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Social media updates, trend alerts, original content ideas, music/audio suggestions, tutorials and more!
Welcome to the socialized forecast, October 22, 2024. Oh, so excited to be here. It's a Tuesday, and I'm I'm gonna say that because of the submit questions thing that we did recently where we asked people to submit questions so we can answer them, We have so many questions that I want to focus more on this particular podcast on answering questions. So I'm gonna go through the twin the twins. I'm gonna go through the trends quickly and give you some insights to them, but then I'm gonna focus on a couple of key questions that I think are gonna be helpful to a lot of people.
Helen:So I'm gonna power through the trends first. And before I even start on the first friends trends from Julie, I'm gonna say a funny thing. We both had this one particular trend in our mind because I was gonna talk about it in the opening of the newsletter. And when I looked through the newsletter, I see the trend is right there, and she also picked it up this week. So I guess our 40 pages are a little bit in sync.
Helen:So I'm happy about that. I've had one heck of a week because I just came off a 3 day shoot for Pronamel where we were shooting social media, and I love it because it was very they lean on me a lot when we're shooting that type of content, and they're asking me for transitions right on the spot. So I have a lot of fun with it. And I really like how my social media life and my production life, my day job have intersected so perfectly. It's like the sync is it could not be better, and I'm enjoying it so much.
Helen:I also had the opportunity to work on something where I got to work with a child on set, and I haven't done that in a while since I've been working on toy commercials in the previous part of my career. I don't really get to do that as often now. So I had such a good time. I met I made sure to bring things for her. I had I had and I took care to go, alright.
Helen:I need a craft. I need a doll something doll related, something where she could be keep busy. So I got lots of different little prizes. I was calling them prizes. And each time she would do one of her performances that we needed for her to do on camera, I'd say, okay.
Helen:As soon as we get this right, you get your next prize. And it was so good because it kept her going for the day. Even though I didn't intend to do that, it was just a really fun thing. And she was so sweet that at one point, there was a shot we had to get and it was called I was calling it the hug shot. So I was talking to the crew and I said, oh, you know what I think we should get due next is the hug.
Helen:And she came up to me and hugged me because she thought I meant her. And it was so cute. I wish that I was recording. It was just the best moment. She also was doing some drawing and she drew a picture of her mom, and then she drew a picture of me.
Helen:And when I tell you this photo, I might have to include it. I'll try and put it here on the screen. The eyes on this on this person, I was like and and it was like the yellow hair and the big eyes and the red lips. That was so cute. She even got my shoes down to a tee.
Helen:I was wearing some kind of mesh shoes that these my little mesh sneakers. And the way she drew them on this character was so detailed. So really, really fun shoot for me this past week working on the production side of my life. So I love when I come off a shoot and I'm just feeling so revved up from it, and it all intersects with social media, which I love. Alright.
Helen:So we're gonna talk about the trends and I'm gonna talk about the 2 that I that 2 that she picked are the 2 that I'm loving this week. The first one is and then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you if you know the song. So you lip sync the words to the song, and then you you put text up there when it gets to the I love you. You put the text on screen about what you say to wreck the moment. Okay?
Helen:And I use this for hangry pets where I had them singing the song and then all of a sudden am I'm hungry came up at the end. So what is the thing that wrecks the mood when you are trying to maintain a mood and then you kinda go off the rails? So it's really fun. You can do a lot of fun things with this. And you can do it for a niche your niche too.
Helen:It's like when you're with a customer and you're about to make a sale and then you say something stupid, you could do something where it's with your spouse. You could really have a good time with it on so many levels. The other one is just my all time favorite at the moment, and it is the audio, if you don't know, is from the movie Moonstruck. And when Nicolas Cage says, I love your daughter, and he's talking about Cher. I love your daughter, and then I think it's Robert De Niro who says, what do you have to offer her?
Helen:And he says, nothing, Only this. And then the guy in the videos, it's all been trending on these young boys doing really fun dances. And usually, they can dance really well, but a few of them are obviously not able to dance. They do a stupid dance. And then now it's getting really creative.
Helen:And I just saw one where the guy was instead of doing a dance when he says only this, you see him washing dishes and doing laundry. So he's doing housework, And that was a fun one. So there's a lot of creativity with this one. If you can, if you have, if you are male or you know, know somebody who is male or you can think outside the box and use this in a different way altogether. I just think there's a lot of ways this can go because it's going hard.
Helen:And one thing I will mention, and I started to talk about this a little bit, I think last week is when you see a trend in the newsletter and you're thinking, oh, man. I don't know. I haven't even seen that one. Maybe that's one's not hot. A lot of times we're a little ahead of it.
Helen:So if you go back to last week's newsletter, if you save them, the in the club one is really going hard right now. And we are we put it in when it's just picking up. So that one has legs. And if you haven't done that one, maybe you wanna go back to last week's newsletter. So make sure you do go back to previous newsletters.
Helen:If you are maybe not on board with the trends this week, go back and look and see if there's something maybe last week that you missed out on and that should hop on. Now let's get to the Instagram trends. And the first one is don't worry about Stanley. This is so funny. And a lot of people are doing it about their husbands, like saying don't worry about Stanley.
Helen:He's fine. You know, we feed and water him twice a day or something like that. It's a very very very fun audio and you can really use this to just make, make it about somebody in your friend group, somebody in your family. It doesn't just have to be your husband, although it's the trend did start with, women talking about, don't worry about my husband. He's fine.
Helen:He gets watered and fed and watered twice a day. Husband. He's fine. He gets watered and fed and watered twice a day. It's so funny.
Helen:It's a really cute one. But you don't have to make it about a husband. You can make it about somebody else. And then the last one is just a fun mashup. The audio is trending on Instagram, and it can be used in a variety of ways.
Helen:You can make a video vlog. You can take advantage of the song just by putting just some photos with it. Use it for photo carousel, whatever. It's a really nice one and it's a really easy one and it's trending. So you can use it just to create one of your music videos.
Helen:That's nice and easy and it gives you a much more open creative canvas, so you're not locked into something that's such a specific trend. So, you know, take that and run with it. You know what I'm doing right now? I have my TikTok Helen pen in my hand and it's a stylist that mocktail mom sent to me. It says TikTok Helen on it.
Helen:It's a stylist. It's a fidget spinner, and it's a pen. And I keep this one in my purse. This is my purse stylist pen. So if I randomly decided I was gonna shoot a tutorial on the fly, I always have the stylist in my purse now.
Helen:And my other stylist is in my backpack. So a lot of times I don't have the backpack with me and I might wanna just randomly pop out my phone and, you know, you never know when I might wanna teach a tutorial right in the middle of New York City. Anything could happen. Alright. Let's get on to original content ideas.
Helen:There's just quick 3 quick ones for you today. One is that I like this a lot because when it's gift giving season, I draw a blank and I always end up saving those videos where someone asks for gift ideas in the comments. And then I save those videos because I'm like, let me see if I can find some gifts in the comments that would be appropriate for this person. Make a video of the favorite gift you ever got or some favorite gifts you've received and why. Because this is a really cool thing.
Helen:I was thinking about it. Sometimes we're trying to buy a gift for someone and you the person might scroll onto your page and say, oh, that you this person like me would be maybe she reminds me of my mom or something. I'm not gonna say grandma. I'm gonna say mom for now. And so maybe some of the ideas of gifts that I liked, some younger person might be watching and say, oh, that's a great idea for my mom because because if the mothership liked it, my mom might like it too.
Helen:So it's using yourself as the example of the gift recipient and then stating some of the gifts you enjoyed receiving. So I think that's a good one. And I've you know, you should run with it because it might help other creators get ready for the holiday shopping and or inspire a new purchase for maybe a birthday or something like that. Because there are holiday birthdays. You know, we had we do have some people that are coming up on the, November November, December birthdays.
Helen:The next one is doing a how to video. And once in a while, we do suggest doing some kind of a tutorial. But this in this case, it might be sharing how to decorate for Halloween, how to make a special treat that you do for Halloween. It could also be as you start to prepare for the holidays, things you do ahead of time for that and why you do them ahead of time. So how to is really good.
Helen:This one can be make make it more of a how to about the pending upcoming holidays coming. And then the last one is getting personal and talking to the camera. Pick a topic of something that's been going on in your life, whether it's work, plans, a funny story, if you're aspiring to it, be an influencer and you're trying to figure out what your niche is, maybe ask some feedback. Just start talking to the camera. Practice.
Helen:Do a practice talking to the camera video. Do a story time. You don't have to say story time, by the way. I think a lot of people still do that. I don't think it's necessary anymore.
Helen:I think we all know when we see someone talking that it is a story time, but it's a strategy. And if you like it, great. Go back to last week's newsletter and look at some hooks for making your story time. Think about some of the things I shared in the hooks when you're making your story, because it is great to start your story in the middle and get people hooked in like Katie Sanjay, who said, I think my house is haunted. And then the next thing you know, she had, like, millions and millions of followers from this.
Helen:And I love it. Oh my gosh. I gotta talk about her for 2 seconds because I saw a video where she this is the lady, the woman in Ohio who has who had the the rug was found in her backyard, buried it or whatever, and she went crazy viral with it. And I said at that time I mentioned her is I wonder where her page is gonna go now that she has all these followers because once the rug story is over, you know, what's her what is she delivering to her followers? And I have a follow-up story for you about this.
Helen:So not only did she manage to deliver on her followers, she had an interesting thing happen where I'm gonna really explain it in detail. Apparently, 2 podcasters talked about her. Maybe not so nicely saying that she was a clout chaser and she was doing it for the views or whatever whatever after the rug thing or maybe dragging out the rug thing. I didn't listen to the podcast, so I don't know exactly what was said. But she made a video where she talked about that she wouldn't be the mean person, that she's not gonna go and, you know, make fun of somebody.
Helen:Her page was is always gonna be positive. And she called out these 2 podcasters who talked about her negatively. I was kinda laughing because the video she made made was a little mean about the podcasters. So it's like, you're saying you're not gonna be mean, but you're kinda being mean about these podcasters. But in fact, she was kinda clapping back because the podcasters were, I guess, a little snarky about her.
Helen:And what I noticed a couple of things, number 1, in on that video, the comments were, I came for the rug. I stayed because you're hilarious. I came for the rug, but I'm here because your personality is amazing. I came for the rug, but you're a great storyteller and I'm here for it. And so this kind of thing is what happened to her.
Helen:She went viral because of the rug, but she's got her followers now because she keeps showing up as the person with the personality that people bought into. And I love that. And it reminds me of something when some people came when I had, tutorials and then when I went through cancer, people were here to say, I came for tutorials, but I stayed because we wanna be here to support you. You you know what I mean? So, it was like, how can I explain it?
Helen:It's like you find a follower, you find someone to follow and you buy into them for the thing, whatever it is. So in my case, it's tutorials, in her case, it was the rug, but then you keep the followers because of who you are and what else you offer to them. I'm not sure if I'm saying it exactly the way it is in my mind, but this is just a random thing that I wanted to share. And so congrats to Katie because she's got her audience now and they love her. And She doesn't have to worry about people being mean like just ignore them Katie.
Helen:That's my advice to you Let them go just or as Mel Robbins would say if they want to be mean let them Don't you bother with it. Don't you bother about it. Alright. Let's answer some questions today. I'm gonna jump right to the questions now because we got some good ones and here we go.
Helen:First one from Jacqueline. Why don't why do most of my videos still have the find related content in the search bar at the top. So I don't have your access to your account, Jacqueline, so I can't look at it and say, oh, I wonder why. Maybe maybe you have a smaller account, more smaller following and it hasn't been sucked into the algorithm enough to actually start to be categorized because you do need to have some videos with a decent amount of views to start getting those videos categorized. But one thing I did learn recently that I felt was worth sharing with you, Jacqueline and others, is that the lower caption is very, very key to what comes up to the top of your video in the search bar.
Helen:And I know this because I did something so funny recently. I didn't put any text on screen, but at the bottom of my video, oh my god, I said something like, the magic of something. I use the word magic in the caption just to describe it and literally it categorized my video magic trick. I was like what? Because it was a tutorial.
Helen:It had nothing to do with a magic trick. So it told me because I did say it right in the caption something about I wrote, I wish I saved it. I did save it. Maybe I'll maybe I'll find it. I don't know if I'm gonna find it that quickly.
Helen:But I saved I took a screenshot of it because I wanted to make sure I talked about this at some point or made a video about it. But it did say something like the magic of editing, and then the video got categorized as a magic trick, which is absurd. So what you wanna make sure you're doing is in your lower caption, including enough information that about what the video is about so that your video can get get categorized use do something in the first few words that that Is that has the words that you want the video to be categorized and use that in the lower caption because clearly the algorithm grabbed my words magic trick and put it and put me as magician, which I think is funny. So that's that, Jacqueline. And it might also be that you don't have enough views on videos that are getting it into that search engine yet.
Helen:So just keep posting so that you can start to create some traction on your account. The next one is from Ali and this is a Android question. Oh, my goodness. And I am a 2 iPhone owners, so I'm gonna do my best. How to copy and paste content from word on my laptop to tick tock on my Android phone?
Helen:Okay. I have to believe that you maybe if you're an Android user, you have Google Drive, maybe so or you have access to Google Drive, and what you'll need to do is have something I find that has that is connected to your laptop and your phone. So if it's word, I would suggest maybe moving to something like Google Drive where you can access your Google Drive from your Android. It has to be something where you're typing on your laptop and it's mirroring on your phone. That is the most efficient way to do it.
Helen:In Apple on the iPhone, you can do this with notes, you can do with Google Drive, I can see look at my documents. I literally can go into my documents folder and make a TikTok document on my laptop. It says tick tock captions or whatever and I can go into files on my phone and grab that document and then copy and paste from it. So the goal is to do something on your laptop that is also accessible on your phone and you don't have to be texting it or copy paste and texting it to yourself. Because by the way, I also do that on the fly.
Helen:Sometimes something quick, I will just text it to myself and then I can copy paste the text right into the caption. Whoo. That was a lot. But, Ally, I hope that helps you. I'm not an Android user, but I gotta believe you can access things from your laptop on your Android.
Helen:Here's hoping with prayer hands. Okay. Now I have a very, very long one to read you as a question. Oh my gosh. I'm gonna shorten it.
Helen:I'm gonna shorten it, but I'm gonna tell you I'm super happy. I found this mothership is how it starts. I am learning slowly and listening to the podcast. I will get there eventually. Thank you for your help.
Helen:Julia, you're amazing. I love all the kind words you spewed here. But now let me get to her question, which is she has a handmade dreadlocks business. So that is her niche. And she is asking me because she'd like to do day in the life videos, maybe baking an apple pie video and other things that are not related to her niche.
Helen:And she's wondering if she should do that or is that gonna wreck her algorithm and what my opinion is? My gosh, Julia, you came to the right place because guess who was baking an apple pie on TikTok in 2020? The mothership. I was very hard into baking videos, but also while I was doing baking videos, I was doing lifestyle videos. I was doing day in the life things.
Helen:I was having fun. And then one day, one of my followers asked me how to make a certain effect that she saw in one of my baking videos. And I said, oh, I'll make you a tutorial. So then I was making tutorial videos and baking videos and other content. And I was always doing multiple multiple things on my account because I was really considering it more of like my a day in my life type of account.
Helen:But because your account is hardcore pushed on your dreadlocks and you if you want to gain followers specifically about that, the advice would be to post mostly about that. And if you sprinkle in other videos that are lifestyle, try and have it be a little bit related. So if you're doing day in the life of maybe packing up your dreadlocks, if you're doing an apple pie video, for example, you might say, how this girl who does dreadlock extensions by day bakes an apple pie by night. Make sure it's still some how ties into what you're trying to make your page about because there's a theme that you want to establish. So even now, with a bigger following, I still make sure I post a tutorial every 4 or so videos so that even if I post lifestyle in between, when people go to my page, they find enough of my tutorials to keep them interested.
Helen:So you don't have to not post anything else and it will take it will take, yes. Will it take a little bit away from your dreadlock audience coming? It's gonna as a creator, you're gonna be more than just what your page is about and eventually your followers are gonna wanna see more of you and understand more about you. So I would not say cut it off and don't do it and only post it to stories or whatever the heck. I would say maybe think about tying it in a little bit the way that I suggested.
Helen:I hope that answered your question. I know it's not an exact yes or no, but it's different ways to think about it. Okay? Thank you for that amazingly elaborate question. The next one is also quite detailed and quite elaborate, which is for musicians and this one comes from Alexis.
Helen:How can I use, this is odd though, how can I use Canva to advertise advertise my songs on TikTok and Instagram? Okay. So, the Canva thing, I'm not gonna address because you shouldn't be You don't necessarily have to edit in Canva. She's asking if I edit I think she's using edit a Canva for editing, but many artists on the platforms first speak to their audience and then they go into their song which they lip sync. So they might say, hey guys, if you love my music blah blah blah, and then they start singing.
Helen:The way that's done is on TikTok. You can start the music later. You can record a speaking video and then you can add the music to your video after your words. I do have a tutorial on this actually how to start the music later. So what you wanna do is do your speaking video, do your singing, your lip syncing video, and when you do your lip syncing, play the music on another device.
Helen:And then when you go into TikTok, you wanna add the music later in the video so that it syncs up. So it's a little bit of extra work, but it's not you don't have to do it separately in Canva. I think you're making a little more work for yourself if you do it that way. But that's just my that's just my take on it. You definitely want to and there's maybe a tutorial coming for this down the road but it's really about timing the music when you add the music into your TikTok video waiting to add it after the speaking part is done and that's doable.
Helen:Okay. Whoo. Today was an adventure in learning and there was a lot of detailed questions because I kinda love it though. I really love the questions. I wanna find a way to do more questions.
Helen:I have some ideas on how I'm gonna do that, but I think because even with somebody asking a very specific question, even, for example, the one about the niche one about the dreadlocks, that's very helpful to more than just Julia. I'm sure that a lot of people wonder, should I post videos outside of my if I am a baking channel or if I am a jewelry channel, should I be posting videos outside of that? We always say, yes. You can post videos outside of it, but kind of tie it back into what your page is about so you don't just lose your audience. If you're all over the place, people aren't gonna know why they're following you.
Helen:So it is really good to funnel in a way. And then once you have a blasting load of followers, you can just post whatever the heck you want and your followers usually will jump on board for it. But it's still helpful if you're growing to stay close to the lane. Close to the lane is is the area you wanna be. Alright.
Helen:That is it for today. Thank you so much for being here with me. I have so much fun just kind of free floating my ideas at you randomly until until I get so parched where I need to take a sip of water. But I've enjoyed it and I will be back on Friday for more fun and excitement. See you soon.
Helen:Bye.