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Welcome to the socialized forecast, May 28, 2024. This is the Tuesday edition where we bring you trend alerts, content ideas, music suggestions, and a whole lot more. Welcome and happy Tuesday. I feel like I have not been here in ages because Friday, our session was a podcast that was recorded previously with Lorraine. And it was so much fun and it was so much learning, But I did not record last Friday, so it's been at least a week for me.
Helen:So, hi, I've missed you, and I'm really happy to be back. Well, if you haven't listened to the episode with Lorraine Laddish, she's amazing. Please go back and check it out. She has got such great insights into being a full time content creator. What I kinda loved and learned from her, specifically just by watching her content and now listening to her spell it out, is how she doesn't use her platform solely to make money.
Helen:So she spends 95 90 to 95% of her content on things that she wants to post about. This way, when she posts the occasional sponsored post, it's not that her feed is full of sponsored posts. And so her followers are already sick of things that she's promoting or getting behind. And I just love that as a concept. So if you are a content creator who is heavily into selling on your content, there's something to be learned from Lorraine.
Helen:And I thought it was really insightful. You really want to use your platform to share because you care about your audience, not so much because you're trying to sell so we can learn a lot from her. I loved I also loved her insight into the fact that brands in her mind, she's not trying to sell. The brands are paying her for her voice and awareness of their product, not necessarily to make sales. And I like that as flipping the switch in your head because sometimes I think as content creators, when we get offers to do things or we receive PR packages, we suddenly feel pressure to sell for the brand.
Helen:And that's not necessarily the case. You can simply like a brand and share what you love about it without trying to convince other people to buy it. So maybe if you switch flip the switch on your head, you would also, maybe wanna venture down that path because you don't have to have a huge following to do to do sponsorships on social media. You just have to prove that your audience is engaged enough and cares about your content. Alright.
Helen:Let's dive into I want to say before I get into what the trends are for the week, I do wanna talk about something I'm seeing a lot on my for you page, and it might just be because I watched the first video all the way through. And also because I love the movie Pretty Woman, Pretty Woman, Pretty Woman. I don't even know what the name of the movie is. But gotta love Julia Roberts in that movie. And I think it's very funny that Bethenny Frankel, if you don't know her, she is a former housewives of New York or New Jersey.
Helen:I forget what her background is, but she's a former housewife. Housewife. I'm really screwing up with the grammar today. Stay with me. It's it's all I'm just coming off a holiday holiday weekend.
Helen:I can't even put 2 words together. So she had an experience where she was in, I don't know what city, Chicago, actually. She was in Chicago, and she went to walk into Chanel dressed as an ordinary person, civilian. And they've opened the door a crack, and they wouldn't let her in without an appointment. So she went off on social media about it.
Helen:And I have to say, and you you could love her or hate her, but she's very, very herself on social media. And I kind of liked about this. She really leaned into it. She started making a lot of funny videos about it, which then I was getting fed like crazy because I watched the first one and a lot of people in the comments were, you know, talking about the pretty women vibe and using the big mistake, huge mistake kind of lines in the comments. Really funny stuff.
Helen:And I just got a kick out of it because I think what she does well and we can all learn from her is she doesn't really care. She leans into it and she was posting video after video spoofing on it. She had Chanel contacting her and it got really, really funny and she's kind of over it. But now she just really had fun with it. So she doesn't care if you are sick of seeing her talk about it or not.
Helen:She just continues to post what she feels like posting, having a good old time with it and being her own real self. And I love that because when you don't care what other people think, that is where your first step to success is gonna come from is really not caring. If she gets people that are complaining about something, sometimes making fun of her face saying she has Botox. And she's like, look, I don't have Botox. These are my real cheeks.
Helen:I mean, she's very funny. And she really has we can we can learn from her in a different way than we learn from somebody like Mel Robbins, for example, who is very, quote, heavy and can give you really good insights. But in a different way, they both give us something. So if you're a woman a woman 50 plus, they are 2 very different type of people to potentially learn from. And I'll just leave you with that.
Helen:And let's get on to the trends for this week. I had a good time watching some of those videos. So I'm in I'm in it. Alright, the first trend is called personal dictionary game. This is a really fun one to play with a friend, a partner, a coworker, whoever.
Helen:And you write down words or phrases that you exclusively use with that person. And then you have the other person try and guess what that phrase is. So there are so many good ones. This is it's reminded me a little of Pictionary because it well, I guess it's Pictionary, but it's a dictionary where they you hold the word up like this on your phone and to the camera, but the person can't see the word. And so you're trying to get them to guess by saying, like, this is a word that I use all the time when I'm calling you something, you know, at a certain time when we're in a restaurant or whatever.
Helen:Really, really fun. There's some fun examples. And I think if you watch the one that we have put into the creative, the socialized forecast this week, if you watch that one, it tends to feed you other ones. So that's how the algorithm works. Once you watch 1, you tend to see more like that.
Helen:So if you click on it in the newsletter and watch that one, you'll probably get some other examples shortly thereafter. So enjoy that. The next trend I did with Jonathan. I will have had it posted by the time you're hearing this podcast, but it's called he's traveling around. And it's a really fun lip sync.
Helen:Not an easy lip sync, mind you. I had to practice it like a 100 times. I listened to it over and over and over to get it right. And it's basically a lip sync that you wanna where you're trying to explain something, but you can't find the words. So it's like, the creator that we have in that newsletter used it showing off that that they he hired his son, but he's not quite understanding what he actually does.
Helen:He's having trouble articulating what he really does. And he's saying, but he's amazing. You know, he's really it's really great what he does, but I don't know what it is. So I did it with I did one with Jonathan where he was playing video games, and he just was really funny and was excited to do it with me. Sometimes it's fun when I can find a trend that's a either a 2 person lip sync or something that I can do with Jonathan.
Helen:And he really enjoys doing those lip syncing ones. So he didn't have to do any lip syncing on this one. He just had to be my backup. We had a really fun time doing it. So check that one out.
Helen:And if you have someone that you can do it with where you're at a loss for words for what they're really doing, you can really have fun with that one. Hurray. The last, trend we have is called holiday. It's a perfect trend to kick off summer vacation because it shows that you weren't sad. You just needed a holiday.
Helen:And so you can just quickly make a little voice. It's has the audio starts off with, its own audio talking about, like, why you aren't sad. And then it kicks into holiday and you can post some holiday photos. Really fun, really easy. And so if you've just been on a vacation or you're heading to a vacation, at least tap on the link and save it to your favorites so that when the time is right, you can call it right up.
Helen:And that's a good strategy for any of the times we put a trend out and you think you might wanna use it, add it to your favorites. By the way, this is not helping my engagement. I just I'm suggesting it to you to help add because a lot of these trends are not anything I've done. But add it to your favorites and that and you can put it in a folder and you can manage it as a collection. TikToks you wanna try and keep them saved.
Helen:That way, when you're at a loss for content, you can quickly go into your folder and say, oh, goodness, I can do this one and and keep some saved in there. Good strategy tip right there. Alright. Before I get into original content ideas, I wanna let you know that editing 108 is scheduled for May 30th at 1 PM EST, and I am going to do a workshop. I know a lot of people have requested morning.
Helen:So I think for June next month, I'm going to do a morning workshop. That way, my Australia people that are ahead but can't make the midday ones because it's middle of the night are able to make it. So I promise you that my next one is gonna be a morning workshop. Gonna get myself up early. Ouch.
Helen:I'm not a morning person. But I'm gonna do a morning workshop for you, and we're gonna have fun. Damn it. We are gonna have fun even though it's morning. I'll grab myself a nice cup of tea because I don't drink coffee.
Helen:But on editing 108, we are going to cover editing with music and voiceovers. I get this question a lot, and I haven't really been able to do a workshop dedicated specifically to it. But I am gonna show you how to edit to the beats of the music and how to just oftentimes not even worry about editing to the beats, but how to edit. And then it actually works with the beats of the music. So I'm gonna do a nice lesson on that in a very slow pace.
Helen:So if you are a beginner and you're trying to learn how to edit basic edits in capcut, this is the one for you. Come and join us on the 30th at 1 PM. Make sure you sign up for it. Alright. Now let's get into the original content ideas.
Helen:First one is summer essentials. If you could not tell, we, Julie and Helen get very excited about summer being around the corner. We love summer. It's one of our favorite. I love every season personally.
Helen:But summers, my favorite, I spend a lot of time at the beach. So this is where you can share your summer essentials with your followers, whether it's the best sunscreen, the best beach products, snacks, drinks, things you can't live without for summer. Show us what you find essential that makes your summer better. I'm gonna already tell you that one of mine is my little chair umbrella that I love because it attaches to my chair. I don't have to carry a big umbrella to the beach.
Helen:It's like a little personal umbrella. It's one of my faves. So maybe I'll do my video about that. 1 year, I did a video using it and I was twirling it on the beach. And now since I'm in the twirling zone, I could do another beach umbrella twirling video maybe.
Helen:Stay tuned for that. The next idea we have, and this is spurred by one of my own TikToks, is making a video about something that you see that's a new feature. And if you are not somebody who feels comfortable talking about a new feature or how it works, you can actually be confused by a new feature and say, I noticed this. I don't like it or I don't really understand how it works and tag me. And I will tag the mothership and I will make a tutorial explaining it.
Helen:So it could be a fun one for me to engage with you. Or you can talk about it yourself if you found a new feature. I was talking about a new feature on TikTok. And if you're an Instagrammer, you're gonna understand this a 100%. So on the Instagram story, it's really, a story feature is very engaging where it's personal with your followers.
Helen:So you get DM. So if someone comments on a story, it comes into your DM's. It doesn't get posted on a feed the way the Instagram comments do when you post a reel or a post. Well, on TikTok, it used to be that the stories that you would post would also have a comment section. And it made it really nice, particularly for bigger creators who get a lot of comments.
Helen:So I was able to on my story on TikTok, I was able to go to the comment section, go down and power through and respond to the comments. But now they have decided that they have to do it like Instagram. So now on TikTok, hundreds of DMs to my stories, and it's so difficult. It's very manageable for me on Instagram to respond to story comments because I don't have a big following on Instagram the way I do on TikTok. But now it's debilitating to a big creator, and I was really frustrated by it.
Helen:So I was talking about it on a post, and a lot of people have the same the same aggravation with it. So if you see a new feature, I saw a couple other things I'm gonna be doing new videos about. If there's a new feature that you wanna know about, especially even on Instagram, please tag me. I'll be happy to do a tutorial about it. Alright.
Helen:The next one is dream vacation. Share your dream vacation. This one is funny because we have the trend that's the holiday, But this one is, what would your dream vacation be? It's a great idea for travel or lifestyle creators to share what would be the dream vacation. Plus, you'll get people coming into the comments that might suggest places to stay, where to eat and things like that.
Helen:So you might really learn from the comment section if you post a wish of wish video, and then you might find a really affordable way to do it because a lot of people on the app are very resourceful on these apps. On on TikTok and on Instagram, you're going to get people comment, and they love to share the things that they know. A lot of times, the most intelligent, smart, helpful people are the ones who are not posting content, but they are actually writing in the comment section. And I find this. I I love this because I think, number 1, if they're not posting content, they have more time to be able to comment and share.
Helen:And I love that about the commenters and really appreciate the commenters on my on my content, particularly. Alright. Now let's talk about the tutorials for the week. And I'm gonna be honest, I didn't go crazy this week making tutorials because holiday weekend. And I knew that I was gonna have Jonathan here the whole weekend.
Helen:So I made a few in advance of the week. And so I posted, how to overlay. I've got a tutorial explaining the story feature problem on TikTok. So I've got a few of those tutorials. And I think this week, I'm gonna try and tackle something that might be more transition related.
Helen:There's one transition that is going crazy called the Ahsoka challenge, which is a lot of a lot of head turn wipe effects. And it's just to me, I've I've put it off. I've been requested. It's been requested, highly requested. And I put it off because it's a lot of work to do the video in the first place and then try and explain it.
Helen:So I'm gonna see if I can try and tackle that week. I'd tackle that this week. I have no promises, but if I can get to it, I promise you I will. I will do my best. Other thing that I did a tutorial for this week was how to find filtered comments.
Helen:And this in particular is on TikTok because TikTok filters that you can put a word to filter a comment if you don't want people to comment a certain word on your videos. So they have a very high level filtering system going on. I don't even know if I'm sure tick I'm sure Instagram has filters as well. As a matter of fact, maybe I'm gonna dig deep into that and see if I can and see where that is. But I find it really helpful to share about the filtered comments.
Helen:I don't think a lot of people even know that even if without filters being set on your comments, some of your contents are being some of your comments are being filtered by the platform. Because it's trying to keep you safe, but a lot of times they're perfectly innocent comments. So you might wanna go and check your filtered comments if you did not see that tutorial. I will include it here. Lastly, before I leave today, I'm gonna just address a couple of questions that came in.
Helen:Okay. Let's see. Number 1 is very broad. I would like assistance with growing my account. Now we have lots of podcasts before this one which are specific to growth, how to optimize your account, how to create better engagement, and how to grow on grow a community.
Helen:It is definitely challenging now to grow on any of these social media forms because they are so saturated with people trying to sell things and advertisers taking up space. And so you really have to have high value content for people to bother to hit that follow button. The other thing is when TikTok and Instagram first came out, if you wanted to if you saw someone on your feed and you wanted to see them again, you definitely hit follow so that you wouldn't lose that person. So it would be in your follower list. But what happens now is these algorithms have gotten so sophisticated that even just watching someone's video will allow you to see them again in your feed, so people don't feel as compelled to hit the follow button.
Helen:So what really is going to prompt someone to follow is something that you are doing for them that they want to see again and that they need to follow you to make sure they don't miss. So that is higher value content. And there's a creator actually on TikTok that reached out to me to say, I have much more likes on my content. How come I don't have as many followers as you? Which is a very bizarre thing in the first place to say, to send to me.
Helen:But she was kind of saying, like, why don't I have more followers than you? And if I have more likes on my content, very bizarre. And when I looked at the person's content, I could see why I have more followers, and it's mainly because I am providing a service. And that service is high value to people who are scrolling on the platform. And so that's just an example of why growth might happen is if you're sharing something that is expertise that is on a level where it's not as easy for people to just find it by scrolling.
Helen:So they need to hit follow in order to get that from you. So this really is it doesn't necessarily mean you wanna teach how to do social media. It's it could be something as simple as your, I'm gonna give an example right now. So there's these fidget rings that, my conquering is the name of of the creator. And her son came up with these rings and they're clickable so you can you you they have movement and they click and you can kinda click them.
Helen:So there might like almost like those fidget spinners, and you can also kind of fiddle with them on your fingers. So if you're a person who does get stressed or you, you know, let's say you pick your cuticles or something and you want something to do with your hands. These rings are really that, and they do that for you. So why would that person have a big following? Because she's talking about this issue that a lot of people have.
Helen:She's sharing a solution for it. She spends a lot of time talking about how she started her brand and what has prompted her to do it in the 1st place. And her son was, is her partner in the business, and he actually came up with the design. So she has an interesting story. So that's somebody that people might want to follow to see what her new designs are, for example.
Helen:So there's some value that you need to offer to a following in order to create a community. So if it's your expertise, I know that there's a listener named Betsy that's really, really good at doing Zoom. And so she is gonna add value if she does post a lot about tips for using Zoom. And a lot of people use it for business now. So they might say, oh, I gotta follow her because she probably knows the answers to this.
Helen:So that's just an example of how you can grow your account. And it's really by offering some type of value or you're so completely entertaining that people don't wanna miss your videos. And that's a lot harder because you've gotta appeal to a certain audience specifically for that. Alright. Now let's see.
Helen:There's another question here. Is there a way to make a comment included in a bubble in a post scrunch up like you're going to throw it away? So, like, grabbing your comment and squishing it. And my guess is there's a couple of things about this. To really do it and make it look like it is crumbling, you have to animate, and that's more of an effect you probably have.
Helen:Maybe there's an effect on cap cut that does a scrunch. And then you have to time your hand and you have to work it out. But there's a very easy way to cheat something like that. So if the comment is here and you bring up your hand and you go to grab, I know people aren't always watching, but the comments on the screen in front of you and you grab your hand and you grab the comments, you can do it so quickly that if you make that comment, time it so it disappears right as your hand gets to this part of the scene where it's about to grab. If you set the duration and make it disappear as your hand does the motion, it will look like you scrunched it up.
Helen:And then you can pretend to throw it away. So there's, even though things sometimes you think, oh, my gosh. It must be so complicated. I have to animate it to make it scrunch. A lot of times, it's as simple as a trick of the eye of timing where something's there, and when your hand swipes, it looks like it swiped it right off, even though all it did was go off when your handmade got to that part of the scene.
Helen:Hopefully, that's clear and a little helpful. And that is it for me for today. Thank you for being here. I look forward to seeing you on Friday, and I hope you have a great week. It's gonna be I mean, it's a nice short week.
Helen:Just think about it. Today's like Monday, and it's already Tuesday. So enjoy the week, and I'll see you Friday. Have a good one. Thanks for listening.
Helen:Oh my gosh. You know what I never say? And I wanna make sure I say on this one. If you like the podcast, will you leave a review? Because apparently, the reviews are what boosts your podcast in the platforms.
Helen:So if you're on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, anywhere where you can leave, like, a 5 stars or do a little review and say, we love you, mothership. I would adore it, and I appreciate it so much. And I do appreciate you being here and listening when I babble on and on. So thanks for being my friend virtually, and I'll see you on Friday. Bye.