The Socialize Forecast - 2/25/25 Algorithm Confusion
Welcome to the socialized forecast. It is Tuesday, February 25 and I'd like to start off before I get into the weekly trends as we know that's what Tuesdays are for, trends and content ideas. But before I get started, I wanna silence my phone and also talk about a few other things that have come to mind. Things that I usually notice sometimes on the weekend and then I'm like, I just make a mental note and think that's what I'm gonna kick off the podcast with next time. So I have a couple of topics, buckle up and let's go.
Helen:The first one is algorithm mistakes. And this might sound like I know everything, the ins and outs of the algorithm, but nobody really knows that. But what I have understood about the algorithm, I have learned through trial and error on my own content, watching other people, how they've succeeded or not on their content. And so a lot of this just I have a natural ability to assess. I'm a troubleshooter by nature.
Helen:I like to figure out, okay, check that off. We tried that. Check that off. We tried that. And that's how I operate.
Helen:So when I see things and people advising on certain things, it gets me I don't know. It gets me a little upset because a lot of innocent scrollers coming along and learning on social media and then they hear someone and then they take that advice as gospel. And then that might not be good advice. So I wanna talk about this one thing that I hear a lot of people say, and that is you should follow the accounts that are in your niche if you want to grow your niche, if you wanna grow your account. And I cannot I can't really even say how much I disagree with this.
Helen:I don't wanna sound like, an opposer to the idea because if you are, for example, a food creator and you love your foodie and you love to watch food videos, of course, you should follow the accounts that you enjoy consuming, that you enjoy watching. That is an important part of your viewer experience. That really in my mind doesn't directly correlate to the viewers you are going to the followers you are going to get on your account. Hear me out on this because I just think it's so frustrating when I hear this type of advice and I'm like, these people now think they've got to follow, you know, like a tutorial person now thinks that, you know, if they're gonna teach how to do something in a certain arena, they gotta follow every other person that's doing the same thing. And I would say to you that that's probably the opposite of what you should be doing for a couple of reasons.
Helen:And now let me see. Not in any particular order. I'm gonna share what those reasons are. One, just because this is top of mind. If you are following the type of content that you are also creating, you will have less Number one, you're gonna have, I don't know, copy not copycat syndrome, but you're gonna wanna you're gonna always be thinking, oh, that video was so much better than mine or you're gonna be in constant comparison.
Helen:That's the word I'm looking for. Constantly comparing yourself to all these other creators you're watching and how can I do it like them and how can I be like them? And it's like, you don't wanna be like them. The whole point of you being on social media is to find your people, to be like you, to be authentically yourself, not to copy what that person is doing. So, okay.
Helen:So that's number one. And number two is inevitably, if you are following someone and you are constantly looking at their content, you are going to end up copying them and maybe not even on purpose, but something about watching that over and over will start will have you believing that it was your original idea. And then you're gonna be doing exactly what you're gonna hate when someone does it to you. So I'm gonna try and say this in the nicest way because it's happened. I see people doing it with my content and it's like, what?
Helen:You're obviously watching, liking, commenting, and then you're remaking the same content that I make. And it's like you're never there's a couple of things about that. Number one, you're never gonna really curate your own vibe because you're gonna be so busy watching what's in front of you and constantly playing catch up that you won't ever ever find your real space for yourself. Alright? That's one way to say it.
Helen:The other thing is I mean, for the person who like the opposite, like I'm not watching other people that are teaching things. As a matter of fact, sometimes I think I probably should watch a couple, but I don't like to see what other people are doing in my space. I like to put the blinders on and not get sidetracked by or influenced by, oh, that person taught that lesson. I should do that too. Or, oh, that person showed that feature.
Helen:I should show that too. I don't think that is a productive way to operate, at least not if you wanna be original. It's gonna put you in a place that you're always behind and copying versus leading. So I want you to just percolate that for a minute because I do think a lot of people are thinking I have to follow the same accounts. And then I'm gonna take it now a step further because we didn't there's more to this.
Helen:That that was just like part one. I wanna get to part two now. Part two is that if you're only watching that type of content and then you might enjoy, let's say, like myself. I love to watch dog videos sometimes. I just think dogs can be funny and so that entertains me.
Helen:I'm always sending Julie dog videos. Lately, I'm getting a lot of baby content because maybe because I'm watching them now that I have a coming grandkid on the way, granddaughter on the way. Whatever it is. Those things interest me. They have nothing to do with me teaching tutorials.
Helen:They are not going to, help me to teach okay. Wait. How am I saying this? Not that they're not gonna help me. They're gonna help me enjoy my experience on social media, but they're not going to, necessarily elicit, followers.
Helen:And the next part of this is that if you are only following accounts that are similar to yourself, you're not gonna find people who need what you're offering because probably those people are already creating the type of content that you're trying to create. The people in that person's comment section are interested in that creator. So they're not necessarily looking to find other food creators to watch. You're almost, like, in someone else's classroom and then trying to be the teacher in a weird way. Maybe that's a way to I'm trying to relate it to something in real life.
Helen:Just think about it. If you're at someone's party, that person, those are all their friends. You don't come into their party and then try and pull people and have them come over to your house. Not you know what I mean? I like to say like think of it as real life and I'm sorry that I'm rambling today.
Helen:But this has just been disturbing me because the more I see people telling people to do this, the more frustrating it gets for me to watch because I know this is like This is the opposite of what you wanna do. You wanna find people who need you for your unique thing. Not they need you because you're another one of like somebody that they're already following. Oh my goodness. Did I say it okay?
Helen:So that's number one for today. I want you to think about it. I want you to think about who you follow. Follow for the joy that you get from the content that you watch. And also, you would be inspired potentially.
Helen:For my situation, if I was following other tutorial people and that's all I was watching, I would not know the things that I wanna teach because I'd only know, oh, that person taught that lesson. I better teach that lesson. I don't even look at it. No. I watch content I like.
Helen:I love alpha transitions. I watch them and I'm like, that I can teach. I don't even know if someone else is teaching that lesson. I don't care if anyone else is teaching that lesson. You get it?
Helen:I just I wanna teach the thing that I enjoy. So when I'm for example, recently, I just did a a video where I showed how to use voice effects because I was working on a project for work where I was giving these characters voices and I thought, oh, this would be a fun lesson. I didn't teach that lesson because I saw someone else teaching that lesson. You get it? I taught that lesson because I was working on a project.
Helen:I was inspired by watching other content where animals and things had voices. And I was like, oh, I should make a voice on this animal. And then I'm like, oh, I should teach that lesson. Okay? So it's a different way of getting creative.
Helen:It's being inspired by things you watch because you enjoy watching them, not because you're watching that person that's doing that thing and now you're gonna do that same recipe because that person did that recipe. No. How about you're watching restaurant, videos or you're watching somebody who's doing like a house, a house thing and you see something in their video and you're like, oh, I should teach how to do that. Or maybe you're at an event and you enjoyed some particular food. Oh, maybe I'll make a video about that.
Helen:You don't have to make a video about something that someone else in your niche just made a video about. Oh my god. I think I've made my point and now I'm moving to the next topic. Are you ready? The next thing is, on Friday, my dear friend Grace McCarrick who is a content creator in the culture CEO space, she does a lot of advising on companies about company culture and how to motivate people.
Helen:And she's just amazing. Just amazing. But what she has done for me personally aside from our work relationship, she has helped me deal with something in social media that is not my specialty which is dealing with negativity. I don't do it well. I don't like it.
Helen:I I rather just like put my head in the sand, ignore it. Or when I get negative comments, a lot of times I just I just let them sit there. I ignore them. Whatever. I also don't go back at people with negative comments because I think that's giving them attention.
Helen:So there's a lot of different things, but she has helped me get in my head space correctly about the negativity. And she had so many pearls of wisdoms for me through the course of my content creation journey. And she just posted something on LinkedIn today and I was like, what? That is brilliant. Five years of content creating and that had never come into my mind.
Helen:So I'd asked her if she would come on the podcast on Friday. So we are going to record it live on Thursday and it's in the newsletter and I'll put the link in the show notes. If you wanna attend live, you can put questions into the chat. We're gonna do it like webinar style and we're gonna record the podcast like that. And I have so many great topics that we're gonna talk about with as which are related to it.
Helen:So one of the things she had talked about on her LinkedIn post was how people can come into your comments section and they're they're almost like banking on your audience to get attention on their thoughts because they don't have their own page or community that they post on. It was just such a wake up call for me. And so I'm like, wait, Grace. We have to talk about all these things. So I invited her and she said, yes, and we're doing it.
Helen:We're doing it this Friday. So come on Thursday at 11:30 was when we're gonna record it, 11:30 Eastern. Sign up. It's free. You can come and listen in.
Helen:Very excited. And the third thing before I I move on to topics of trends, well, I'm almost getting there, is that I'm going to host a New York City meetup where I'm gonna do a social media workshop in New York City. And I'd love to know if you are in the area, would you be interested in something like this? I need to get a vague idea of not even a head count. So this is not a commitment.
Helen:Just an idea of who might be interested so that I can decide what size venue I need to get because there's a few different studios I'm looking at. And I'm like, I don't know how big of a space I need or how small of a space I need until I gauge the interest. And I'm just into it because this lunch and I did last week in Connecticut was so amazing. I met the most inspiring women. It was so fulfilling for me to be there to teach and I really want to do it to do one for myself where it's like my event that I'm hosting.
Helen:So me and lovely Benita, Kosbos Market is her handle. That's with a k, Kosbos Market. We are putting together an event in New York City and she's a food person. She does Lebanese cheese, Mediterranean cheese. That's her expertise and she is a, aside from that, she's a wonderful person.
Helen:We get along really, really well and we decided we're so complimentary in our skill set. We're gonna put an event together. So hooray to that and I'd love to know. Just no commitment. Just click on the on the little link and say, yes, I'm in New York City area.
Helen:Yes, I'm interested. And we'd love to know just get a sense of it. And we will be either I likely will be doing that at April. So stay tuned for that. Alright.
Helen:This week in the studio, we are doing a content review. I'm pretty pumped because today that's where we're meeting today. We always meet once a week on Zoom. And today, what I'm doing is reviewing those who are going to be in attendance. I'm gonna look at their accounts before the meeting and then I'm gonna come with, like, here's one thing you're doing great.
Helen:Here's one thing you can improve. Very basic because I've got, like, a bunch of people attending. I wanna make sure I get to everyone. So it's gonna be, like, looked at your content, here's your thing, and here's your thing. And that's what I'm gonna do today in the studio, plus we're gonna have our usual q and a.
Helen:And we every week do have private Zoom meetings where I do something different every week. The next one, I think we're gonna cover editing tips. Although, if this content review thing goes well, I may follow-up with another one of those soon because I think when people that aren't can't make it today are realizing that they missed out on that, they're probably gonna want that. So I may I may fold that into more often in the studio. So if you're interested in that, come and join.
Helen:Okay. My goodness. We're halfway through and I haven't even gotten to the trends yet. So I'm gonna keep it short on the trends. But I wanna just, say when it comes to the trends, when you're looking at a trend, think about the trend and how you're going to make it better for yourself.
Helen:So it's gonna be relevant to your style of content or your niche or whatever. I'm gonna give you an example. So for the first one, it's tomorrow I will be an expert. And this is for someone who loves to pick up a hobby and then they think they wanna go from zero to doing it really well in the first day. That's me.
Helen:I am that person guilty as charged. I I think I talked about it. There's a woman, the the the content we shared here is a woman with a sewing machine and she wants to become an expert in the day. The joke is as a child, my mother gave me a sewing lesson and I wanted to make a full dress in the first day. And she was like, you need to learn how to hem first and I was not happy with that.
Helen:But I am that person. I wanna go from zero to I'm an expert. So this would be a great one, but it's also a great one for someone who doesn't do transitions well. So I could use that to tell somebody, like, tomorrow you'll be an expert and you will be an expert because I you you're in my good hands and I'm gonna teach you how to be an expert. So I could spin it in that direction if I wanted to.
Helen:That's why I'm saying you when you look at these trends, you can take them so literally or you can completely turn them upside down and make them how you wanna make it. And maybe that becomes like another spin off of the trend. Alright. The other one for TikTok is this end and this is showing what would save you if you were in a situation and you weren't really happy at the moment. What would actually make you feel happy?
Helen:Like thinking about that. And this was a creator showing off how being on vacation and getting with all getting ready with friends for dinner in one room, Looking at the beach could save her. So she had a view of the beach even though it was like probably chaos in the room. Alright. This Instagram one is very funny because it's, oh, a piece of candy.
Helen:So you could be following a trail of something to, like, what would how would somebody be able to kidnap you? And it's like, what would what trail would you follow and allow yourself to be kidnapped? And in this case, it was a creator who loved beauty products. So, of course, she'd following she's like, would be easily kidnapped by following a trail of her favorite beauty products. So you can you can use that for anything.
Helen:And, honestly, you don't even have to make it about being kidnapped. You could just be like things I love. Oh, this. Oh, that. I mean, you don't really have to follow.
Helen:I always say trends are great because they're trending, but you don't have to do it just like the same way. You could hop on that because the audio is trending and do something completely off the cuff. I mean, there's no, there's no, you know, you can't really people say, I did the trend wrong. Whatever. There's no doing anything wrong on social media.
Helen:You could do whatever you want as long as you're not hurting anyone. That's what I think. Just try and have some fun and enjoy it. And that's that's the the whole thing in a nutshell. Alright.
Helen:Let's get on to the next one, which is show me your camera roll. This is such an old trend from way back. But for some reason, it's trending again on reels. And it's like, give me, a hacker saying give me 5,000 or I'm gonna leak your camera roll, and then your camera roll is full of pictures of your animal, pictures of your get ready routine, pictures of your favorite, content tools, whatever, but tripods, pictures of your favorite water bottles if you're a collector or you're or you like to collect little turtle ceramic turtles, whatever it is. So that's a really fun one and it's so easy to do.
Helen:You can do it you can do it with a pet because most people with pets have tons and tons of pictures of their pets. You could do it with your baby and that's a fun one. Nice and easy. Alrighty. Next up, let's talk original content ideas.
Helen:And I just think we we try and give you these because a lot of people think trends are the only way to go. And I would say I don't even do that many trends myself. I pick, like, one or two a week, and the rest of my content is usually original content. And it's either something I'm doing in my life, something I'm teaching in the studio, something I've, you know, just think about on social media and I wanna share. So you don't have to think so hard on trends and that's why we give you the original content ideas.
Helen:Like think of something different like today, walk and talk. So we talked about holding up your camera and keeping it eye level. And so practice that. Do a walk and talk video and see if you can keep your camera at a good space at a good height And try it. Whatever.
Helen:And sometimes when you're walking and talking, the, interesting things come into mind. You feel more relaxed and sometimes you have really good content when you're doing that. I find that when I'm walking in the city, I I I think of things and I'm like, this is so good. I'm gonna do it right now and I pick up the phone and I record it. So just take advantage of the moment you're feeling it and record.
Helen:Alright. Now let's the next one is to remind people of other ways to find you. I'm so bad at this. I really gotta take a page out of my own advice book here. But since we don't know about the future of TikTok, whatever what always happens to people is we're always running that race the last couple of weeks when all of a sudden it's looming.
Helen:And, oh my god, why didn't I spend some time getting people to one of my other platforms? And, you know, then you're scrambling and then everybody on the Internet on this whatever the app is is trying to tell people to follow them somewhere else. You know? And though that does get a little annoying where everybody's trying to push you somewhere else. So do it while no one else is doing it.
Helen:You know? Think of a way to get someone over there when no one else is doing it. I recently did, a video where I only posted it on YouTube. And I said, oh, if you wanna watch that video, you can watch it on my YouTube channel. Okay?
Helen:The other thing, if you're game, you could set up a separate email address and tell people you can, email me and I'll send you the link to a thing. You know what I mean? If you wanna go that far where you're managing emails. I know a lot of people don't wanna deal with that, but I don't mind. I I really don't mind that.
Helen:I feel like then I find my core interested people that those are the ones that will take the time to send me an email. So I like it personally. So if you wanna email me, go right ahead. You can reply to the newsletter or you can email me hello@mothership.com. Mothership with a u.
Helen:Love to hear from everybody. I always, reply to my emails and I try hard to keep up and sometimes they go to spam. So So if you don't get a reply, it's usually because then I have to dig through my spam at some point. Okay. The last idea for today is the the green flag thing.
Helen:So maybe how everybody was like, this is a red flag or I always I one time did one about my son when he was at his bachelor bachelor party, and they were playing music at piano and guitar. And I'm like, this is his bachelor party? Like, this is hilarious. And I wrote, like, green flag, my son's bachelor party, and they're all singing. I don't know.
Helen:I thought it was funny. Anyway, so if you have something in your life, your business, or whatever that causes you to think, oh, this is a green flag. This is, like, a really positive thing about something. Maybe make a video about it and share your green flag for your industry, for your hobby, or for your niche, for your life, or whatever. And so as Julie would say, our green flag for social media, for socialize, is when users nail their transitions.
Helen:Yay. Because you know nothing makes me happier than when I teach a lesson and someone nails it. So excited. Hopefully, by the next newsletter, I will have in my next montage because we did a really nice lesson of clothing flying on and everyone's doing their videos now. And so I'm going to be sharing them in a nice montage.
Helen:So I'm very pumped. Alright. The tutorial for today is how to add a voice effect which I mentioned earlier. And that is if you wanna give your pet a voice, give an animate object a voice. You can give anything a voice.
Helen:You can put like the eye effect on here and give this a voice. So much fun. You can do the eyes, lips, and have yourself talking as like the eyes and lips on this thing and then give it a voice effect. Super fun. What's funny about doing a voice effect, and I just did it on a video, is I had the the my animal, my pet, my stuffed animal thing talking about me.
Helen:Like, I wasn't there. So it was very easy. I could have my stuffed animal say, you should follow her and you should go to her website. She's really good, which sounds absurd coming from me. But it was funny coming from the voice of my pet.
Helen:You can use it to sell something. I mean, that's a great idea because it's a lot of a soft it's a much softer sell. Next is just a reminder that I am going to be in Montego Bay, Jamaica doing a women's conference. I'm excited about it because it's entrepreneurial. And when I go to these entrepreneurial things, that's when I meet the most interesting women doing cool businesses.
Helen:I kinda love it. So I can't wait to find out who I'm gonna meet there. Not only gonna am I gonna meet them, I'm gonna be hanging with them for the weekend. That's gonna be fun. From the first to the fourth, there will be networking.
Helen:There will be dancing. There will be business tips and coaching. There's gonna be a lot of fun things in Jamaica. So if you're interested, hop on the Jamaica thing. It's the LinkedIn.
Helen:It's linked in the show notes here. It's linked in the newsletter. Yippee. Yippee yay. It is gonna be fun.
Helen:Alright. Last thing before I leave you is a reminder to sign up for the live broadcast of the Friday podcast. So you can sign up for that linked here in the show notes, linked in the newsletter where I'm going to have a nice conversation with Grace McCarrick about haters, negativity on the Internet, and how she deals with, in general, the culture of social media because that is really where her expertise lies. And when I have things that come into play in my mind, I often call I immediately think of her and I'm like, Grace, do you have a minute for this one? Because I just have to tell you.
Helen:And she's really, really helpful. She has such cool insights. So I urge you to join us for that one. I think you'll learn a lot and I I know I'm gonna learn a lot. She has taught me a lot in five years.
Helen:So when I really start pinning her down to things, I think we're gonna learn a lot more on Friday. Alrighty. I'll see you then and have have a good week. Until the next one.
