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Welcome to the socialized strategy. Happy New Year. It is the first episode of 2025, and it's so appropriate that the topic we've chosen for today really connects with goals and thinking about the new year. So I love a fresh start, and usually my fresh start happens in September because I've always had this back to school vibe. When the kids go back to school, I would always get my life back together after the summer break.
Helen:But I've now that I don't have children in school anymore, I do take the new year a little bit more. I got maybe seriously or more of, a a time period to reflect and make change. It's also my birthday month, so that helps too. So I have a lot in January that makes me think, okay, I'm in a new chapter. So I'm gonna start with that.
Helen:And one of the things I wanna say before I start, by the way, is that we do have an episode coming up. A lot of you reached out about building an email list, so I'm gonna be covering that in an episode and in the newsletter coming up. So you can look forward to that soon. I just could not get it together for this week, but that will be coming because I know that that's a hot topic and a lot of requests for it. So we will be covering that.
Helen:Just Just wanna say that before we get started. Now, a few of the things that I was thinking about as I'm processing what I wanna share on this episode aside from all the things in the newsletter, is this more of a personal thing. When I started on social media and I decided, oh, this is fun. I've just had to fill some time, be creative when I was in the pandemic era, and I didn't have any work to keep me creative. So my goals initially were not clear.
Helen:It was literally just to have some fun, make some content, keep myself busy, share my fun things with friends and family and how it all started until I began to build a following and then teach people. But initially, I didn't have a goal or a plan. And so now because social media has changed so much where people come into it thinking they need to have a goal and a plan, today's episode is gonna cover how to be consistent and how to create the those goals and plans for yourself. But I wanna share that when because when I first started, I didn't have a plan. It wasn't a a business I was building.
Helen:It was just for fun. I really because I didn't have this trajectory of a plan. I, for many years, didn't even think about monetizing in any way on social media. I still had my day job when my day job came back, and I figured this is just gonna be for fun. And you might say for 4 years, I didn't quote monetize my social media.
Helen:But when I reflect on those years, I'm gonna tell you some things that happened that changed my day job and changed things about what I was doing in my professional life that actually have been profitable. And the reason I wanna share this is because I want you to think outside the box. A lot of people think they're gonna go on social media. They're gonna get a following, and they're gonna make money from views or something. Those mon the the money that comes from views on social media or even shop sales and things like that, it's not the numbers that you would think unless you are a shop seller and you were going hard on the shop multiple videos a day and doing that, like, religiously.
Helen:I'm talking about people that think they're just gonna get views and they're gonna get paid from the app for having lots of people watching their videos. The amount of people who can make a full living at that, it's I don't even know if there's any. I think most of those people end up with sponsorships and that's where they really make their money. So it's not realistic to think that that's gonna happen. So what I wanna share is specifically things that happened to me and how I ended up monetizing and had opportunities come to me that are very, very different than what you might expect from someone even like me starting on social media.
Helen:Okay? And I think it's important. Let's just go through these. I wrote them down, so I didn't I wouldn't forget. And I wanna just start with number 1, that I have become more relevant.
Helen:So even in my professional life, when I would go on to meetings and I would be direct even as a director of commercials and doing my work, yes, I had a role there. But now when I'm in a room, my credibility has gone up like tenfold. I am I won't say to say it, but like almost the most relevant person in the room because I'm so aware of what's going on in the social media landscape. And there's so many people who have not embraced it in my in my profession. So I have such an advantage.
Helen:So number 1, being relevant. Number 2, I have been now because of my expertise on social media and I have never promoted this on social media, I am now directing social media content for brands, which then took me 2 places this year in 2024. If I look back, I was in LA, Cincinnati, and Croatia filming 4 brands, filming content, not with me in it, not featuring myself. So I didn't really ever lean on myself as an influencer. And that's the other thing a lot of people think right away they're gonna be an influencer and they're gonna get all these brand deals.
Helen:And my path was not that. I didn't maybe because I didn't lean into it in that way, or I'm not doing the kind of content where brands would reach out to me. I'm not doing makeup and fashion content, which would be more fitting for brands. So that's what happened to me. I ended up in an area, but I wanna say I never promoted that.
Helen:I never went on my channel and said, I can make content for your brands. Never even had to say that. People found me. They saw my channel. They saw I know how to make content.
Helen:In my professional life, people know that knew me and saw me on social media were then recommending me to social media projects. So, yes, I was already in that world of production, but I would never have been filming social media content in that world if it were not for my expertise on social media. Number 3, I have spoken at many conferences. Like I've never done a speaking engagement in my life before this. I have never presented on stage.
Helen:Never. I'm gonna say it. Never. Because I've been in board meetings where I've had to do some presentations in front of a few people, but I've never had to speak to a a crowd. So that was a huge thing for me.
Helen:And what I found to my surprise,
Helen:for me. And what I
Helen:found to my surprise is that I used to be, when I was younger, so nervous speaking in front of people. Like, my palms would be sweaty. Sounds like a Eminem song. Palms are sweaty, etcetera, whatever the lyrics are. But I used to really panic.
Helen:And once I would start, I would be a little okay, but I would always have this sense of fear. And doing the speaking engagements now, there is literally not even an inkling of fear. I just am ready and I get up there and I don't have that moment of my heart racing. Nothing. Because I'm so confident in what I'm going to speak about that that fear is gone.
Helen:So that's great. I mean, I don't know if that's also a combination of being older. I don't think so though. Because honestly, 5 years ago, I would still panic if I had to speak to in front of some kind of an audience for anything. Alright.
Helen:So that's that one. And I wanna just add this, which is exciting, that I'm running a workshop in Jamaica. So I've been invited to Jamaica to speak at a conference, a women's entrepreneur conference. And so if anybody has any any desire to have a little weekend away in Jamaica, an all inclusive resort, very affordable where you're gonna get so much support if you're an entrepreneur. I'm gonna put that information in the show notes, and I'm gonna talk about it a little bit more at the end just to remind you.
Helen:But it's it's gonna be really fun. And the the experts that are gonna be there sharing their expertise in fashion for business and, my God, sales, the whole thing. It's it's all for women entrepreneurs specifically. So if you have any desire to come and hang out for the weekend in Jamaica in May, I think it's the first to the 4th or something. So I'm gonna put all the details in there, and that way you can check out that because I think that's gonna be a fun one.
Helen:But again, I would never be going to Jamaica for a conference if I hadn't gotten on social media. The other thing that's happened to me is I was featured on several news stations for a few of them were because of beating cancer on my social media. So that was a separate story. I was featured as a change maker for a person who is an older granfluencer who now has a big following on social media and how that happened to me. I was featured on CNN.
Helen:Anyway, lots of fun local news segments as well. So those things would have never happened if I wasn't on social media. I contributed to a book, a success guidebook. And it's so cool because Julie is technically the contributor. She wrote it, but it was my story.
Helen:She wrote about me beating cancer on social media and how my following helped me through that. So I'm I'm now technically, she is now published and I'm featured in a book which is so cool. And most recently, I'm just gonna throw this last one out there. I've been invited to teach corporate executives how to create content, how to create training videos. So I'm going to be going to a company, a large company, and having a workshop where I'm teaching those executives how to make videos.
Helen:So what I'm saying to you here is, you might say, how much money did you make from TikTok since 2020? And one I might have said back in the might have said this like a few weeks ago. Oh, not a lot. Just 35100 over the course of a year in my views or 400 in the TikTok shop over the from from one video. But now, I am changing that now that I guess narration in my head.
Helen:The reality is I've had so many opportunities and many of them have been work related and profitable from social media. So if you think you only have one lane possibility of what you're gonna do on social media, I'm here to tell you, you have no idea what could happen if you just start sharing your expertise, putting yourself out there. The things that might come your way are things that you don't even expect. And my keyword for all of it is gonna tie into the newsletter today, and the keyword is relentless. So being consistent and being relentless so that you don't give up when, oh, the views are crummy this month.
Helen:I Oh, I'm gonna give up. I mean that could be I could have been saying that 20 times over because the the views have always dipped and been bad. I'm in such a lull right now of the low views, but I'm just like, yeah. Well, you know, I'll post some more fun things then. No one's watching anyway.
Helen:And I kinda like it. So then it gives me renewed energy to enjoy what I'm doing more because I'm not so focused on, oh my gosh. I have to do a video right now because I have a lot of people waiting for the next tutorial. Alright. I don't have that many people waiting for the next tutorial.
Helen:I'd rather focus more on my people in my studio that I'm serving because now my energies are better spent in that direction. Okay. So that's my little backstory to the opportunities that could come your way. You don't know what they are. There are people on here.
Helen:Look at Jules. My God. She was at the New Year's Eve celebration. What? There's people that have been on runways.
Helen:I I forgot the creator's name right now. Oh, Ask Me Ellen, I think. I think that's her username. She was in Paris on the runway. I wanna just tell you that people don't realize that opportunities can come from the most unexpected things.
Helen:So you have to just start and you also have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and saying, let's see where this leads. Let's see where this leads. Enjoying today, enjoying today, and then not so worried about tomorrow, yesterday, whatever. It's just like live live in the moment and get joy from what you're doing so that when you're sharing, there's people that are gonna find you and be attracted to that. Okay?
Helen:So we have 2025, new year, new goals, new excitement. And I'm gonna now talk about how you can be consistent on your social media so that you can see these opportunities when they come your way. You can seize them. You can see them and you can seize them. But also you can create opportunities from putting yourself out there.
Helen:Alright. I know a lot of people that listen and read the newsletter already do put themselves out there and they're just like, I've been doing this for so long and you know, it's not really panning out for me. You know what? What is long really? Who knows?
Helen:We're in this life. We hopefully, we have a long life to live. And so as long as you're enjoying it, it's gonna fulfill you in some way. Even if it's not getting to an end goal by the end of the week, it's you're still getting enjoyment out of it. And I don't know.
Helen:My husband always used to say it's not the it's not the destination. It's the journey or something like that. I forget what the saying is. But it's true. Like, if if you're not enjoying yourself on the way, it's like I think the end game isn't even rewarding it at that point because, okay, now you're there.
Helen:Now what? So let's get on with it. Think about your goals. And I used to hate the word goals. Really, I used to hate it.
Helen:But now, I embrace the word goals. You can't really make a plan without some kind of goals in place. So if you're gonna be active on social media, think about what you wanna achieve. If you're a small business, do you wanna generate leads or sales? If you're looking to be an influencer or a content creator, do you want to generate income from the content to secure brand deals?
Helen:If you have a few goals in mind, plan, brainstorm, and executing your content plan can all happen seamlessly together. So you you may not you may be going towards one goal and then something else presents. And that's a little bit what happened to me. I was going in one direction thinking I'm gonna be the TikTok teacher. Like, once I realized I was gonna do my tutorials and I was gonna lean into that, I thought, oh, I'm gonna eventually have people are gonna hire me to, I don't know, do what?
Helen:Don't know what I thought was gonna happen, but I just thought maybe I thought I'd be an influencer. I don't know. I I I can't it's hard for me to think back to that point now. But now if if I look at what happened to me, it's so different than what I might have planned even if I had made a plan back then. Oh, gosh.
Helen:Now I'm really I'm kind of, revealing the fact that I don't like to set goals a lot. But I don't I just think a lot of times when I set if I say something, I know I have to do it. So often, I will just make a list and I think short term goals versus, like, a big long term goal. Because I don't wanna think, oh, I wanna make if I ever when I was younger, said I wanna make x amount of money by a certain time. I'd feel like a failure if I didn't.
Helen:So that's why I would stop myself from making that hard goal because I didn't like that I might fail. And which just tells a lot about my personality, very tight type a. But I did speak to somebody recently. I'm gonna shout out Claudine who she said to me, so what's the big deal if you fail? Like, who are you letting down?
Helen:And I was like, oh, I guess only me. You know what I mean? Because no one else is keeping track of my goals. Anyway so that was very enlightening, and I thought, okay. I'm gonna start trying to make goals now.
Helen:I think that's what maybe kicked me into gear. And she is someone I met through social media on TikTok very early on. So that was like another connection, and I had a private coaching session session with her. We did like a exchange, a barter exchange where I gave her social media lessons and she gave me coaching a coaching lesson. And that was really, really a cool thing that we did together, and I learned a lot about myself.
Helen:Alright. Let's get on to the next thing. I'm digressing. I really gotta stay on topic. I'm I'm so sorry.
Helen:So think about your why. Now that you have goals written down, the next thing is to think about why you wanna achieve these goals. What is it gonna serve in your life? Like, why do you wanna show up on social media? This this could be different than your goals and might have more of an emotional attachment.
Helen:And I know I'm gonna even I'm gonna even share. I don't wanna get too into who the person is, but I know someone personally who a distance personally who was their whole thing was like they wanted to blow up on social media. And it was more of an ego thing, not necessarily because they wanted to serve their audience. So I don't even wanna talk about what area this person is in, but instead of thinking, like, how can I be better for the people who I'm working with in my professional life? And because that's the kind of serving that they were gonna do.
Helen:But it was all about blowing up. And it became, in my book, when I listened to this person talk about the goals, it was like they were seeking like fame, some kind of fame, social media fame. Not with any tangible reason why they wanted fame except just for the ego side of it. Alright. So think about be honest with yourself.
Helen:Why do you want to be quote social media famous? Why do you want to have a big following? What is the end game for that? And if I go hard and I ask myself that, I mean, I really go hard and I ask myself. I have done some work on this.
Helen:And it's really because I think that I have value that I that other people need, and I wanna be able to reach more of them. I really do. I want people to feel seen. I feel that I do this in my life in a smaller scale, and social media has given me that opportunity to do it on a larger scale. Because nothing's better than when someone says, you inspired me to make my first video.
Helen:I can almost get emotional freaking saying it, which is ridiculous. But I know because I get emotional that it's very real for me. Okay. Let's bring it back. No tears on a podcast.
Helen:So now that you have your goal and your why, the next step is to think about who who are you serving? Who's your audience? Is it women older women? Is it young people who are feeling not confident? Is it people in dead end jobs that need coaching help?
Helen:Is it somebody who feels concerned about their appearance and it's like, you know, makeup? I'm just thinking of all the different categories that you might be in. But what kind of people do you wanna reach with your content? Why can you speak to these people directly? Why are they listening to you?
Helen:And I will tell you, like, my thing people were looking at me and saying, oh my god. She's my age, and she's doing this. That means I can do it. So that was a part of my what drew me to a certain, I think, crowd of people and what was appealing about me to a crowd of people. And it wasn't because I'm, like, a stunning model.
Helen:If anything, that's, like, unattainable. When I watch people like that, I'm like, oh, I'm never gonna look that good. You know, maybe it's just because I was more real and willing to be vulnerable and cry on a freaking podcast about nothing. Whatever. Whatever the thing is, this is real life as I like to say.
Helen:Jonathan loves when I say that. When I say it's real life or when I say yeah. His line the line is this is real life. This ain't no cooking channel because I said that once on a pod on a, piece of content when I was making a baking video, and he thought it was the funniest thing ever. And it's the truth.
Helen:Like, I don't ever feel like I'm I'm on stage here. I don't know. So for my target audience, the realism, I think, really kicked in. So you've got to think about who you're trying to reach and how are you gonna talk to them and think about being that person. And what would you wanna hear from you if you were them?
Helen:Like, flip the scales around, turn around, like, be that person. What's attracting you? What are you watching and why are you watching them? And so what do you wanna be to your audience? Like, who do you wanna be?
Helen:I think that's so important. So knowing them, understanding them, and unders and knowing how you can speak to them directly. So now let's talk about how these three things work together. And the three things that I mentioned were the goal, the why, and the audience. So I'm gonna give you an example because that's the way you can fill in the blank, so you can replace the example I'm giving you with your answer.
Helen:So if your goal is, example, I want to grow a following for makeup accounts and get brand deals with beauty brands. So that's a goal. Why? The why is I wanna be an expert in the beauty industry and share that knowledge with my audience. So you wanna help people feel seen, feel better about themselves, whatever.
Helen:That's your why. And then your audience. Example, target audience is women in their forties, fifties looking for makeup recommendations for naturally aging skin. They wanna feel better about themselves. So those are those three things that you have to set and determine and put tangible put them them in a place that's tangible for you to be able to reflect on, because you've gotta find your North Star.
Helen:And then when you make your content, think, am I answering that North Star? Am I doing that thing that I promised to my audience? So put put pulling those things together and creating a North Star will help you make sure your content stays focused. A lot of times, I would I know I know that my North Star is really helping people feel seen, the people who feel invisible to feel seen. Ultimately, of all the things I'm doing, I think that's my bigger North Star.
Helen:A lot of times I will make a video and then I go, I'm not gonna post this. This is so I'm not saying it's off brand, but it's off my North Star. So I might have something that happens that I'm frustrated about, and I see things on social media that could be somebody being frustrated and sharing some experience they had. And it's funny and it's laughable. And sometimes I have things that happen and I'm like, oh, this is so funny.
Helen:I should just share this. But then when I try and really look inside, it doesn't fit with the message I'm trying to put across about, you know, living in a positive way. So I'm like, why do I need to bring negative energy onto my page? Even if it's in a funny way. Okay?
Helen:Even if it's in a funny way. And then I will decide not to to share that. Okay? Sometimes I think I probably go out of the lane a little, but I'm try I try to really look at is my video or my piece of content serving my North Star in some way. For the most part, I think 90% of the time it is.
Helen:Okay. Now that you have your goal, your why, your target audience and everything mapped out, brainstorming your content is gonna become easier because what you're gonna do is decide what types of content support those things. So then it becomes easier to create content because you wanna think of yourself as if you were being hired to do the things for yourself, what would you tell yourself? So you're gonna step back and you're gonna say, okay. What are some examples for the example I just shared with you about the makeup and the beauty brands is you wanna think about some content ideas that would help your audience.
Helen:So maybe drugstore makeup reviews for women over 50, maybe skin care routines for mature skin, best sunscreens for mature skin. Whatever the thing is. Whatever the content is that's going to serve your audience and share your expertise and and achieve your goals. So just staying in that lane and then brainstorming your content. Then if you wanna be consistent, it's important to set up a routine.
Helen:And I love this because Julie is the queen of of processes. And even with the socialized studio, she has helped me set up a process so that I know what I'm sharing every week and how I'm What the organization of it is and how the process is gonna flow. And we have Google Docs for things. And then we have a thing where if I have to request something from her, I put it into a form so that it doesn't get lost in an email or a text message. So setting up systems is so important, and it's so underrated.
Helen:Something I didn't ever really do in the in my career prior just because in production, it's very reactive and not necessarily proactive a lot of times. We're just reacting to things that change on the fly and we're dealing. So I've had that type of job and I've not had to do this much planning in this way. So now, setting aside time every week to create a few videos, to batch content. If that's new too daunting, set aside 20 minutes a day to do a video.
Helen:Decide how it's best for you that you can be consistent. Do you have the type of lifestyle where you can take an hour a day and be content goes happens from 10:10 AM to 11 AM or 2 to 3 PM, whatever time you have. Or do you say on Mondays is my content day before I get into the rest of my week. You have to decide how it makes sense for you and so that you can create that content consistently. Again, we can do a lot more about plans and how we have our system set up, but that's a whole episode in and of itself.
Helen:But the last part is creating an accountability system and this is so important and this ties into why we started the studio. If you if you have trouble staying consistent, just like going to an exercise class gets you motivated because you know you booked it, you know you paid for it, you know you're going pretty much, unless you really wanna just ditch the money. But when you have an accountability system, you are more likely to get shit done. So I love it. And I when I started going to the exercise group things, I was like, I really should make a a platform where people
Helen:can come and get support to make content. Because Julie and I were always talking about content together. I was like, I really should make a platform
Helen:where people can come and get support to make content. Because Julie and I were always talking about content together, so I always had a buddy system. So having a buddy system is so so key because you're bouncing ideas back and forth. You know that you're gonna make a certain amount of videos and you've got to share it with that person. So when we started the studio, we decided to do, like, a weekly challenge thing in the studio.
Helen:So everybody does a mini challenge, and each week, we give a task. So it's not completely overwhelming to do one thing per week, one video idea per week. And it really helps people because then they have to come in and they put it into the chat, and everybody can see what they've done. It's there's definitely an accountability process in there, and that is what I think really helps people move forward. Giving direction, giving ideas every week, examples every week, and now we're in the transition trio.
Helen:I know it's like already started as of yesterday, but if you still wanna get in it, it's not too late. You can join just to see what it's like to be in a mini challenge. It's a 7 day challenge. There's 3 levels. We have 3 levels of how to do transitions.
Helen:1 is covering up the camera and showing up somewhere else. The other is something chains in your changes in your hands. And the last level is when your whole body changes, like your clothing outfit changes. And you could do whatever you want, make it your way. But it's 3 levels, a 7 day challenge.
Helen:It keeps you accountable. You're gonna learn a new skill and it will show you what it's like to be in the studio and have the support. So you can try that one out, or you can just go all in, do the studio for a month, get the support day after day, week after week, for 4 weeks, and see if you like it. Because staying accountable and having that support, having the group vibes moving you forward is just a really helpful thing. I've I'm finding it so helpful for me because I'm accountable to them.
Helen:So, everybody in the studio is counting on me each week, and I'm like, oh my gosh. I gotta remember to find some good trends. I wanna find some extra new trends that are super easy because if it's a busy week, a lot of times we don't have time to make content. So I'm throwing quick ideas out. I like to make special videos just for the studio folks because sometimes I'll think of things and it's like between podcasts and between newsletters.
Helen:And I'm like, let me just provide some extra info. So I'll make a video during the week and I share it in the studio. It's just honestly, I don't know what else to say except that I'm loving it, and I hope that everybody in the studio is loving it. And if you wanna give it a shot, do so. So if you're interested in that, you can find it in the newsletter and in the show notes as always.
Helen:But honestly, I think that in general, having some type of accountability, even if it's just you writing it down and keeping yourselves accountable or making a system that you go into every week, any kind of system is gonna make you feel good. Even if you're an anti system person and you I don't wanna write it down. It's all in my head. Honestly, you're gonna feel so good when you actually put it into some kind of a form even if it's on your phone and you just like click the boxes and get things done. It just feels really productive.
Helen:So with that, I'm gonna say happy New Year. I'll see you next week. Have a great weekend. I'm glad we made it through the 1st week of the year. It was only 2 days long.
Helen:Yay. Alright. I'll see you Tuesday. Have a good one.