The Socialize Strategy - Vlogging Tips
Welcome to The Socialize Strategy, your favorite social media podcast of the week, right? I sure hope so. Anyway, I am back and I want to talk about vlogging and creative styles of vlogging. But before I get into it, I have a little treat for you. At the beginning of the podcast, I'm going to start off with Unsponsored Buy.
Helen:And that is a new little section, which is only a minute or two, where I'm going to talk about one of my favorite favorite products. And whether it's because I was introduced to it by receiving free product, which is what happened today, or something that I've been using for years, each week I'm going pick something and tell you a little bit about it and why I like it. Because I feel that I don't get to share a lot of my, I guess, influencer type things because I don't do that kind of content. And so I decided, you know what? This is my platform.
Helen:Let's go for it. So today, I'm gonna talk about BeautyStat because I just received this from the founder of the brand who reached out to me on TikTok and said, I'd like to send you some products. We've been following each other for years. He is a chemist, a cosmetic chemist, and he used to be a beauty blogger. His name is Ron Robinson.
Helen:He was a beauty blogger. He'd already worked for brands like Clinique for years as a as a cosmetic scientist. And so he has all the information. And when he started his blog, he was highlight and he was also a social media agency, and he was highlighting other brands. So I don't know.
Helen:You can read about it when he decided to launch his own brand, but here we are and he sent me these products. And so I tried different products through, you know, through time. I've tried different brands that were sent to me especially when I had cancer and people were sending me things. And I'm really liking this one. So I want to talk about it.
Helen:First of all, the cleanser, it's like a pea sized amount, creamy, smooth, and I even take it in the shower now and I use it like I use it on my chest. It is a really, really nice cleanser. I love it. The second thing that I'm loving is this Universal C Skin Refiner because it has that smooth it almost feels like it's filling in the lines when it when you put it on and it's got that silky feel to it. I I don't I only know one other brand that I've ever tried that has that in in a sunscreen.
Helen:And this is the first time I've ever seen it in a moisturizer or felt it in a moisturizer moisturizer. I really, really like it. Also, the peptide wrinkle moisturizer for at night, and these are triple action daily peels. When I read the instructions, it said this one might feel a little tingly, and I didn't experience that with this, but I do get a little tingle sensation with the skin refiner. But anyway, loving the brand.
Helen:So if you haven't tried it, I would say it's it's worth a look see. And I'm going talk about some of my other favorite skin skin care brands as we move forward. But I just really like that one. So today is Beauty Stat Day. Alright.
Helen:Let's move on to the topic of the newsletter and I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about why I picked this topic for this week and the things that I'm doing in the studio are always somewhat reflective of the things that I share in the newsletter. But in the studio, we really get into it in a more lesson savvy way. So I'm putting specific lessons up about things, and I'm really getting into the details of commenting on everybody's videos and giving them specific directions. So it's a bit more of hand holding that happens in there versus me just telling you the information here and then you go off and either you figure it out or who knows what happens. So that's what I really love about the studio.
Helen:I'm feeling a back and forth, a give and a take, and I'm really enjoying it in there. And what we're doing this week was talking about formatting and how to make your videos YouTube friendly and then also back to social media friendly and back and forth. So if this does interest you and you wanna try the studio for seven days, you can get the benefit of those lessons and those lives and then, you know, you can decide to stay or not stay, but every week is a really fun topic and I already have the topic picked for next week. So buckle up everybody. If you're my studio people, you're gonna love that one and we have a new studio platform.
Helen:We're over at Mighty and it's very user friendly. It's so easy to find what you need, show up for the events, see the chat, be in the chat, and see what everybody's talking about. It's it's a lot of fun. Okay. Let's get into tips for creative vlogging.
Helen:I always think of vlogging as everybody has their own style of doing it. And most people think vlogging is come with me for a day in the life or get ready with me for blah blah blah. That's only one small piece of vlogging in my opinion. So I'm gonna say that you can have your own style of vlogging, and I'm gonna tell you what mine is, and it's in here in a little bit more depth. But my style of vlogging tends to be more doing a music video where I show the events of a day and I show it through music and titles.
Helen:And that is still vlogging. So even though I'm not talking through it, it's still a way of vlogging. It's a creative style of vlogging. So I'm gonna start from the beginning and say, okay, where do you start? If you are somebody who is just like, I don't even know how I don't even know how to vlog.
Helen:Like, take me back to kindergarten vlogging. And the idea of a vlog is to film clips of your day that you then string together and you record short clips. And as you put that together, that becomes a day in the life, a story of the day in your life, a story of an event that you attended. So it's a little think of it as a miniature storybook about whatever that is. So that's why Get Ready With Me is a very traditional style of a vlog because it's like telling someone to come along with me as I get ready.
Helen:But other styles of vlogs might be, today I went to Union Square and they were having Earth Day. So that could be considered a vlog when I share the clips of what I experienced at Union Square during Earth Day. So a vlog can be about your day. It can be about a portion of your day. It can be about an event.
Helen:It it just it's just a story. That's what you've got to think about as when you think of the word vlog. So that way you don't get caught up in it has to be me filming all day long to create a vlog. And that seems a little daunting sometimes to people because they know they're gonna get involved in the thing that they're doing and they're gonna forget to film the clips. So we have lots of tips for how to do vlogging that I've already shared in the studio, how to successfully do that.
Helen:So if you're interested in that, you can do a seven day trial in the studio and go watch the vlogging lesson. But the idea is to record either record your voice over first or shoot all your clips first. It's up to you how you want to do it. A lot of times having the voice over is really good to have it first because then you know what clips you want to shoot. Okay?
Helen:But often you go through the course of a day and things happen that you didn't expect. So then you'll have to revise your voice over. So they so a lot most people maybe like to record at the end after they do all the events, make a list of all the things they did that they want included, and then record the voice over. But still to me, recording the voice over before you start editing is still a better strategy. And it may not be the popular strategy because a lot of people like to string all the clips together and then they're hurrying up to like read their voice over super fast to get through all the clips.
Helen:And those vlogs to me, I feel like I'm playing catch up and I'm chasing. And I feel that the person is chasing to catch up with themselves. That's why I truly recommend as a professional, because this is what I do in my professional life, in my production life, is audio first. And then put your clips on top. Okay?
Helen:So you're gonna, even if you record all the clips, you go through your day, you record all the clips, and then before you start editing, you record your voice over first and think about what are all the clips that are gonna be in this thing. Let me record it and then put my videos on top of it. That's how I recommend it. Okay? It's much better that way.
Helen:It will save you a lot of time trying to re record, re record, re record because you have to say something faster because you only made the shot three seconds long and the thing you want to say is seven seconds long. Okay? So think about that. Of course today is the noisiest damn day and I just opened the window and now it's like sirens and dogs and woo. I don't know if you can hear that but welcome to New York City.
Helen:Okay. The next part of vlogging is to think about it as narrating the story. So you could do a vlog where you are talking it through in real life. So you could be on camera saying, like I was today. I'm in Union Square and it's Earth Day.
Helen:And so I could kick off with an opening introduction that's me speaking on camera instead of a voice over. And then I could do that through the course of the day each time I go to something different or, oh my god, the trees are blooming. It's beautiful. So I could use my voice to narrate the vlog live, like, on camera. And then when I'm saying a line like, it's a beautiful day in the park and it's Earth Day and there's gonna be celebration, instead of staying on my face the whole time, it could be a little bit of my face and then I can use overlays and cover it up with some of the other scenes that I shoot.
Helen:So that's another style of doing your vlog. You can use your on camera self. That is what you can try if it's something that you feel comfortable doing, like turning the camera on yourself and being in public. A lot of people don't even like to do that. But if you are out of your if you can get out of your comfort zone or get out of your skin and feel good doing it, it's so much fun.
Helen:No one cares that you're recording. No one pays attention to me. I'm recording all the time walking around New York talking to myself. I even had that guy shout shouting at me, you love yourself. Whatever.
Helen:I'm making my videos. Leave me alone. I don't really bother when people have something to say about what I'm doing. Take a page out of my book and just don't worry about it. But hey, once you're comfortable if you are comfortable doing that, it is a good way to make sure you capture all the things because you can cut you can have voice over combined with on camera, you can go back and forth, and you can be very creative.
Helen:So there are so many other ways to get creative on your on your vlogs other than just saying, okay, I'm gonna talk through it. You can decide, like I said first, is I'm just gonna put a music track. The music track's gonna tell the story because there could be a music that you pick that really almost speaks the words of what you're doing. If it's something like, it's a beautiful day, then I got nothing to do, whatever the heck that's the lyrics of that song are. But you would pick a song where the day, the song speaks to the day, and then you really don't have to even narrate.
Helen:You can just put titles on saying what the things are. So that's a nice if you're intimidated by the speaking part, if you're intimidated even by the voice over part, or you don't want to have to be worried about timing, could just make a music video. You string some shots together, two seconds, three seconds, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, and just kind of vary it up, and then throw music on top of it and see what happens. That is my favorite way to make a vlog, and I usually do that when I'm in a rush. That is the way to do it when you're in a hurry.
Helen:But once you get comfortable doing vlogs, can power them out. You can do a series. There's a lot of useful tools in vlogging that can be used to keep your content flowing and you can have a playlist of certain types of vlogs. If you are a person who does skincare and you do a bunch of vlogs, you can have your skincare vlogs and then you can have your your activity vlog. So really can if you're if you're a person who loves doing it, I I say, you know, lean into it because we should always do the content we like doing the most.
Helen:That's what will make sure that you're gonna be consistent. Whenever you're doing something that you love, you'll tend to want to do it more. So it becomes a lot easier to be consistent. Okay. Now, there's so many other creative ways to work with vlogs.
Helen:So I want to talk about some of them that I have shared inside the studio, some of them that I have done myself, and some ideas that I thought of when I was about to record this. And I'm like, ugh, I'm gonna share some of these ideas, and then I might actually make them into lessons in the studio. But number one has already been a lesson in the studio, and that is looping. To loop your vlog so that when you're when someone's watching, they don't even know that it ended and it started over again. And the way to do that is to take to vlog your thing and then the last line, put it at the beginning.
Helen:And don't repeat it. A lot of people go, it's repeating a line at the end and the beginning. No, it's not. It's not repeating a line. You're not taking the end and then saying it again at the beginning because then that's, like, repetitive and no one's gonna stick around for that.
Helen:Don't do that. You wanna take the ending line off and put it at the beginning so it starts with the end. And then when it gets to the end, it's not the end anymore because the end is back at the beginning. And so it makes people watch it around and around. It's like going around and around in a circle and it's a song that never ends.
Helen:You know that one. Alright. So that's a really useful tool. I will caution you that you don't want to loop videos that are long. So no one's going to stick around.
Helen:Most people drop off from watching videos after like ten or fifteen seconds. So no one's really gonna stick around for really long videos. It's much more effective to loop videos that are thirty seconds at the most. I mean sometimes you can loop a minute video, but again that's a long time for people to stick around to get back to the beginning. Okay?
Helen:So think about that if you are gonna do a loop. The other thing that's fun and can just pick, you know, pop your vlog up to another level is to put voice over, a voice of can't even speak. It's to put a voice over effect on it so that it's not just your voice, especially people who say, I don't even like my voice. There's so many different voice effects and you could be a narrator and you could be a trickster and you could be there's so many fun voice effects in especially in TikTok that you could then save and use those over in Instagram. It's really a good way to make your vlog funnier a lot of times because sometimes the most mundane voiceover when it's got a trickster voice on it is hilarious.
Helen:I don't know what happens, but certain voice effects just make the content funnier. So if you're looking to be funny, slap a voice effect on it. I'm telling you. You will not be sorry. You will not be sorry.
Helen:Another trick is to put sound effects. So if you have a story and you're doing a thing and a thing and a thing and then you hear a door slam, a sound effect. Like that could punctuate. You could be a there could be a bell ringing. So you could punctuate your story using sound effects.
Helen:And that makes it funny. If you remember, Elise Myers, when she was popular here on on the in social media, she would use stickers all the time. So stickers popping on, which is also fun. Some visual interest popping on when she was telling her story and it was like tacos and she would have like she had hundreds of tacos like flicking all over the screen. And that was one of her early viral videos.
Helen:So using stickers for humor, using overlays for humor could be fun. The other thing is I, Julie's really good at this. I'm not always so good at it. I try to remember, but when she does a vlog, a lot of times she'll transition in and out of the, shots so that she knows, like, I swiped to the left on that one and when when she gets to the next thing, she's gonna swipe from the from the right to the left again. She's gonna so it's gonna be a continued swipe.
Helen:And she really is good at that because she'll do a thing where she swipes up towards the sky and then her next shot, she'll start on the ground and swipe up. And so that her vlog sometimes just goes seamlessly from thing to thing. And I love it. But you have to be a planner a little bit for that because you have to remember what shot did I do last, what direction was I doing it, and so you have to be have this continuous flow built into your your head. And we put a sample in the newsletter about a creator that made her whole vlog a transition video.
Helen:So that's a really, really fun trick if you want to do something unusual. Now, some things that were not in the newsletter that I want to dive into because I think that we limit ourselves by what's been done before so many times. We just think, well, that's how a get ready with me video has to be done. And then suddenly, somebody steps outside the box and does it differently. And then it's like, ugh, why didn't I think of that?
Helen:Because we're always thinking of how it's been done, and we don't always think how could it be even done better or how can it be done differently. So I'm going to challenge you. Like this is a great example. What if you were starting your vlog off with something completely random that doesn't even connect with the voice over? So I'm gonna make this up like a get ready with me video starts with you literally dancing somewhere.
Helen:And then it's saying, get ready with me to get ready to go out dancing. So you're already starting with the shot where you ended up. And it's not necessarily a loop video in this case. This is just a draw people in because you're saying get ready with me, but the person is obviously not getting ready. The person is already dressed and ready and out.
Helen:So, doing something that is so opposite and jarring to what you're hearing versus what you're seeing. That is a challenge. And that is something that I will I will challenge you right now on this as I'm talking about this on the podcast is what would your typical things start with and what would make it completely ridiculous to start it off differently. So think about what you're saying and what could be something that is so not connected with what you're saying that you could start off with. Those are the kinds of things that get the attention.
Helen:It's funny. If I think about all the people who have become trendy like the, you know, very demure. It's hilarious because if you think about Jules, even her angle of her camera, it was like jarring because she wasn't in the whole camera a lot of times. She was at the bottom of the frame and she's like, it's it was a terrible angle. Yet, it was jarring.
Helen:So I think what I I want you to take away from this is that it's great to understand how to do the things the traditional way, the way everyone's doing them. But I think what sets people apart is when they take a step back and go, I'm not gonna do it like everybody else. And I I've when Julie was growing up, I used to say, you don't have to be like everyone else. All because everybody's wearing, and I'm making this up, like, Converse with, you know, their dresses or whatever. You don't have to do that, but she was the opposite.
Helen:She actually wore Converse with dresses when no one else was doing it. But, anyway, my point is, I used to tell her this all the time growing up. Like, just be feel your own self. Like, what would make you feel good? So if you have a video and everyone's doing these things in this way and you think, oh, I gotta do it just like that, I'm here to tell you that you don't.
Helen:You really don't. You do it completely different, and you could be completely silly and and off the wall funny or not funny or serious. But you can, you can take away take it yourself away from the norm and think about what you're gonna put on the beginning of your video instead of the traditional. Today, we're gonna wah wah and we're gonna walk, you know, come it could be so funny like, cross the street with me as I get ready for, you know, the and it's like, cross the street with me. That's that's a ridiculous statement.
Helen:That's not anything. But sometimes, like, I I think of that because I did a vlog recently where I was on my way to teach a video production workshop at a corporation. And my first shot was me crossing the street talking about how I was so excited to go to this, to this workshop where I was going to teach these executives how to create videos. So when I think about it now and I was crossing the street, I could have started that off. Cross the street with me as I head to a video production workshop.
Helen:That would be funny, you know? But sometimes I don't think of the things quick enough on the spot when I'm in it. I it's really nice to be able to advise now when I look back at my old content and think, oh, how could I have made that more engaging? And that would have been a funnier opening than just, I'm heading to I'm heading to Rockefeller Center where I'm gonna teach these executives how to make videos, and I'm so excited about it. It's fine.
Helen:That was truly what I was doing, but I think it would have been funnier to do a a funny line that's like, cross the street with me instead of get ready with me. Or come with me instead of come with me. I would say, cross the street with me. Just something absurd, you know? I think it's like the idea of social media isn't necessarily to be the most absurd, but it's like to be the person that is not just following the line of everyone else.
Helen:That is it for today. I've been talking for way too long. I'd love to hear what type of vlogs you enjoy watching the most. Is there a specific style you enjoy more than another style? Do you like fast cutting vlogs?
Helen:Do you like slower paced vlogs? There's so many different styles, and you can create your own signature style. One thing I have said, and I've said it before, I don't know if I said it in my studio a lot, but I've I know I've say it a lot because it's one of the things that is one of my pet peeves. But people that speed up their footage so much and it's like frenetic, that's not a pleasant vlog to watch. If you're like zooming, zooming, zooming, zooming, it's almost like frenetic energy unless somebody's really like going nuts and they want to feel like a need for speed, maybe that maybe that's appealing.
Helen:But your vlog doesn't have to be this frenetic energy of fitting everything in. Like if you're if you walked three blocks, you don't have to speed up three blocks worth of you walking to fit it into three seconds. Okay? You can do one clip of two second and one clip of getting to the next block. Like, you can skip the whole middle section.
Helen:A little bit of walking, cut out all this, the rest of the walking. So you can tighten up your videos without speeding them up to cram it all in. So I'm gonna leave you with that because that is my, ah, that is a mothership peeve. So I'm gonna leave you with that. Don't speed up your videos to try and cram everything in.
Helen:Just make shorter clips and then you can cut the same clip of you walking down the street, cut out 25 steps forward, and then cut the next part of the walking down the street. So you have two seconds and two seconds. That's four seconds instead of taking twenty seconds of walking and speeding it up to four seconds. Alright? That is my hot tip for today.
Helen:Please don't do that. It's not pleasant at all for the viewer. And, I'd love to hear what other styles of vlogs you really enjoy. Do you like music video vlogs? Do you like when the person's talking on camera?
Helen:Do you prefer the voice over? What's your favorite type of vlog? Tell me in the comments. Alright. Have a good weekend, and I will see you next Friday.
Helen:Have a happy Easter for those that celebrate. Bye.
