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Social media updates, trend alerts, original content ideas, music/audio suggestions, tutorials and more!
Welcome to the socialized forecast, July 23, 2024. I am back on the home front. I'm home from Croatia, and I'm on my full time setup here. I'm really happy to be back. It was a great 2 weeks, very busy and very, as I've said before, very hot.
Helen:Temperatures were brutal, and I'm happy to be home. And I do enjoy traveling, though. I enjoy seeing other cultures. I really love the people of other places, not surprising, but I love to get into watching people when I'm in the squares. I'll just sit and I'll just observe.
Helen:And then I enjoy working. That's why I really enjoy working in another country because I get to really connect with some of the people who live there and find out what they're into. And, unbeknownst to me, there was a big soccer game one night. And so I found that out from one of the crew people, and they were really into it and talking all about the soccer matches. Well, football to them, but soccer to me.
Helen:And it was really fun. I do enjoy it, and I love making content about my trip. If you haven't seen it, I have posted on my Instagram and my TikTok a little recap of the shoot and a little recap of my vacation after the shoot. And I don't get a lot of views on those videos, but I don't care. I do them for myself.
Helen:So that's a note to you that if you think someone's not watching one of your videos, if you enjoyed making it, that is the main thing. Let's move on to the social media updates of the week. And I will say that sometimes I think the algorithm is feeding me something when I watch a video or I try and learn a dance that that Charlie x x c s dance with the, apple, you know, falling from the tree thing. I don't know. That is all over my for you page.
Helen:And it's really, really sometimes it's frustrating because I'm trying to find out what other trends are. And all I keep seeing is the thing that I watched once all the way through. So note to self, if you watch something all the way through and you watch it a couple of times because I was trying to learn the dance, now the algorithm thinks that's all I want to see. So be careful what you watch over and over again. So one thing I did notice that is trending is a very bizarre head turning thing where you just you look up, you look down, and then you turn your head and it spins like The Exorcist type of a spinning thing.
Helen:And for some reason, I don't know, that's trending. But it's also trending with people who are doing it and they don't do it right. So they're like, did I do it right? And it's a total botch job because they don't really know how to do a head turn transition. So it's just a funny one and I don't know why it's trending.
Helen:And, it's one of the other mysteries of life. What can I say? Another fun one that I'm seeing a lot of and these are not the trends that we're listing specifically on the newsletter today, but this is just a funny thing that I've been seeing a lot of, which is a girl, a a group of girls did a thing where they were saying, like, green dress and a green dress and a pair of white heels, green dress and a pair of white heels, tube top and a pretty bow and a pretty headband, tube top and a pretty headband. And they're describing their outfits in this rhythmic way. That is not a trend that's a music trend, but it's a trend where just like the one for a while you might remember where, people were doing, like, we're real estate brokers.
Helen:Of course, we're gonna look at every house on the block. We're real estate brokers. Of course, we're gonna, be following the mortgage rates. We're real estate brokers when it's like that, trend. It's one of it's a trend like that where everybody's doing it a little differently.
Helen:So some people are spoofing and there, you could use this one really for your work, where you could be, you could be, laptop, laptop and, and my favorite pen laptop and my favorite ball point pen. You could do something like that. So there's really fun ways that you can really capitalize on that trend that I've been seeing a lot on the page. So these are just a couple of bonus trends before I get into our 3 top trends of the week. But there's a lot of different things that we all see differently on our for you page than other people do.
Helen:And, again, it is driven by what you watch over and over again. So if you're watching a lot of dance videos, you're gonna get a lot of dance videos coming into your feed. If you're watching a lot of drama or emotional attachment videos or whatever, you're gonna get more of those in your feed. So as always, just be careful what you're watching and be careful what you're watching all the way to the end because you're gonna see more of it. So buckle up.
Helen:Let's get into the actual trends for this week. I'm a little hoarse, so I'm gonna try and keep it together and have my water standing by. Let me take a sip. The first one is show off your outfits. This is really fun if you are a fashion creator and if you wanna do it in a funny way.
Helen:So let's say you are one of those cosplay creators and you have lots of costumes that you wanna show off. It's a really fun one for that. To do this one right, it's better if you use a tripod so that your room isn't moving in the background, so that your room stays the same. And each time that you change into an outfit, it's just a cut. And the only thing changing in the scene is you.
Helen:So if you're gonna do it, try and do it well, because that's always a and it's such an easy thing to do something like that a little cleaner than other people are doing it. Simple tripod or simple prop the phone up and change your outfits and stand in the same place, and you might have, like, a magical transition video. As a matter of fact, that's the perfect one to maybe do a transition video where instead of just standing still and changing outfits, you can jump and change your outfit. So this it's a nice fun one to show off outfits, show off costumes. You could show off uniforms.
Helen:It could be funny if you have lots of nursing uniforms that you wear and you wanna show off those. So be creative and have fun with it. The next one is 3 years makes a difference. I'm seeing a lot of this one actually where it's 20 the leap from 2021 to 2024. So you it's so simple.
Helen:It's a cap cut template. You grab a photo or a video from when from 2021, and then you grab a photo or a video from now 2024, maybe your hair has changed. Maybe your vibe is totally different. Maybe even your location that you can play that up in your videos. So it's a nice, fun, and easy one.
Helen:And it is kind of interesting to see how you've changed in 3 years, I find what's really funny for me is I found a photo on my phone from 2015 where my hair is this exact length. So at some point, I had long hair and had it cut to this length. And now it's like full circle. It's grown to this length. So very funny and just a fun opportunity to just do a simple, simple trend with existing videos in your phone.
Helen:The one other thing I'll say about this is there are people using random videos in their phone. So you can see maybe it was a speaking video they did about something else, but they took that clip and they used it for this trend. You don't have to record anything specific for this trend. You could just use something that's already in your phone from 2021 and from now. So have fun scrolling and finding some something that could be fun.
Helen:Okay. And the last one is lip sync, which is gonna lead to one of my questions at the end here, but it's called let's be financially responsible. So you're lip syncing the audio. Let's be financially responsible, and then you're showing the reason why you're not following that advice. So need a vacation or I'm on a vacation or I need a sweet treat, whatever it is that you're spending money on where you're not being financially responsible.
Helen:So maybe you bought a new outfit. Whatever that is, it's very easy trend to do because you're just lip syncing it. And you could just put text on the screen. You don't even have to show yourself in the change or the outfit or you don't have to show what you even did with the sweet treat. You can literally just put it on the screen as text.
Helen:So a nice easy one. You can also do one where you do change the location for trip to Target or I'm at an ice cream shop or I'm, you know, I'm at a designer clothing shop when I shouldn't be. So you can use this however you like. You can be creative because really it's the audio that's trending. So I'm gonna talk about I have some questions at the end of this, podcast today that is gonna address a lip syncing question.
Helen:So I'll circle back to that, so stay tuned. Before I keep going, I wanna remind you that I have the influencer agent. We are a week away from recording our workshop with Joanna. I can't wait. Every time I think I have all the questions I'm gonna ask her, something else pops into my mind.
Helen:So tune in for that. Sign up if you haven't, and join us live so that you can get your questions answered and hear firsthand about the agency life. And you're gonna find it very interesting because there are several levels. There are agencies and then there are talent agent managers. So we're gonna find out the difference between the 2, how they work together, what you need as a creator, if you need one, how to secure 1.
Helen:I'm excited about this this workshop. I think it's gonna be a key one. Alright. Let's talk original content ideas. So the first one is a summertime recipe.
Helen:Last week, we did a summer cocktail or a summer drink or how you put a twist on your special beverage. This week, we're gonna we're gonna recommend you try something that is more about the food that you eat or more about a tradition that you do every summer. Wherein midsummer, you you just probably missed the opportunity to do that mid summer, mid July trend. So you can also start thinking about what you might do for an August recap because not a recap, but in August, when you were entering into August, typically that song by Taylor Swift, August will trend. So start planning for your next your August videos, ahead of time.
Helen:But the meantime, you could think about your summertime recipes and what you might like to share with your audience. Alright. The next one is opening ceremony. So the Olympic start is coming this weekend. So you can show off how you are or aren't watching the opening ceremony, which could be fun.
Helen:You could also try recreating some aspects of the Olympics from home, make theme, apps, drinks, etcetera, appetizers, not app on your phone. Themed appetizers, themed drinks, share the way you are going to watch the Olympics and what you love the most about it. I think a lot of creators get really have a lot of fun with this when they try and do something that this was a trend a couple of years back where it was like showing an Olympic runner and then showing yourself trying to run that distance and how realistic. That's a funny one. If you are a person who could hop on something like that and you can show an Olympic runner and then yourself running the same dash and how ridiculously fast they run by comparison, something like that.
Helen:You can take one of the Olympic sports and then show your own self doing it and how hard it really is, because they sure make it look easy, those athletes. They make it look like it's a snap. So that's that could be a fun one. And the last one is confidence boost. Share a fun thing that you do to help boost your own confidence.
Helen:Is there an outfit you wear? Is there a song that you use to make yourself feel empowered or pump up song? Do you have a mantra that you repeat to yourself to make yourself feel good? Show whatever confidence boost process you have to get yourself psyched for something, whether it's talking to yourself in the mirror about an upcoming presentation or you're nervous about something and you're showing how you get past the nerves. Really, really fun one where you can get fun get a lot of relatability.
Helen:Alright. So those are your 3 original ideas for today. Now let's talk tutorials. Okay. I'm all over the place a little bit with tutorials because I do find that the beginner ones do really well.
Helen:A lot of people don't pay attention to beginner things, and they jump right into an app and they don't even know, oh, how do you put a cover thumbnail on the TikTok with the title? And they don't know how to do it. So the minute I do a tutorial for the cover thumbnail, I mean, they come in droves. I didn't know you could do that. So just remember that when you post videos, whether it's on Instagram Reels or on TikTok, selecting your cover thumbnail and putting a title on it of some kind is helpful, because then in your feed on your page, if someone comes to your page, they can easily see what your videos are about.
Helen:And one thing I like to say to, especially to TikTokers that don't have the playlist feature, Instagram as well. If you don't have a way of categorizing your videos, you might wanna use red titles when it's one subject. Let's say you're a recipe person. Red titles when it's a recipe, blue titles when it's just a cooking hack and not a recipe, pink titles when it's pink titles when it maybe is a share of of hot piece of technology you use. So categorize your videos with different titles for the different groupings in your niche.
Helen:And that will be helpful to your audience, because they can quickly find what they're looking for. Bingo. The other, I'm gonna talk about 2 other tutorials here. The other one is head spinning tutorial. So the one that I mentioned at the beginning where it's like the exorcist where someone's head is spinning off, A lot of people think they have to spin their head 15, 20, 30 times to execute that trend.
Helen:And I did a tutorial which clearly shows that all you have to do is turn your head once to the side, once to the front, and then once where you go fully from right to left. And just by putting those three pieces together and duplicating the middle one, you can create this effect with very little effort. It is so easy to do. I can't wait to launch this tutorial now because as of the newsletter, it is launched. But as of this recording, I haven't posted it yet.
Helen:And I'm very curious because it's a 7 minute tutorial that I made to explain this because I want to explain every single part of this slowly. I get told a lot of times my tutorials are too fast, which which is hard to believe because I think I go slow. But I'm taking note of the comments, and I'm just there's no rush. I have 10 minute option on my videos. I can go for an hour actually on my videos if I wanted to.
Helen:So I'm just taking my time and I'm doing a nice slow paced lesson on my tutorials now. So hopefully, you'll appreciate that. The other thing I'll mention, and I won't have time to record and edit and post the tutorial before this podcast releases. But one thing I do have coming up is the new feature on Instagram, which is a little note that you can add on your video that is only visible to your followers. So it's a curious thing.
Helen:It's only visible to people who are following you and you're following back. So friends, not just followers. It's only visible to people that you are also following back. Just wanna make that clear. And it's a cute little thing where you can say, oh, I know you've been asking for this or something that you might wanna do a personal note to your mutuals, meaning the people who are following you and you're following back.
Helen:So that's a fun little feature. I don't know really what the purpose of it is, but, you know, they keep throwing these new things at the app, and I just keep trying them. What the heck? Why not? Now before I sign off today, I'm gonna answer a few questions.
Helen:First question today is a biggie. It comes from Sandra who has asked me how to post longer Instagram stories. Now if you know the Instagram story, you can post up to 60 seconds in a clip, and you can record that right in the Instagram story, press and hold the button, or just start your video and record it until it gives you you until you run out of time, 60 seconds. And then you can either post it immediately or save it and record another one and post continue, continue, continue. And you can have 3 stories that are 60 seconds long, which will equal a 3 minute video that will go continuously when you post one after the next on your Instagram story.
Helen:So that's one way to do it. You can record, record, record 60 seconds, post it immediately, press and continue to record, record, record, post it, and do it that way. Or you can record, record, record, save it. Record, record, and save, save, save, and post them altogether 1 and 1 after the next. That's one way to do it.
Helen:Another way to do it that I tend to use a lot more often is I like to edit my 60 seconds story. So I take do a bunch of clips and I put them in cap cut and I edit myself a nice 60 second video and then I'll post that to my story. So it's a 60 second video, but it has multiple edits in it. And it's not so each story isn't each little clip isn't its own little story. So you're not getting a dotted line of, like, a 100 little dotted dotted lines across the top, if you know what I mean.
Helen:So that's the other way to do it. The key thing is that the stories will keep attaching. So to make it seem seamless, you've got to be diligent with your editing so that it goes from the beginning. And if the last word is the, you've gotta start the next sentence with next day I went blah blah blah blah. You have to put them together so that they do go continuously.
Helen:So that's why I suggest cap cut because you can then edit your 60 seconds and make a nice end point and a pickup point for the next sentence that will seem continuous. I really hope that answered your question, Sandra. And if you have more questions, please send me a note and I'll do my best. I might actually try and make a tutorial for you at some point. Another question we had is how to do lip sync.
Helen:Like, do I have a lip sync tutorial? So I'm going to give you my hot take on how to do a good lip sync efficiently. And here's what I recommend. When you have a sound you wanna lip sync to, 2 one tip is to speak out loud so that you're speaking along with it, and you're practicing with it, and you're playing it over and over again, but you're hearing if you're out of sync. So when you play a lip sync and you're saying it with the lip sync, you can hear when you're messing it up.
Helen:So make sure you're speaking out loud. That's the first tip. The second one is something I learned from learning how to play the piano, which is don't try to learn the whole thing because you won't get the timing right. Try the first sentence or the first few words, get that rhythm exactly right. And then get the next few words, get that rhythm exactly right, and then put part 1 and part 2 together and get that exactly right.
Helen:Then you go to the 3rd section, learn it by itself, and then attach it to the first and second sections. This works like a charm for me. Anytime I'm learning a lip sync, I learn the first few words, get the intonation right, get the breath right, get the pause right, whatever it is that's in that first little section, then do the next little section, and then put section 1 and section 2 together, and then, and so on and so on. It's really the best way to learn a lip sync and the best way to learn how to play the piano in case that interests you. All right.
Helen:My last question for today, because I'm running out of voice is what to charge a brand. How do I know what to charge a brand? Here's what I'm gonna say about that. You can Google a lot of things and brand and they'll you'll get information, like, if you have this many followers, you should charge this amount, blah, blah, blah. And go ahead and do that because it's good education to take yourself down that path.
Helen:But we're going to be meeting with an influencer agent, and we're going to have the answers more clearly laid out for us in a week from today. Is it a week from today? It's a week from yesterday on Monday 30th July. So we're gonna ask Joanna that question. We're gonna that's gonna be one of the questions on the list.
Helen:How do I know what to charge a brand? What is fair for my amount of followers? How does that work? And I will tell you, I I can almost guess her answer is gonna be it really depends on the brand. Because if it's a small brand and a small business, they're not gonna have a big budget.
Helen:If it's a big brand, they're likely to have money allotted for it. But you've got to think about what is your time worth. What is the value you bring to your content? How long does it take you to make a video? Is it worth it for you to make a video and spend the time editing and all of that if you're only gonna be able to charge $50 or if a brand is only gonna pay you with free product?
Helen:Is it worth it? So I can tell you that's my take on it, but we are gonna hear directly from an influencer agent. And if you tune in to that workshop, I'm sure we're gonna learn a lot. I'm gonna leave you with that today. I've I'm running out of voice.
Helen:I think I just, it was travel, all the things I finally just it's because it's travel burnout at this point. So I'm gonna regroup, get my voice back, and I will see you on Friday. Have a good week. As always, if you're looking for tutorials, hellosocialize.com. Don't forget to go there and check and see what we have upcoming and new in the tutorial link.
Helen:And if you want free courses and and workshops, they're it's all there for you. Alright. Thanks for listening. Bye. See you soon.