok. Go to Instagram wherever you live and breathe and forward it to people so that they know to to do it. Change it to mono. It sounds backwards.
Helen:Mono seems like it would be one headphone. Just think the opposite. Mono, one sound in 2 headphones. Stereo is gonna put 2 sounds in 2 headphones. That's how you can think about it.
Helen:So 2 sounds in 2 headphones, but if you're only 1 person, you're gonna only come out of 1 of them. Okay? Maybe that's the way I need to explain it on the next video. I'm gonna work on that. Okay.
Helen:That's it. I'm gonna go into a couple of questions before our last reminder. So two questions I'm gonna cover today. How can I link a video in a comment? If I get this question once, I get it 400 times over the past month.
Helen:You can't link a video that you've already posted into the comment. The only way to link a video in a comment is to reply to the comment with the video, upload a video, and then it gets posted again to your page. So it doesn't create a new post. I think I did answer this question 2 weeks ago and I still got it again. So I'm back with answering it again because that's how I roll.
Helen:Next question. What is the purpose? This is a good question, by the way. What is the purpose of the new little note feature on Instagram videos? I'm excited.
Helen:I should make a video about this really a tutorial, but there is a new feature where you can, on your video or a person's video that you're watching, you can tap the little arrow and then you can add a note. And that note shows up on that person's video. What is the purpose? Okay. So if I'm watching these Lorraine as an example hi, Lorraine.
Helen:So if Lorraine posts a video and I'm friends with Lorraine, it's gonna give me when I tap the arrow, it's gonna give me the option to leave a note on her video. And what that does is other people scrolling and seeing her video will instead of having to tap to look at comments, they will be able to see little notes all over the video of people who have engaged with it. So it's like a little bit of while you're watching a video, it gives you a little bit more, I guess, involvement from other people that have seen this video. So you'll immediately see a few other people's reactions right on the screen instead of having to tap the comments and then look and see what people thought of the video. I think it's kind of a fun feature.
Helen:Is it extra? Is it a little extra? Perhaps. But you know, I think all these platforms are trying little things to see what catches on. I thought it was fun when I saw it because I right away can see who engaged with it and what they thought of the video.
Helen:And I liked it. So I immediately participated in Lorraine's. So if you see the little feature and you want to try it, there's no harm, no foul. I always say give something new a try. It cannot hurt.
Helen:Alright. Before I leave you, I'm going to remind you again, if you are a creator, health minded, wellness minded, fitness minded, any type of, you know, in that space or just a parent or a regular person who's interested in learning more about their, you know, problems with medications or their problems with foods. We're gonna have an opportunity to make a significant affiliate fee versus, like, an Amazon affiliate fee or some of these fees where you're getting maybe 50¢ when you when one person clicks on it. That's all for today. Have a really good one.
Helen:I'll see you back on Friday, and I hope you have a great week. Thanks for being with me. Bye.