Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Free newsletter for social media content creators!
Social media updates, trend alerts, original content ideas, music/audio suggestions, tutorials and more!
Welcome to the socialized forecast, December 31, 2024, the last day of the year. Ugh, I cannot believe it. It's always surreal to me when we get to this day, and then we have to kick off a new year with so much promise and excitement. And also a lot of people dread having to think about making any new year's resolutions. So I am gonna talk about that a little bit.
Helen:But first, I wanna say welcome to the red era. Just kidding. If you're watching, I'm wearing a red hat. I'm gonna pop it off because it is warm in here. But I I'm just made a video that I'm gonna be releasing a little transition video because we're working on transitions.
Helen:So I when I do a project where I'm doing a challenge for everyone, I like to participate as well. So right now, we're in the midst of a transition Trio challenge that we are going to be launching on January 2nd. So if you're not in it, get in it. It is so good to learn a new skill. If you don't wanna make a new new year's resolution in particular, it's great to just say, I'm gonna kick off the new year learning something new.
Helen:And this doesn't even have to take you through months of of effort. It's a 7 day challenge. Easy peasy as I like to say, because it'll teach you the skill. You'll have the skill. It's never gonna go away.
Helen:It's gonna be something you'll always remember because I do like to teach things so that they stay with you. It's not just a temporary lesson. It's a lesson, a larger than life lesson that you can take forward. So we're gonna be doing that. And when I'm doing a challenge, I take it on myself.
Helen:I'm like, ah, let me just add more transitions into my content now. So that's what I started to do this past week. And this morning, I just took Jonathan out and I said, I'm gonna kick off the new year by being more intentional with my wardrobe. I'm gonna pick out an outfit. I'm gonna think about it instead of just putting on the same pair of jeans and picking out a shirt that I always do.
Helen:I'm gonna think about my outfit on a larger level moving into 2025. So with that said, I had put together a little outfit with some red accents, the hat and a belt and the earrings. And we went to quick lunch and I had him do a little video of me transitioning to lunch. And then I did the before after the fact. So you don't have to do your transition in the order that you you don't have to shoot them in order as they're going to appear.
Helen:I just had the idea on the way to lunch. So I so I shot the second half, covered up the lens, moved into the street and then showed my second part. And now when I got home, I said I can shoot the first part. So you can think on the spot and go, oh, I wish And you don't have to have regret. You can say, oh, I wish I would have thought to do a transition to this cool outfit.
Helen:You still can if you're in the cool outfit. So anyway, couple of things were mentioned. Let me just recap. You don't have to think about your transitions ahead of time. You can think of the second part of it if you forgot to do the first part of it.
Helen:And you can always do the first part later. That's number 1. Number 2, if you wanna kick off the new year with a skill without having to make a huge commitment to what you're gonna change in 2025, you can do a 7 day challenge and walk away with a new skill. And then you could take that with you into 2025. You don't have to do anything more about it.
Helen:Just a very quick one. So think about that. And then lastly, I'm gonna mention that I am gonna try and make some intentional intentional fashion choices from the moving forward. I really wanna try and instead of just wearing the same my problem is that I I do wear the same thing a lot because I'm always hot so I need sleeveless shirts. So I tend to be in I have multitude of sleeveless shirts that I put under other sweaters so that I can always peel and be still dressed.
Helen:Details, details that you probably didn't need. But I just I'm always I've always run a little temperature warm ever since I've had kids. So this goes way back. This is not just a recent thing. I've always always been a little warm.
Helen:And so I this is what happens to me. I get in a rut. So I'm gonna try and move through the rut and at least pick things and accessorize or put together something different. Instead of jeans today, I have on a long skirt with boots. It's still comfortable.
Helen:I can still walk around the city. It's not like I'm dressed up and I and I'm not comfortable for walking. So I'm gonna really start to do that for 2025. So you can you can hopefully maybe you'll see more more outfit transitions from me coming forward. I don't know.
Helen:You're not gonna notice a lot because on top, I think I still have to deal with what I have to deal with. But maybe I'll try and find some some more interesting sleeveless shirts moving forward. Oh my gosh. Alright. Let's get into the trends quick because I do have a Zoom meeting after this.
Helen:And my Zoom meeting is with my studio. So we're gonna be talking about editing tips, content editing tips, and it's cameras on. We always do this really nice once a week thing. We took off last week, but every week I go live with I go live with them on Zoom. And camera's on, everybody gets to ask questions.
Helen:So we really tackle things on the spot. It's not like a big lesson I prepare in advance. I really go with what does everybody need this week. And so I do that every week and we are gonna be doing a Zoom wrap up on the challenge. So you can see what that's like if you wanna try the challenge out and see if the studio might be for you.
Helen:Alright. Let's talk trends. First one is nice fun. If you're in the mood for a over the top lip sync video, this is the trend for you. You're gonna get into character lip syncing to this to the words and then then you can talk about what gets you, like, heated up.
Helen:Okay? So what gets you excited? It could be as simple as your favorite coffee in the morning. It could be as elaborate as a trip that you're taking that you're planning or something like that. So you can really go with it.
Helen:You can lean into that. I wanna just digress and say, saw a video this morning that was a couple went to a library and they made a meeting about their plans for 2025. So the 2 of them booked a meeting room at their local library and they did the whiteboard and they did their plans and it was the coolest thing. I'm gonna try and find the video and and link it in the show notes. Interesting that they the categories they attacked and they're very young to to do this type of thing and they do it every year in their marriage.
Helen:I thought that was really kind of a cool thing. So even if you're not in a relationship, you can do this for yourself. I thought it was just quite interesting and I love to hear what people do for their New Year's. Even if I don't wanna tackle a New Year's resolution per se, I do like to think about some kind of a fresh start. So just want to mention that, and I will probably put it in the show notes here.
Helen:The next one you've probably seen a lot of, the college acceptance parody, where people are around a computer pretending they got into Harvard or whatever fancy college. And now they've it's evolved into getting into beyond college. So it's like creators pretending something maybe even way less monumental occurred and they're over the top reacting to it. It could be something really simple, like just finding out that the New Year's sales are on a target or something like that. You can really just go into any area with this, anything that you wanna fake parody celebrate.
Helen:So have some creativity with that one. I wanna see some really creative things. And feel to tag me because, of course, I'll come and watch them. I love I love it when I get tagged because then I I am prompted to comment in particular on those videos. Okay.
Helen:Next is Instagram trends, and we love, you know, we love and hate these 20 20 4 wrap ups. A lot of people were making fun of, like, now what my for you page is gonna be over the next week, and it's this 2024, wrap up challenge, recap challenge. And that's fine if you if it's easy to do. If you have a folder and you've got a bunch of photos you've been putting into it, You can snap it out really fast, or it might prompt you to kinda go through your photos for the year and just pull up pull out a couple. So it's a good excuse to do it.
Helen:And if you have time and you're sitting around on New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, whatever, like, go for it. I think that's a good one. And then the last one is this fun audio that you can lip sync to create a highlight reel of clips you already have showing what is therapy to you. So it's like if buying yourself something cozy is a type of therapy, you can use it that use that as an example. If, just a hot chocolate and on a blank in a blanket on the couch in the evening, whatever is your peaceful therapy time, this is something that you can highlight.
Helen:And it can be something really interesting. It doesn't have to be what everyone else is doing. It really you can be so unique and this is where you can kinda find your tribe. And when you do that kind of thing, you end up finding people who have similar interests and tend to be the ones that will follow. So a lot of times when you show that little personal side of yourself, that is when you're more likely to gain the followers than when you're doing something that's like a traditional hook, like here's 3 things to know to do blah blah blah.
Helen:So it's sometimes showing more of yourself and your inner feelings is more relatable to people and more likely to bring a follow. So think about that. Now let's get into New Year's resolutions and original content ideas. Not New Year's resolutions, but original content ideas. One of which is it's a time of the year where we do make resolutions.
Helen:So if if you have an idea of a resolution you're gonna do, post it. You know, you might as well because it gives you, like, accountability. And if you don't, you can just talk about what you hate about New Year's resolutions, what you love about New Year's resolutions, what you how you've changed your thoughts on New Year's resolutions. What It's a great content bucket because people will be talking about it and so it will likely get pushed out as content content. Okay.
Helen:Then the next one is doing a different kind of end of year wrap up. It's not necessarily one of those trends where the music is being pushed to death and everybody's sick of it and will start scrolling. So you can pick your own type of music. You can do something completely off off the grid. Take 2 seconds clips of some of your favorite videos and just put them together to a different music.
Helen:We have lots of music suggestions in the newsletter today, so you can use one of those. Create your own music video that represents you and resonates with you and is not that same whatever music that they keep pushing out. I do wanna say this though, when you use the musics that is are being pushed out, you do have a bit of an advantage to getting more eyeballs. And I did this because by accident, I posted I tried that little, afro friend. What is the thing where where you turn into, like, a fro or something, like your curly self?
Helen:And I was testing it, and I did one. I took a photo out of my phone and it gave me the big curly do. And I didn't even mean to hit post, and I accidentally did at one of those moments. No caption, no nothing. It's got more views than most of the stuff that I've been posting, and it's because that trend is being pushed out with that music.
Helen:It doesn't even have as many comments and it has more views. So my point here is that even though you think, I don't wanna use the same music again, that same trend or whatever, a lot of people are a lot of people will find that you'll get more views on your videos when you do it. So I hate to say it's like a love hate with doing those trends. You know? Like, I get why people don't wanna do it.
Helen:At the same time, they work. So ponder that. Ponder me that. The next one is, if making a music video isn't for you, then just create a photo dump with all your memories. And that's a really, really easy one to do because those photo carousels, they can You can put a title on each video, on each photo.
Helen:It's quick for people who liked the old Instagram where it was just a photo app. So if you'd rather just do it in photos and put a little caption, you can even make your own January, February, you can put, one month name on each, that could be fun. Just think outside the box and do that and that could be a good one. Alright. Now the tutorial for today is about adjusting music volume, and I did this because a lot of people were saying, how do I hide the music on my videos If I wanna put music on in CapCut and then that music isn't available in TikTok or in Instagram, you add the music and you lower the volume.
Helen:And I had in the tutorial, I showed to lower the volume all the way. Some people commented that if you put the volume on the one that you added to 1%, it's better because the platform won't think you're hiding the music. When it's at 0, I guess maybe it's getting flagged. Who knows? So when you lower your music, keep it at 1 or 2%, you still won't be able to hear it, but the platform won't flag it as 0%.
Helen:So that's a little bonus info for you right there after you watch the tutorial because I didn't think of saying that in the tutorial. So bonus material coming in hot on the pod. These are the things I think about on the podcast after I've already sent out or made videos or made tutorials and I'm like, oh, shoot. I forgot to say that. So here I am adding it.
Helen:The other thing I wanna mention before I leave you is the annual head turn transition video, which I will be posting tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on when I feel like hitting post on it, where I did a head turn every month of the year. It's really fun for me because I was growing my hair back from cancer in 2023. And so in 2024, my hair was still pretty short, like above my ears. So through the course of the year, you see my hair growth. And it's really fun when you have a change that progresses every month.
Helen:I know one creator got Invisalign and showed her smile how it evolved month to month, which is another great use of that. If you're doing some kind of a micro change on your look and you're evolving. I don't know. It's just a good trend for like more of a close-up change. It's it's also a good trend for showing where you were month to month.
Helen:So you could say, alright, it doesn't matter. My face didn't change, but my location changes. I'm in, you know, Tahiti this month. I'm in Europe this month or whatever if you're a traveler. So it's a those are good trends to use if you do have changes and then you wanna be able to look back and see.
Helen:And I had a point at which during my head turn transition video when I was making it, one of the months May was my son's wedding in the beginning of the month. I completely forgot to shoot the head turn and I had all these wedding videos. So when I got to May in my head turn video, I just used a bunch of the wedding clips. I just stuck them in there. So even if you forget to do a month, you can stick something in there.
Helen:Even another video. Even if you forget to do the lip sync. So you'll see mine and you'll notice May. Take note of May and see what I did there when I forgot to record the head turn for that month. Okay?
Helen:I wanted to record the head turn at the wedding and I got so sidetracked. Completely forgot about it, obviously. So that's what I ended up doing. I just used the videos. I said, oh, well, it's not gonna be perfect.
Helen:And you know what? I don't even think people will realize that it wasn't meant to be like that. They'll probably just take it for what it is and go, oh, she did like wedding a wedding head turn. I don't know if a lot of people will even notice. Alright.
Helen:So I'm gonna wrap it up today because I have to get on the Zoom in 4 minutes. And so I've cut myself a little short on time to record this, but I wanna get this done. I have to do the Zoom and then I'm off to a holiday dinner right before we head out of town. So cookie for Cocoa Puffs. I'm moving quick.
Helen:I'm moving quick today and I'm getting it all done in my red hat. Anyway, have a happy new year. I will be back on Friday. Hopefully, I'll be a little calmer by Friday. I don't know.
Helen:I always think I'm gonna be calmer and then every week is like an explosion of excitement in the mothership's life. And that's serious when I start talking myself about myself in the 3rd person. We should be very worried. Alright. On that note, have a happy New Year, and I will I will see you Friday.
Helen:I'll be thinking of you on the countdown. 5, 43, 21. Happy New Year.