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Welcome to the socialized strategy. I'm happy to be here on a Friday as always. I love when we're heading into the weekend. Makes me feel happy. Makes me feel like I got a lot accomplished this week.
Helen:And so I am going to just dive into the topic today, and then I have some questions that I'm gonna save for the end. And the topic today, unfortunately, again, is the TikTok ban. And when I say unfortunately, just because it's not being resolved, we keep getting a lot of mixed information. There are a couple of creators that talk about the TikTok ban, the legal side of it. I'm not versed in the legalities and how the bills are written.
Helen:So I'm just more reacting and thinking about how to be prepared and how to stay positive and not feel like the world is falling apart if this goes away. I will say this. I'm gonna put myself out there a little bit about how I deal with life. I feel that this is like Chicken Little. The sky is falling.
Helen:The sky is falling. The sky is falling. Yeah. Okay. You said TikTok was going away in 2022.
Helen:Was was it 2022, 2023? Whatever. So many times we've heard that TikTok's going away, and it's still here. And I just can't believe that with the amount of money that this app is generating now for the American public and for the world, I just don't see how it can just go. It doesn't seem to make sense.
Helen:It seems like that's, I don't. It seems like un American, if I wanna use those words. It just seems wrong on so many levels. So because of that, I just think we don't know everything that's going on behind the scenes. And I'm not a lawyer to be able to read into the fine print and be able to say, oh, there's this loophole, there's that loophole.
Helen:I know we have other apps. They're owned by ByteDance. Are those going away too? I don't know. I mean so I guess where I'm sitting is I'm more in the place where you are as a listener, as a viewer, as a you know, a fellow social media creator.
Helen:I am but I'm paying closer attention and I'm also trying to think about the mindset. How are we going to adapt if it does happen and how are we gonna think about it if it happens? So there's the preparedness and there's also the mindset. I wanna talk about those 2 things today. And before I do that, I have to say something about drones because my current obsession, and I apparently am not alone because Beth Bethany Frankel is is like our news reporter on the drones at this point.
Helen:I'm very curious when I'm spending the holidays in New Jersey if I'm gonna actually see them. And I will be looking, and if I see them, you can bet there will be posts about it. Like I'll be sharing my footage. I I in a way, I hope I do see it so that I can share some content. But on the other hand, if it's that close to me, I think I might be a little bit freaked out.
Helen:I don't know. So for the people who are living under these drones where I used to live, it's like very it's hitting home for me, and it's like intense and strange to think about. And we're getting no information, and it's been weeks. I don't I don't understand. That's probably why I think it's more dangerous because I think what would be the big deal if it was no big deal?
Helen:Why wouldn't they just say? You know what I mean? Pondering. Alright. Well, on that note, I don't wanna go down a a scary rabbit hole.
Helen:I still have my holiday colors near me here. It's so fun. I I moved the tree out into another area. Now I brought my red berries in here. I don't know.
Helen:Just playing around with my backdrop if you're watching instead of listening. And, let's dive in. I'm not even gonna babble anymore. So what should you do about the TikTok ban? Okay.
Helen:Here are some ways you can prepare in the event it happens, but I would like to say as a preface to the whole thing is if you are a content creator now and you have been changed and impacted by the app called TikTok, you can't un know that part of yourself. Like I can't unsee the part of me that is now a content creator who has flourished because of this particular app. And that doesn't mean I may have flourished on another app. The way that it happened on TikTok was unique because of the algorithm, the way the app worked, and how it connected you with people, how quickly you could get traction if the people saw your video the way it would get pushed out if it was interesting to a certain audience. And I don't think that any other apps are their algorithms are currently up to the same, I I won't say standards even.
Helen:I'll just say up to the same kind of operating system, the way it works. So I don't think we're gonna have a replacement. I just don't. But I do think that as a content creator, I know what I love doing, and I know I've I'm confident in what I wanna share now. So I know that wherever I go, I will find my purpose, and I will go to check out Lemonade, just like I will talk about later in the in the pod here, that what have what have I noticed about it?
Helen:How is it different? Oh, I see. Well, I'll adapt my content in this way for that app. And then I look at another app and I'm like, okay. A little different, whatever.
Helen:I'll adapt my content for that for that app if I choose that that's where I wanna lean. So the purpose is not to then say, let's just find another place to do the exact same thing. I don't really think that that's reality. I don't. And I'm being perfectly honest.
Helen:I think we had something so incredibly special with the way this one worked. So I will just I'll leave it at that. And I know there's a lot of people that don't love TikTok as much as I do, but it's, like, kind of my happy place. And I'm gonna be sad to lose my happy place, but it's not gonna change the happy person that I have become from it. So I'm gonna take all the learning, and I'm gonna take it elsewhere.
Helen:And I'm also gonna take it as part of my tapestry, part of my thread of who I am, just like cancer is now part of my tapestry. TikTok is now part of my tapestry. And wherever we move next, it's a new challenge. It's a new place to pivot. It's a new thing to discover.
Helen:Think that a word that, recently when I was working with people and the subject was like, how did how older people stay young mentally is those who are curious and those who continue to learn. And that's where I'm at. Like I'm never gonna be, okay, I don't wanna learn that, it's new. I'm always gonna be like, oh, what's that? It's new?
Helen:I just need to know. And because I'm that way, each time something presents, I am able to evolve. And I think that we can all do that if we just change the mindset. Like, think about your mind and say, I'm gonna open up my mind. I'm not gonna be like, oh, you know, nowadays people, blah blah.
Helen:Don't be the nowadays crotchety bitch when you get older. You know what I mean? I got no time for that. Let's be happy and be excited about technology and how things are changing. And even if you don't agree with it, you don't have to close your mind off to it.
Helen:Just maybe learn so that you can understand it. I think that's part of the problem that's happening in the government is that there are people of a certain age, you know, I'm not gonna say, but they are, and they are closed minded. They don't have any interest in learning what the technology is, why we all love it, and what it has done to human connection. And because they don't understand it and use it in that way, they don't think it has value. So it's unfortunate, and I wish, gosh, I wish I could speak to them directly.
Helen:And one time I when it was all going down and there was, like, the thing in front of congress with Shu, I was like, I need to go there and give them a lesson. They need the TikTok teacher, you know, so they understand how this app works before they decide they're gonna shut it down. Oh, mama mia. Alright. Let's get on with it.
Helen:So if you have any size following on TikTok like I do, I have an investment in it in my mind because I have 1,100,000 followers, and you don't wanna lose that audience. So what I've started to do is trickle out information about where else I am can be found. And I probably should have been doing this all along a little bit more, but I have been. I've been building an email list. I've been I don't send people to other apps, but I always have my website now on on all of my content.
Helen:And so that's like almost like my watermark. So if someone's watching my video and they like what I am saying, maybe they'll go check out my website. I don't know. They'll subscribe to my newsletter, whatever. So it's really about subtly adding information that your interested parties will grab onto.
Helen:So you don't wanna beat them to death, like, follow me here, follow me there, follow me here. Because guess what? People don't always like to be told what to do. They don't. So their strategies have how to move them over without, like, telling them or insisting or gatekeeping or something like that.
Helen:And I did something recently that I shared with my studio audience, yesterday is I posted a tutorial, and I realized that I have a photo that is a clean photo for this tutorial, which is the like a prayer trend. And I'm like, well, I can't message it to people, because people have were saying, how where do I get the photo? Well, when I get when I see a comment like that, I can't add the photo to the comment or send it to the person, because TikTok doesn't allow you to send, photos or videos to each other. So I decided I will use my Instagram to do that. And this way, maybe I can get people over to my Instagram.
Helen:But so I made the tutorial and I said, if you need the photo, message me on Instagram. So it was a more, like, a gifting way to get them over there. Like, if you go there, I will give you this piece of information you need to make this video. And there's no other way I can get it to you, so it wasn't like I was holding back the information. I was just like, here's an idea.
Helen:Because I oftentimes will people message me and say, oh, there's somebody impersonating you. I wanna send you a screenshot, and they but I can't send it here. So I say to them, send it over to me on Instagram. And so I use Instagram for that already. So it was very natural for me to say that, and it didn't feel like weird and salesy and gatekeep you to do it.
Helen:And it was a really legit way I can get you this photo if you need to do this trend. So if you can think of something like that where you you can provide something to someone of value to them by using that other platform that will get them over there. So you can open your mind up and think like, what does your audience need? Is there some, you know, a photo or a link or something you can send them that is more suitably to to sendable in Instagram DM versus TikTok DM, and then you can pick up some followers that way. So I think that's a good one.
Helen:The other thing is obviously joining new social media platforms and reserving your username. And again, I talked about this in great depth, yesterday on my Zoom with my students. I love my socialized studio students. They are the bomb. They're doing so well.
Helen:I'm gonna talk about that more because honestly, like chef's kiss to have some of them are creating videos now and it's just like gives me goosebumps. Makes me so happy. So what we talked about is even if you're not gonna use an app, get your username. If your username is something that you wanna make sure you have and it's your brand. So for me, it's the mothership.
Helen:I better run over there to Blue Sky and get it. I better run to fan base and get it. I better run to Clap or Lemonade, all of them. So I immediately, when something new comes and I get a little inkling, I just go sign up, get my username, and then put it to bed. I don't even have to worry about it.
Helen:So I did this months ago on Lemonade. I just heard about it. Oh, Lemonade. I went over. I looked at it.
Helen:I said, not really for me, but let me get my username. Got my username. Bingo. Now everybody's going to Lemonade all of a sudden. Guess what?
Helen:Guess what? The mothership has 11,000 followers because I was over there already. I had my username. So when the people now are connecting their TikTok to Lemonade and they click the option, do you wanna follow the same people you follow here? Bada bing bada boom.
Helen:I have followers now. You know what I mean? I don't know. I think that being proactive and being ahead of it has value because you're an early adopter. I mean, I just honestly, I couldn't believe it.
Helen:I'm so I'm so excited about it because it very little effort. I've also then when I saw, oh goodness, I'm getting attraction over there. Let me start posting some videos. And I was very careful about what I chose to post. I didn't post all of my same TikToks over there.
Helen:Number 1, only 60 second videos. Yikes. The mothership is kind of long winded, you know. I make long tutorials. Sometimes they're 5 minutes long when they're lessons.
Helen:So I have to be very careful about what I choose, what I pick, what I put over there, and it has to be in 60 seconds. And also the thumbnail. I can't say this enough. Over there, the thumbnail matters so much. What you choose, what it says to make people to click on it.
Helen:Because it's not that there's a feed scrolling, there's trending thumbnails and you have to pick 1. So something has to attract you to a thumbnail to pick 1 to watch it. Okay. I'm rambling about that app, but the point is reserve your handle. And then if you wanna know more about these apps and what the different how they work, the different things, the styles, that's what I'm going over in-depth with my studio.
Helen:So I'm gonna put always put a link here so you can join. You can check it out for a month, see if it helps you. I will at the end, I will tell you exactly what we do in the studio. I'm not gonna disrupt my flow now to tell you, but it's really, really helpful for if for you as a creator to keep you inspired, motivated, give you instruction, give you direction, and it's a whole lot of fun. Alright.
Helen:The next thing you wanna do is when you go to a new platform is follow your favorite count accounts. Because now here's a key thing when you if you follow big creators and then you say, I'm like 1 in a bucket of this gigantic creator. But now you see they're on a new app and they don't have a big following yet. That's when to get in. You know what I mean?
Helen:Get follow comments. You might be noticed on this new app because now they're trying to build attraction. They're trying to curate their audience again and they're gonna pay attention to who their first followers are. Okay. So think about that one.
Helen:The next one is to save any content or ideas that you have on TikTok that you might wanna use going forward. So if you have videos that you've saved with tips, with recipes, with life hacks, now is the time to go through that and save anything that you want to make sure you have again. And hopefully it's gonna be harder to do this later, but I will say hopefully you've been creating and saving before you post because then you don't really have to worry about this step. And that's what I've been doing for years. So this I don't have any stress about I'm gonna lose all my content.
Helen:I literally have all my content for the most part, probably 97% of it that I want. So making sure you have your content, making sure you have it backed up. This way you can see even if you're not gonna post something old like, I might not post something for when I was wearing wigs, but I might look at that content and go, oh, that was a good idea for a video and I could remake that video. Alright. So having those, it's like having that for reference.
Helen:Alright. The next thing is saving any content. Sorry. I said that. Back it up.
Helen:I'm reading backwards. Is to dive in and understand a new app, like give it a to do. So take a look, see what it's about. Don't immediately think you're gonna bring your same self over to a new app. And a lot of people on these new apps, they've been there for a while, and then some of them are annoyed.
Helen:Like, oh, this is gonna turn into TikTok now. Like, one of them, I heard some comments like that. Like, all the people are coming over here and bringing their messy TikToks or something like that was said. And so it's not necessarily like we're welcome to do that when people have been there before. It's like going over to someone's house and then they're having a certain style of a party, and then you come in and you bring, like, the loud noise or whatever, and that's not what they were doing over there.
Helen:So I like to be respectful, like, as you would be in real life, be on social media. You don't barrel in and think you're taking over at someone's house. So don't do that on someone's social media. Just observe, understand, take a look around. What's the vibe?
Helen:How can I how can I work my way in here? How can I just meet a few people and talk to them and see see who I can connect with? Think about it like I think about everything in social media. Think about how you would do that thing in real life. It's so helpful, and it will give you just a really clear picture of how to behave and how to connect with people.
Helen:And the last thing is just not to panic, stay positive, and know that whatever you have learned up until now has value, and it wasn't a waste of time, and you can take it somewhere else. So if you're doing a TikTok shop and you think my life is over, I can't do the TikTok shop anymore. Don't worry. There will be somewhere which will take if it's this goes away, believe you may, some app is gonna pop up that takes its place that is going to be very like, almost like a shop app, if you will. Like, it's gonna be a place where you can go and you're gonna be able to do the same thing you're doing.
Helen:You have the skills. You've built the skills. The skills are not going away. It's just where the skills live might shift. That all said, I don't think it's going anywhere.
Helen:I hate to be like the queen of positivity, but I don't think it's going. I don't think they're gonna shut down an app that billions of people are using and billions of companies are using to monetize and sell products. It's like I envision like a market crash if it goes away. I don't know. That's just me.
Helen:Okay. Now I'm gonna ask its answer, not ask. I'm gonna read some questions and I'm gonna answer them, and there's 2 for today. And I'm really thankful to Carla. So I'm gonna say FabFit by Carla is one of my amazing students in the studio.
Helen:She's learning so quickly. She is so focused, and I love how she has embraced it. And she's been following me for a while, and I met her once in real life. She came to Julie's comedy show in Los Angeles, and we met in real life. And that was long before this.
Helen:And now she has joined the studio. She's really taking it on, and she even told her followers I'm going to school, which is really cute. And so she is taking them on the journey of her learning how to up her game on social media. And she has a big following on Instagram. She is an influencer, so she's not a beginner.
Helen:So even someone who is well versed in social media and has been doing brand, collabs and things like that, even she is learning and really, really improving. I'm so excited for her. So here's 2 questions from Carla. How many videos should we include in each playlist? I've created 4 different playlists.
Helen:I just don't know how many videos. Okay. Here's what I have to say about that. Put them all in because I figured out that because I've when sometimes I have comments on videos and I go through and I'm like, why is this video getting a comment? This video is, like, a 1000000 years old.
Helen:You know? It's, like, from 3 years ago or something. And I realized I will look at the creator who she like, this person would like, like, like, and then watch and comment on videos, and they were clearly from tutorial to tutorial. I'm like, she's going through my tutorial playlist right now, and she's commenting on all the tutorials. So there's no limit.
Helen:And it's a little annoying because I don't know how how the order works when you put them in there. Sometimes it scrambles the order. You can rearrange them, but I don't have time for that. So you can look at that Carla. But I think the point is put them all in there because it's gonna slide them right in, and then then a person who's just looking for that from you won't miss anything.
Helen:I mean, I think I have a 100 of in my tutorials playlist. And then I forget to put them in because I don't put them in immediately every time. I let them sit so that my first part of the caption doesn't say episode 22 or when it goes into a playlist, they give it like an episode thing. So because of that, I actually don't, oh, don't put them in a playlist right away. I wait like a week or 2 until they're kind of like old news, then I go into the playlist, and then I add the ones from, like, the last 2 weeks.
Helen:So that's just a little strategy for Carla and anyone else who likes to use playlists. I think there's no limit, and I think you can not put them right in the first minute. Like, let your lower caption not have that episode thing on it for the first couple of days. Then like in a week, put them in there. Put them in the playlist.
Helen:Next question from Carla, which is also a good one, is how do you determine what the first the text on your text on screen to categorize your video and the beginning of your lower caption? Because both of those pieces of text seem to be the most likely thing that TikTok grabs to put you in a category. So when it says find related content at the top, instead you'll have a category. So I'm gonna say this, From my experience, it's not an exact science. And a lot of times, no matter what you put, it doesn't get grabbed by the platform.
Helen:I don't know what if it's a glitch in the platform, if it's just not a perfect science at this point, But it's like all you can do is do your best and try. And then for the bulk of your videos, it might work, and then for a few of them, it's not gonna work. But what I recommend is putting something that's very specific about what that video is about and put it you can put it the text on the screen, but if you don't wanna muddy up your visuals and you don't want text on screen, put it in the very beginning of the caption. Because it's a fact that when I look through my look through my videos, and one time I wrote, oh, look at this cute magic trick. I put that in the caption and it was an outfit transition.
Helen:It put magic trick up in the search. I was like, oh my god. No more clever captions from me. I'm gonna just put exactly what's happening in the video because it wasn't a magic trick. You know what I mean?
Helen:So I got wrongly categorized because I put a clever little caption in the bottom. So I learned from my mistakes. I don't do that anymore. I just I'm very clear in the first sentence of my lower caption or and and or my sentence on screen that describes the video. And those are my pieces of advice for today.
Helen:Have a great weekend. I'm sure it's gonna be a hustle bustle last minute shopping thing. Me and Jonathan are gonna be together a lot, so you'll see some content from me and the boy. And I hope he'll be cooperating because I want to do the, we listen and we don't judge trend with him, and I can't wait. I hope he'll do it with me, and I hope he'll be funny.
Helen:Fingers crossed. Have a great weekend, and the next post, the next podcast and newsletter will be on Christmas Eve, so I'll see you then.