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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 Muthership Creator Strategy. Happy Friday from a hotel room in Dallas. Boy, oh, boy. Today, getting set up for some reason has been challenging to find a spot in this room. Although, I do like this cool modern red sofa.
Helen:It's giving me good happy vibes. It was hard to find a spot and get the camera set up right. So here I am finally. And I'm gonna kick off with some unsponsored by content as always. And the first one is something I've been wearing all week, and I'm gonna bring it right up.
Helen:It's called my UGGs, my UGGs clogs, whatever you wanna call these. And I have had UGGs. I gotta tell you a funny story about UGGs because my husband always manages to find trending things. Now he himself I don't know if I would say he's, like, the trendiest dresser. Probably not, actually.
Helen:But he always he because he reads a lot. He reads a lot of newspaper, magazine articles, and that kind of thing. And so years ago, he before UGGs were ever a thing, I mean, the I'm gonna say the eighties. I'm going back. Was it the eighties?
Helen:Yes. It's the he bought me a pair of UGGs. I don't even know if UGGs were anything more. He said, oh, this is an Australian brand years before they ever became popular, and I have have I still have that same pair of UGGs from that purchase. Okay?
Helen:He said, yeah. You're supposed to wear these boots with no socks, blah blah blah blah blah, like it was a thing. And I thought, he's crazy. They but they're cool, and they were comfy. And I have always been an UGGs owner, but I didn't I never embraced, like, a new pair of UGGs.
Helen:I just always wore those. And then when the styles changed to the, you know, kind of the styles evolved, I finally decided to evolve beyond just the UGGs boots, and I got myself these thinking that I was gonna use them as slippers and kind of fell in love with them and wanted to wear them outside. So then I had to go buy a second pair to use as slippers. So I got the lower ones for slippers, and now these thank goodness I brought them on this trip. So for two reasons, one, it is freezing in Dallas.
Helen:I don't know. I thought that Dallas was gonna be warm. I thought I really had different expectations even though I looked at the weather, and I thought, oh, temperatures are lower than I would imagine. But I thought, you know, maybe they're gonna be seasonably warm version of the the fifties. No.
Helen:There it's like it was snowing this morning, okay, when I got out of my Uber. Anyway, so that's the first thing. And the second thing is that so I was glad I had my UGGs because I have my warm little shoes. But I also did not know until I got here that we were only allowed to wear athletic type shoes for this shoot because we were shooting in a gym, in a nice college type gym. Well, good thing I brought my darn Uggs because I don't I don't really always travel with running sneakers.
Helen:I have a little pair of sneakers that I use if I wanna run down to the gym and work out. So they're thinner that I can actually use in a and not have to take up a lot of space in my carry on. So I I didn't I had those crappy sneakers that I didn't wanna wear all day on the shoot, and I had, thankfully, my UGGs. So I've been cozy cozy on this gym floor all week in my UGGs. Yay.
Helen:It's also been cold, and now I'm freezing in this hotel room too wearing a sweater. So, you know, it the the weather is not what I expected. So that was my first unsponsored buy. It was shout out. And the second one is a snack because I always seem to find a snack in the airport.
Helen:If you've been following my Instagram story, you know, and now TikTok, I posted it as well, that I was on a flight where they announced before the flight that the toilets were not they said, there's no running water on this flight, and so the toilets will only be able to flush but not refill with water. So they say this over the announcement speaker, literally verbatim. I never heard these words spoken over a loudspeaker in my life. I'm gonna say it. You can go number one on the plane, but please know number two.
Helen:Say what? Now granted, I'm not someone who's ready to run into an airplane bathroom and do number two in the first place, but let's say you have an emergency. You know what I mean? Oh my god. I could not believe my ears.
Helen:I said, why was I not recording in this moment? Because it came over the airport loudspeaker. You can't make it up. Anyway, we boarded the plane, and people didn't get up and go to the bathroom. I I remember thinking it was eerie that nobody was getting up, and then the people that were serving probably had no the, flight attendants, they probably were thrilled because there was nobody up and down in the aisles in their way.
Helen:So the whole thing was pretty funny. Anyway, I'll leave you with that. But I did find a new airport snack. You know I love mush already because, and mush, I found out, only has, like, four ingredients. It's one of the cleanest foods you could buy.
Helen:I I then I couldn't believe that when I noticed the back of it. But this is pop daddy pretzels, cinnamon sugar pretzel sticks. I love anything cinnamon. Hand seasoned in a small in small batches made with flavor so bold. It's lip smacking, finger licking goodness.
Helen:And by the way, yes. Agree with all the statements. And ingredients, pretty clean also. There's more than four, but not a lot of processed stuff. So I was really pleased with this, and I've been having a a little handful of these every evening, and they are just very satisfying.
Helen:So if you're looking for a little crunchy snack that's sweet and satisfying without being a cookie, You gotta try these, Pop Daddy. I'm liking them. I'm gonna have to find them not in an airport now. Alright. Those are my two things.
Helen:So for today's topic, we're gonna cover how to transition from a content consumer to a content creator. And I love this because first off, I don't know how many of you most of you, I would imagine if you're listening to this podcast or get the newsletter and know about this podcast, you're probably already creating content, would guess, because that's maybe why you follow newsletter. So if you know someone who's pondering this, maybe share this with them. But let's say you just started posting. This you're kinda new to content creation.
Helen:A lot of these things are going to apply to you. And I think even as a seasoned creator, it might give you pause to say, I should think about that. And I've been posting for a long time now. And I think also some things that that are insightful if you really start to think about them. So if you are new, this we're gonna start with if you are new, and you are not sure about what you wanna do.
Helen:You should start by watching your for you page. Watch it differently. Watch it with intention. And when I say intention, watch what and think stopping on and what is interesting to me. What am I stopping the scroll what's stopping my scroll?
Helen:Like, what is that content? So first, you gotta analyze what you like and why you like it. This is not to say you're gonna do that type of content, but it's the idea is to get a feel for, are you stopping on people's photos carousels? Are you stopping on a post where it's, the top of someone's head and a bunch of text on screen? Are you stopping at a on a post where it's quick cuts and it's entertaining?
Helen:Are you stopping on music related content? Are you stopping on trend? I think I'm saying all the things, but look at what you're enjoying as a consumer, as a viewer, so that you can start to see maybe when you begin to create what you might wanna lean into. Like, what's the thing that you're gonna do in your content that's gonna make other people stop and watch your videos. Okay?
Helen:Think about that. The second thing that's pretty important is to figure out why you wanna post in the first place. What's making you suddenly, if you've been a consumer, if you've been a viewer, what makes you suddenly think, oh, I wanna post now. I wanna get involved. I wanna jump in the waters.
Helen:Like, what is that? Do you feel I have something I have to say? I have something I have to share? I'm gonna use an example of someone that I had a private one on one with who is really, really wants to jump in the game, but is really intimidated about doing it. And I said, like, what kind of things do you want?
Helen:Do you feel you can impart? Like, what do you think you can share that you feel is either missing from what's out there, or you need you want your voice in the game. So you don't have to think of a topic no one's talking about. You don't have to think, oh my god. There's there's hundreds of baking creators.
Helen:What am I gonna contribute? Guess what? There was hundreds of baking creators when I started doing baking, and I still had a following doing baking because people liked the way I was shit doing my videos. So you really have to know that it's the way you present that's gonna change your content for someone. It has nothing to do with if there's so many people doing that already.
Helen:So get that out of your head. Like, no. But you wanna just think about why you wanna post because that's gonna help you figure out what videos to make. That's gonna give you an easier time with making your videos because you're gonna feel like you want to talk about this topic or you're gonna be excited to share about the topic, or you're gonna wanna figure out how to let's say you decide, I wanna be a fashion creator. I wanna open up my closet and start showing some of the clothes I have.
Helen:I'm then you're gonna wanna learn transitions, so start watching transition videos, see what ones appeal to you. So those kind of things. Like, you have to really get your head paying attention to what types of videos do you watch that catch your attention in that lane, but then also in other lanes that you could apply to your lane. Okay? Now value can be educational or entertaining.
Helen:So you don't have to say, oh, well, I have to teach something in order to grow a following on social media. No. You don't have to teach something. You just have to add value in a certain way that makes someone else wanna stop on your videos and watch your videos. So you could be somebody that maybe wants to do a little skit comedy.
Helen:You maybe wanna portray different parts in order to you know, if you're in healthcare, privacy is always an issue, so I always say this to people in healthcare. If you wanna do videos and talk about the experiences you have, but not break any HIPAA laws or have any privacy issues, play characters. And, you know, your character that, you know, you're your doctor character or your medical professional HCP character, and then you are a patient. And then play that role. And it's not giving away anybody's information at all.
Helen:You're not giving names, and you can talk about a scenario that happens. And you can change, like you know, the names will be changed to protect the innocent. No. Like, remember that? Remember that statement?
Helen:But yep. So you can do things that are you can think of creative ways if you're in an industry where you need to protect privacy. Okay? You just have to be a little creative, and you have to also limit the detail on how much you're giving information on a topic because then, you know, you want you don't want someone to feel targeted. There are women who go out on dates, and then they immediately talk about the date, and then they're somehow they people find out who the guy is.
Helen:I mean, that's like that's a lot. You know? You you don't wanna definitely go down that path. It's more like making it situational, like, skit like. That would be a style, but not necessarily giving away people's personal information.
Helen:Anyway, I I digress. But my point is to think about what way you can portray whatever it is you want to share. Okay? If you wanna share about books, if you wanna share about your things that happen in corporate life, think about corporate Natalie, what she did. She started doing little skits about corporate life, and that made her famous.
Helen:It put her on the map during the pandemic. It was pretty funny. Her content still resonates for the most part. I don't know if I think that it may her content I haven't watched her in a while, by the way, and I don't know if how much her content has changed because she's still her character, corporate Natalie, but I highly doubt she still works in a corporate job. I mean, maybe she does.
Helen:I don't know. Does anybody know? If you know anything about that, let me know. Anyway, next thing that's important is to understand that everybody starts with this many followers. That is a zero, people.
Helen:Zero. We all started with zero followers. And we all, me too, did not get to 1,200,000 followers in a month. I didn't get to 10,000 followers in a month. I didn't get to 1,000 followers in a month.
Helen:Okay? That is not how you have to think. You can't think, oh my god. I've been posting for a whole month, and I don't have more than I only have, you know, 800 followers. A month is a very short time in the in the life of cycle cycle of social media.
Helen:I could really complain and say, I've been on this app for five years. How come I don't have 5,000,000 followers? Okay. Guess what? That's not how it works.
Helen:It is just not how it works. Okay? It takes time. It takes dedication. It takes relentlessness.
Helen:It takes resilience. It takes that that, you have to be in it for the long game. You have to know this isn't gonna happen overnight, and how committed are you to it? And I will tell you, that that relentlessness wins over all the other things, over creativity, over everything. It really does.
Helen:The people who have the stick to itiveness and put those blinders on and carry on, they really are the ones that more likely have success because they don't give up after after five minutes. They don't give up after a few weeks, after a few months. They just they find purpose, and then they keep going. And, yes, it you need to have some give back, some success feeling to wanna keep going, but you also don't have to define that success with a very big number. It can be a handful of people who really enjoy your content, who have learned something, or who have been entertained by you, or have, connected with you.
Helen:Okay? So you can really let yourself off the hook for thousands of followers overnight. And a lot of people will write to me, and they're like, I need I can you help me? I wanna make money online. Oh my god.
Helen:Don't look to me. It took me five years to figure out how to make any money online. Don't look at me. Hold on. Sip.
Helen:Sip. I have a cup of tea here, and I don't want it to get cold because I don't have a microwave in the in the hotel room. Oh my goodness. But, yeah, so it doesn't and I'm not saying that I don't know how to grow on social media. Obviously, I do.
Helen:Obviously, I could have monetized years ago. That wasn't my priority. I was working my day job. Production came back after the pandemic. I was busy.
Helen:I didn't wanna have a second job, honestly. And now I see the value in creating something for myself that is beyond my production day job, which is long, grueling days. And they're and sometimes it's taking me it's flying me here and flying me there, and I have don't have so much control over my life. So, you know, the time was right for me to start thinking about how to monetize and how to make this a a new career. And I'm loving it, but I'm also not in an emergency mode to do it.
Helen:I am pacing myself. So that's the other thing. If you try to monetize, doing it as a side hustle is way smarter than thinking I'm gonna quit my job and become a content creator because, yikes. I'm gonna tell you that's probably not a smart move. Okay?
Helen:I mean, it's just not. That's not how it works. And views and creator fund and all of that is not gonna pay the bills. Like, you just and then a lot of people will be like, help you know, watch this video and help me pay pay my bills. I mean, there's a handful of people that maybe that's working for, but, you you know, your likelihood of that is I don't wanna disappoint, but it's not high.
Helen:So you need to find a purpose that is not just, I want to make money. Because if you don't have a soul behind what you're sharing, you're not going to be able to make money. You're just not. I don't see it. I'm just being honest.
Helen:I have notes. That's why I keep looking over here as well. Okay. So understanding that that's a slow process and that aside from that, it's a slow process that you have to make mistakes in order to grow. So you've gotta make videos that don't get views.
Helen:You're gonna do stuff that you are gonna make mistakes because you weren't a content creator before. You're gonna learn things along the way, and then you'll hear somebody say, don't delete videos because it's not good for the algorithm. And then you'll go, oh my god. I deleted a video. Well, deleting one video is not gonna mess with your algorithm.
Helen:It's just a matter of taking it, pacing yourself, and not getting overwhelmed, and not believing every go back to the bad advice one from last week. Don't believe every person that you start to follow and think you're gonna follow all the people that are the gurus on social media, and then you're certainly gonna you're suddenly gonna grow overnight. Please be careful with who you listen to, what you take as verbatim as truth when people say use this sound and go viral. I mean, go listen to last week's episode. Okay?
Helen:That's that's what I have to say about that because that could really mess with your head and then send you up and down the stairs. I even have somebody in the studio that says, you know, I listened to this person. They say use that and I'm going to go viral and do that and I'm going to go viral. I'm like, okay. And you see where that got you.
Helen:You're it's got your head scrambled, but you're not making any progress. You're better off learning one new skill every week to make one new kind of video, and then compound on better video making, and then see if you grow. So, anyway, that's a good strategy actually, by the way. And then so don't create, and this is the other part that I think is interesting. People create what they think other people want to see, not what they actually want to create.
Helen:And and I I really haven't really had that problem because in the beginning, I wanted to make baking videos, and then people would say in the comments, oh, how'd you do that? And then I'd want to make a teaching video. So mine has always been based on me wanting to help people in different ways. So it was help people in the kitchen, and then it was help people learn on the iPhone, because I was doing some little iPhone tutorials, and then help people learn how to edit. And then I find it safe, I guess, a safe way for me to make content confidently because it's something I'm comfortable doing.
Helen:So think about what you're comfortable doing. Maybe start with that, and then work your way from there. You everything the thing you're doing in the very beginning of creating content is not necessarily the thing that you're gonna be doing at the end of your journey. So if you would have asked me this in 2020, I would have thought that, oh, my goal is maybe to have a baking show. That does not even remotely appeal to me.
Helen:Even if it was offered to me tomorrow, I would be like, I don't think so. I don't know. I'm not that passionate about baking. I like it, but not that much. And I thought I literally thought, oh, yes.
Helen:I'm gonna have, like, my own mothership baking channel, la la la. It's funny how life changes and how how you make progress and how your path changes. And so I just say to you, like, I thought that back then for real. For real. I thought that in the beginning.
Helen:I'm like, oh, I'm gonna have you know, maybe it'll be baking and then it'll be household tips, and maybe it'll be interviewing people in restaurants. Like, I had all these things in my head, And look where I am now. It has nothing to do with any of those things. So it's just really a matter of pacing yourself and not trying to be like the other people you're watching. Like, not saying, I just wanna be like that person.
Helen:Like, I and the person sometimes when I have one on ones, people will say to me, I really wanna, you know, learn how to be a creator like this person, like that person. I'm like, get your head out of the game with other people. Like, you don't wanna be this person and that person. It's you wanna be your own version of your best content creator self. And whatever that is, you have to find it.
Helen:And it takes time to find it, but that's the fun of it. It's the fun part. It's like how my husband used to say it's like not the destination, it's the journey. He always says that. And it's true in content creation.
Helen:It's not like what you're gonna decide to do. It's it's how you're gonna get there. It's the evolution of making your content to get you to the place where you wanna go. And I say this for any content creator now that even has a lane. You don't know.
Helen:Your lane might change. Mine changed very rapidly one time in June 2022 when I was like, maybe I have to start making some different content. I'll make documentary of some sort. And the next thing you know, I was making my own documentary about going through cancer and chemo treatments. I didn't know my content was gonna take that detour, and it was kind of a cool detour if I look back on it now.
Helen:I brought people into a journey. I took people with me. We all learned together. We learned something different. We learned about I never knew anything about chemo.
Helen:I learned a lot. I never knew anything about radiation. So I think you don't know where the journey's gonna take you, and you have to really let it happen because it's so fun, and it's good for your audience. And that's what builds loyalty, when people really feel that you're being truthful in your content, and you're not that character online. And then know a lot of people like to be a character online, and if that's your thing, go for it because you can you can be an online character if you want.
Helen:But then you wanna you've gotta realize people are gonna buy into you as that. Like, that becomes their truth of who you are. And if that's what you want, that's fine. I I don't really want that. I want people to know that my online self is my real self.
Helen:It's a seamless machine for me. But that's not how everybody is. I remember meeting a creator once, talking to her. I don't even wanna call out who she is. It doesn't really matter.
Helen:But she was like, oh, when you talk to me, just so just so you know, that's not my real voice. I was like, what? I did not know that everything she was doing on the Internet was an accent and a a character that she was playing. So, you know, that's also that person wasn't more of an actress, so that made more sense that that she would be playing a character. So you do you is the point, but figure out what you is by experimenting and maybe pass this on to someone who is trying to figure that out.
Helen:Also, you could share with them to try the studio out for a month because that's what we hope you do. Anyway, this has been fun. I can't wait to share what I've been doing all week because that it's so hard for me when I have to work in production and it has to be a confidential thing and then I can't talk about it because that's part of what I like to do online is share my real life. And so when I have to be locked down, I don't like it. It's really a struggle.
Helen:Sigh. So, yeah, soon I'll be able to share. But in a way, it's good that I've decided to do this Vlogmas challenge because it's giving me focus on, okay. Well, I can't talk about what I'm doing today on the shoot, so instead I will create a Vlogmas day three, four, five, whatever day I'm in video. So that's how I'm kind of adapting.
Helen:So figure out a way to get yourself in the game to be consistent, what kind of content you wanna recreate, maybe join a challenge because it'll keep you going. We're gonna we have this challenge come going now in December. We're gonna have a January challenge for sure because January is the best time to kick off, you know, your new self or your fresh self, and we're gonna be doing that too. Okay. Any questions?
Helen:Drop it in the comments at or reply to the newsletter because now you can actually comment on the newsletter. So thanks for being here. Thanks for listening as always, and I'll see you next week. Back in New York City.