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Welcome to the socializd strategy, May 17, 2024. I'm excited about today's topic because we're going to tackle something that is very timely for me since I've been getting a lot of reach outs about small businesses that are looking for consulting. And they need help and they wanna get started creating content or they try to up their game in their content and they just need some guidance. So I thought, great. Let's kick it off by making them a podcast episode.
Helen:So, hi, you know who you are if you're listening now. And I figured I would start by sharing some tips here. And then at least before our consulting time, they have some time to think about some of the things that I may be suggesting. Suggesting. Okay.
Helen:Speak English, Helen. Alright. Well, thank you for being with me as always. And before I dive into the suggestions and the tips, I wanna just mention that I have an expert workshop coming up, And Julie and I will be hosting Lorraine Laddish, who is an a create a content creator who has been doing this since 2014. What I love the most is that Lorraine is a mature creator like myself.
Helen:She really started on her content creation full time journey in 2014 when she turned 50 and created a platform called Viva 50. You can check that out. I think it's viva50.com. I'll put it in the show notes. And she is going to be sharing how she got started, how what the challenges are about doing it, what what the good times are, what the bad times are, how she manages it all.
Helen:And we just did this recently with Austen, but Austen is a younger creator and has a different mindset potentially since she came into the game via the blog and fashion world. And Lorraine has a different story. So let's really explore. I think what I'd love to do is more of these expert series where we can really explore and learn from people who are doing it and making it work full time, and they love it. So yay to that.
Helen:And I love to learn from people that about the things that I don't know because each time I interview someone, even when I'm doing this in my day job for directing. When I interview dentists, I've learned so much about my teeth and oral care. And when I interview people, dermatologists about Blistex recently, I learned so much about the skin and lips and lip care and all that. So I really really love learning. And so meeting people and talking to them and asking them questions is how we all gain insight.
Helen:So, yay, thank you, Lorraine. Hopefully, she's listening, and she knows that I'm excited to be doing that workshop workshop with her. And then following that, I have an editing workshop. I don't have a date set as of my recording right now because I have some potential travel coming up. But as soon as I lock down that work schedule, I will be planning the next editing workshop, and I really love doing those.
Helen:I just received a TikTok today. What was really, somebody do tagged me in a TikTok, and she made this long thank you about how she was learning. She learned to edit, and that was all from my content. Just makes me feel so good that somebody is empowered to try something new, thanks to my content. So, yay, always makes me feel good.
Helen:Alright. Let's dive into tips for small businesses on social media. Building a presence on social media can be a game changer for small businesses, But staying consistent when you're trying to run your business can be very challenging. Believe me. I know this even with doing what this business is, which is 2 newsletters a week, 2 podcasts a week, making sure I'm making tutorials.
Helen:I'm keeping the information flowing. And even though I'm not selling a product and trying to get sales, I am constantly in the need for keeping my content flowing. So I understand the challenge. And even as much as I love it, it can be overwhelming. So what's the first thing that you can do?
Helen:Number 1. Share your story. This is the easiest thing you can do as a business owner because it's very natural to you why you started the business. I'm sure it's something you're passionate about. Maybe something triggered it.
Helen:Maybe it was a previous corporate job that you had that you wanted to exit. So whatever those reasons are, they're gonna be relatable to a lot of people. And often, you don't even need to be selling your product if you're telling your story. It's a lot more comfortable if you don't feel that you're trying to be a salesperson. It makes it a lot easier to make content when you're not pushing that sales piece.
Helen:So focus on the origin of the business in front of the camera. Tell us what inspired the creation of your company. What problem did you think you were solving with your business? Maybe you're a if you're in the business of real estate, share why you got into real estate, why you love it, what drives you, what excites you about it. Sometimes a simple passion for what you do is more interesting to people than hearing the logistics or the sales pitch or whatever.
Helen:Next thing is to not overthinking your content. Don't overthink your content. You want to be able to work your content into your day to day. And this, if you can master this, you will never have a lack of video content or even stills in photo content. If you're in it and it's in your your DNA daily, you will just be documenting things that you might think would be interesting.
Helen:And you can document things as you're doing them and maybe you don't make content with them and then you delete the videos later. But it's always a good idea to think in terms of who's watching you, your camera's watching you, and what is it watching you do? And if you think about that, you'll always have, like, your camera is your imaginary friend. It's your buddy in your day. Your as you're doing something, maybe set up a camera and show us what you're doing.
Helen:There's a lot of ways to work it into your content so that you're not having to make a list always and think about what videos you wanna accomplish this week. So that's a way to approach it without feeling the stress of a list of content that you have to keep up with. I'm gonna add this little tip for the people who don't want to always be on camera in their content. That is a question I get a lot of times where people will ask me, I wanna make videos, but I don't always wanna be in them or I don't wanna have to feel some days I don't feel camera ready. So there's definitely some strategies you can do that don't involve your face.
Helen:You can most definitely this is brings us into the next point, which is you can definitely do some trends where the trend itself, it's a cap cut template, and it's usually some celebrity that's in the foreground. And you could put a still photo in the background of your office, still photo in the background of your products. You can take a still photo from from Google and put back there and then just put a text on there that relates to something in your business. So there are definitely opportunities to not have to put your face on camera. I also love, and I'm just I know this is a lot, but I'm a big fan of stop motion.
Helen:And if you are clever, stop motion is so easy to do. It's so quick now with our apps being able to do it. If you don't have the stop motion effect on TikTok, you can do stop motion just by tapping the stop and start button on the record on any platform. You could do it in Instagram. You could do it in TikTok.
Helen:You could do it in capcut. You can do it in YouTube. So you can do it in all of the platforms will allow you to tap, tap, stop, start recording, and then you can move your product. Tap, tap, stop, start recording. I have tutorials for all of this, and it just makes for very fun, engaging content.
Helen:People love to watch stuff like moving around by itself. It's magic. That's why stop motion animation became so popular in the animation world. It's intriguing when you think about claymation and how they make the characters move and, you know, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. You know what I mean?
Helen:Stop motion has been around for a long time. And now it's at our fingertips. We can do whatever we want so easily. So you can show your products being packed up, unpacked. You can show things moving across your desk.
Helen:You can show your work in stop motion as you're packing up an order. You can show yourself in stop motion moving about your your business doing your thing. There's so many different things you can do with stop motion. So there's lots of different effects now that can be done. Also, I'm gonna go deep into some of these trends because and I'm tapping into I'm I'm mentioning real estate just because it's I have real estate on the brain right now.
Helen:But if you are a real estate business and you are trying to do a trend, for example, there was a even a Taylor Swift friend where the women were running on a beach. And somebody went very very viral of our a real estate agent when he was running through his house, the house that he was showing off. And it was so well done because he had someone following following with him with with a camera with a phone, and he was just running through. So he was doing the trend, not on a beach. He's not a woman, and he was nowhere.
Helen:It had nothing to do with the the trend itself, but he made it relatable. And he showed he showed what his business was. So things like that, if you can step outside of a trend and look at it from what's another way this can be done that might be funny. Because humor is very very helpful, especially on social media platforms. People love something that's funny and relatable.
Helen:So take advantage of those trends. You can put a twist on it where if you're when there's a boyfriend girlfriend trend, maybe it's a trend that you then make into between you and your customer, or you and a colleague. So even when the trend seems very specific, it can always be worked outside the box. I love that. I try and relate a lot of trends to being a TikTok teacher.
Helen:So it could be something where, you know, I love my tripod with instead of I love my spouse or boyfriend. So it can be a lot of different things. I do love my spouse, but I also love my tripod. Alright. And the next thing is to go live.
Helen:If you don't have time to make content and you have enough followers to go live, this is a huge, huge way to connect with your audience. And I find I'm gonna give a couple of examples, but I find when I go live, if I release a new workshop or when I released my course for my beginner TikTok course, Live triggered a lot more people to grab it right away. And it's hard to believe, but it's think QVC. That's why QVC is so successful. Somebody's watching TV, they're sucked in in the moment, and they hit purchase.
Helen:So there's a reason QVC is what it is. There's a reason those infomercials are what they are. So if you can go live and be your own infomercial where you're just talking about why your business, your product, why you like, why you like it, why you created it. I love this brand in your face skin care because they do lives. I think she does the multiple times a week.
Helen:The founder gets on camera. She's talking to her customers. She's talking about why she loves what she does. And it's so authentic. And it's not fake.
Helen:You can't make this up some you know a lot of times we think we can hide behind the camera and make people believe something but social media audiences are very smart We inteligente as you say in Espanol. Very smart. So we audiences see through that. So definitely try to be yourself and figure out how you can just put yourself out there and think of your customers as your friends, how you're trying to help them. And Denise does such a good job of this.
Helen:She also brings sometimes she has colleagues in there with her or she's featuring a new product. And when someone comes in that she knows whenever I pop into her live, she's like, oh, I'm a mother ship. And then she'll give me a shout out and tell people to follow me. She's so cute. But, honestly, if you're connecting with your customers in that way, they're much more likely to be loyal, return customers to tell other people about your products.
Helen:So, really, it's a good strategy, especially if you don't always have time to film content because then you can download your live and take a few pieces of clips out of it and put it in as your social media content for the week. So So think about that. It's a good one. Next is and this is where if you are a planner, you're gonna love this one. If you are an organized planning type person, make your list, plan your content, and batch create.
Helen:And I've started to do this on occasion when I have a lot of things coming up with work, and I don't I know I'm not gonna have time to record many days. So I will literally sit down and say, alright. What are the people what are the people asking me for? What tutorials have I had requested? Let me make a quick list.
Helen:And a lot of times I change my shirt just so that I can find the differentiating between videos. But a lot of times I don't. I just go with the same. I don't even bother to change change my outfit. And but batch creating can sit can really make you feel calm.
Helen:Because when I went into my son's wedding and then I had clients in the following week, I was not stressed out because I knew that I had I had made my tutorials for the 2 weeks and I had them all ready to go so I could release them as as I was ready. And it was just so relaxing for me because in a very stressful time of a wedding and then clients in town and trying to have long days of editing, that would just be added stress. And so I did myself a favor. And so that is something you should do if you are a small business owner and you know what your schedule is gonna be and you know you're not gonna have time. Film, edit, write your captions, and get as many posts ready as possible.
Helen:This way, you can just post without any stress. And I wish I could do it more. I wish there was always a fire in me to batch create. I I tend to be more of a shoot it today and think about tomorrow tomorrow. But I'm trying really hard because I do think there is value in batch creating.
Helen:So do think about that. Alright. Another idea is to share your customers content. This is so helpful. If you sell a product, try and include language with your product or maybe if you're a person who start just starting out and you're writing notes to your customers.
Helen:Ask them to post, you know, tell them to tag you because the more you vocalize this, the more likely someone is to do it. And they'll say, oh, alright. I'll make a post. I I actually got a PR package from Denise from In Your Face as I mentioned earlier. She sent me, I think it was a face serum.
Helen:And I took my other in your face products and I took the box and I was doing a stop motion lesson and I figured, oh, I'll use her box and I'll use her products jumping into the box. So I really needed that because I needed some products to do the video. So I've used hers. And so if you're you're available, your customers are available to do that kind of thing and they will do it for the attention. A lot of them will do it to see if you repost it because they love getting in front of new audiences.
Helen:So small creators who are trying to build their followings will create content and tag brands or whatever. And if the brand reposts, then it goes in front of your whole following. That gets a a person, an individual very excited. So it's don't think of it as, oh, you're taking advantage of them. It's actually the opposite.
Helen:You're helping them because you're putting their content in front of a lot more people that they might not normally be in front of. I've done that for some of the local stores here. I went to the New York cake shop. It's a really cool, cake decorating shop in New York City. And I was just excited to be there.
Helen:And I it was really pretty. They've had a new venue, and I did a whole video walk through. And I edited a really cool music video and they posted it on their feed. And I had so much more engagement on that one video because they shared it to their feed. And I wasn't paid for it.
Helen:It was just my fun day. It was my fun little outing. So your customers will be likely to do it. And when you reshare their content, you're helping them. So it's a give back.
Helen:You're putting their content and their account in front of your audience, and there's a handful percentage of people that might follow them. So it's a really nice thing to do. I think it's just a a good way to show that you are number 1, that you care about your customer. Number 2, that you're willing to help them, and then they're gonna be more willing to help you. It's just really nice.
Helen:And some some people will actually review the videos. You could incentivize your customers and send like, pick a few people and send products to, create your own little PR packages to send. You cannot expect people to want to make content, especially if they have a large audience because there's value in those numbers. When people send me things and they want a video, it's it's hard for me because I'd rather not have the product. As a matter of fact, I got a product recently and I didn't really care for it.
Helen:So I said I'm gonna send it back to you because I'm not gonna be making a video. But, you know, it's just it's a nice thing to do to have this collaboration thing going on between yourself and your customers. The other thing that I'm gonna add some bonus ideas here that weren't in the newsletter today. So if you are a newsletter reader and you haven't really listened to the podcast much, a lot of times in the podcast I share I go into more detail and I get further into the content that was already written for the newsletter. And then I I don't really have time to go back and rewrite the newsletter and add the new things in because Julie really is the newsletter queen.
Helen:And so I'm not gonna mess with her work. So I'm gonna tell you now that these things were not in the newsletter. So it's here's your bonus content. And I do this often. So if you don't listen to the podcast, it's a good it's a good reason to come and put it on while you're driving so you can get the extra the extra info.
Helen:So I think collaborating with a sister brand is a really strong strategy. Think about it. If you are strictly a skin care brand and you know a strictly makeup brand and you think, oh, while rec sort of recommend your brand and you can recommend my brand and you make an arrangement. The thing I will caution you is a lot of people don't deliver on what they say their promise. And I had done this recently for someone who promised they were gonna share something about one of my my newsletter and I did I'm not even gonna call out the person, but I did a review on something of hers and it was never reciprocated.
Helen:And I have I sort of have a bummer taste in my mouth about it. I'm not necessarily holding it against the person, but a little bit in the back of my mind, I feel that I was taken advantage of. And I don't think that's right. So if you're gonna do a collaboration, number 1, be aware that if that person if that brand or that collaborator doesn't deliver back, it's gonna feel a little weird for you. And even with me saying to this person, yes, I've done this before and the people haven't done it, you know, held up to their end of the bargain.
Helen:And this person was like, oh, no. No. I would never I would never I would never and then did, which was very strange to me, because we had the conversation before. Anyway, so you just need to know to protect yourself. But at the same time, there's always the possibility that they're not gonna deliver.
Helen:So maybe you can figure out a way to make a guarantee that you're not gonna post yours until you share each other's content with each other ahead of time. So that before you post, you know that their video is already created. So that's one way to do it. I I just think really thinking about the the possibility that would be that it could be disappointing and have that reality in there so it's not devastating if it happens. But maybe put in a stopgap for it so it doesn't happen.
Helen:Alright. So that's one. Another idea is oh, and I can relate this also to any other kind of business. If you're a book, maybe you wanna promote a bookstore because you're they'll maybe promote your book. So that's a nice little collaboration.
Helen:I always like to give examples. I think examples tell us a lot, which is why I've I'm so much when I'm in my Spanish lesson asking her for an example, well, how would you use that word? Or how do you? I like I like examples. So I'm one to share examples.
Helen:Okay. And the other thing is if you have a business and a question, please do submit it in the newsletter because I do answer questions at the end of the podcast. But I'm really going hard on this topic today, so I won't be answering any other questions today. But let's finish into added value content. This is where I am again, this is not in the newsletter.
Helen:This is some bonus ideas. But if you are focused on only selling product and you have a website, maybe you'll want to think about creating a blog on your website because the search engine optimization on Google on all of those platforms, if you're putting in those keywords. Somebody wrote to me about my YouTube channel, great search engine optimization, because I was able to find this video so easily. I was like, yay. I did that right.
Helen:How exciting. So knowing that you can have a blog post that gets found and then leads people into your product. So let's try and think of an example. I'm into skin care today, so I'm gonna have to stay with skin care for now. So let's say you're a skin care brand and you have and you create a blog post on know your ingredients, and you're just in general creating a post about ingredients in skin care and defining what they are.
Helen:That just might be somebody searching for a typical one ingredient or some or the topic of ingredients in skin care products, and they will that will lead them to your blog post whereby at the end of your blog post or somewhere in it, you talk about why you don't use x y and z ingredient ingredients in your skin care line or whatever. So that's like an example. So doing something that's educational and informative so that it might be searched and found, and then the person's on your website. Okay. So that's a really good one to think about.
Helen:If you don't have that going on. The other thing, gosh, my favorite word, here we go. Podcast. Maybe think about educating your audience with a little weekly or monthly podcast. It's very easy to do.
Helen:We did, we did a newsletter and a podcast last week talking about how to start a podcast. It's not difficult and it's certainly if you have a niche business you could get listeners that are interested in learning about whatever it is that you're talking about. And maybe it's certain type of jewelry you're designing and why you chose to work with these type of metals. And then you can talk about where you find the metals. And then you can have a podcast that might tackle topics of different materials used in jewelry making, different techniques used in jewelry making.
Helen:And you can talk about these things on a podcast. There there's a podcast for everybody. There's an ass for every seat as my mother used to say, and there is a podcast for every listener. So or there's a listener for every podcast and a podcast for every listener. It goes both ways.
Helen:So think about that because you really could find new people, new customers if you're offering this value of education through another medium. And then you can, of course, have your podcast on your website. Your pot, you can talk about your podcast in a blog post. All these things are connected. Oh, and they all lead into each other.
Helen:So you're constantly almost collaborating with yourself. So that's a good one. And then another idea that I'm throwing out there on the podcast table that is not in the newsletter is hosting a little live event. Maybe thinking about how you can get into an event. So I'm gonna give an example of something I go to often, which is Daybreak or the early morning dance parties in New York City.
Helen:They always have brands of energy drinks and morning coffee brews and all of this. And they have the the brands provide the products there and that is product awareness for a large amount of people. Plus, they film it. So it's in all of their content. So something simple like donating a small amount of product to some event.
Helen:You get your your stuff in front of an event. That event is gonna make social media content, tag you, now you have content. It just all leads. All roads lead into each other, and all things can become content if you really keep your mind open to it. That was fun.
Helen:I really enjoyed talking about this today. So I I hope that you did as well, and I hope that you'll join, us for our next guest works expert workshop where we're gonna learn a lot from Lorraine. And she is her own small business, Lorraine Laddish. So I'm sure she's gonna teach us a lot about how she keeps her small business running because influencers who are doing their own content creation as a job, they become business owners of their own brand. So we are all in a way, potentially, our business owners of ourselves.
Helen:So hopefully, all of the tips that I shared can really relate to you as simply as a content creator or as a small business owner or potentially as someone who's thinking about doing a small business but feels that it seems overwhelming. Now maybe you'll have a clearer picture on how you might get started. Alright. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening.
Helen:I enjoy being here as you know and Friday is just Friday is a good day because I get to dive deep into a topic and I'm not popping from one trend idea to one to another and a content here idea. So this for me, this pod podcast series balances out very nicely with my Tuesday being a little bit of a poke poke poke and talking about lots of different things to Friday deep diving into a topic. I really really love it. Thank you again for being here. Have a great weekend, everyone, and I will see you next week.
Helen:Bye.