The Socialize Podcast

Helen: 00:00

Welcome to the Socialize forecast March 12, 2024. The Tuesday edition of the Socialize podcast where we take you through the trends, original content ideas and social media updates of the week. I'm Helen Polisi. And before we get started, I just want to let you know that we did choose our giveaway winners and we have made contact. So they're all going to receive their content gear packages with their microphones, tripods, and lights, and we can't wait to see them use their content.

Helen: 00:28

Hopefully, they'll send us some photos and we can share them with you in the next newsletter. The other thing to remind you about today is that we're hosting a transition workshop. This is another in the editing series and today is March 12th. Just a reminder that the workshop is at 5 PM. Registration is linked below in the show notes and also in the newsletter today.

Helen: 00:50

And I hope that you join us because transitions can really up the game on your content and just understanding how to do them is empowering. If you know how something's done, you might wanna give it a try. You might try to have an idea of how to use a transition in a way that no one's else else has done before. It really is a fun way to create with your content and add some special sauce to your videos. So I highly recommend coming and learning how to do it at least.

Helen: 01:19

Even if you don't dive in right away on your own content, it is just a lot of fun to know how to do it. Alright. Let's get on to the newsletter for today. So the big the big update question question that's in my DMs again and again and again. Is TikTok going away?

Helen: 01:37

If I have been asked this once, I have been asked this a 142 times, random number. With political bills being passed and things happening in congress that are happening quickly and unanimously, it is unnerving for a lot of creators who have their livelihood and they count on TikTok to communicate with their audience, to sell products or to promote their expertise, possibly sell their courses and coaching. There's so many different ways people are using TikTok. So it is really, really stressful. And a lot of people are in a panic about it.

Helen: 02:12

So with that being said, I just want to first off, I wanna say that I did see a video of the shark tank. What what is his name? O'Leary? Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank. He actually made a video talking about this.

Helen: 02:25

And he said there's no way TikTok is going away because there's so many investors in the US who see the dollar signs and who are going to buy it up or somehow get an investor group together to do it. He did explain in a video that I linked in the newsletter. He did explain why meta won't be taking it over, which would really not be a good thing anyway. And so I urge you to go listen to that video. But I think this has been a wake up call for a lot of people.

Helen: 02:53

Because we, many of us count on our social media platforms to reach our followers, our viewers, our audience, our clients, people who are interested in our services. So if it goes away, it's really gonna be a game changer and a life changing experience for many. So I don't think it's going away. I mean, I I don't believe it's going away. But I think what it has prompted is the idea that you should be thinking about what if it is going to go away, and how you can change what you're doing now to be ready.

Helen: 03:29

So this is preparedness that I'm talking about. And strangely enough, a couple of years ago, I saw somebody's video who said, you don't own your audience, the social media platform owns your audience. And that was that really sunk in for me. I took a long hard think about that. And I immediately at the time, this is years ago, started an email list.

Helen: 03:51

I didn't know what I was gonna do with the email list. I didn't have a plan as I do now with the newsletter. It was just going to be a way for me to be able to communicate if people weren't receiving my content or if I wanted to reach them about something or if I was gonna put out a course. So when I made my first TikTok course back in 2022, I think it was or 2021, I created an email list at that time. And now at this point, I'm using the email list to inform people of things, share social media updates, trends, and the newsletter is actually becoming a business for me.

Helen: 04:26

So even if you don't plan to do a business with a newsletter or any if you don't even want to use it to communicate right away, I highly recommend you start to gather your most loyal followers in another way outside of your social media app. This is if you want to be able to reach them again in the future. So that, let's say you lose your account, let's say the app goes down, something happens, unforeseen, you are ready for it. So I have some other thoughts on how you could be prepared. And that's what I wanna talk about before I dive into the trends today.

Helen: 04:59

And some of these things involve other apps. But the email list obviously is is the first go to because you will own that email list. But if you don't wanna create an email list or you don't feel that you need to go down that path, you still can make sure your followers are able to find you in other places. Many people love Facebook. So maybe it's an opportunity to do a Facebook group, make your own group, decide how you wanna communicate, suggest people go there.

Helen: 05:26

That's a nice way to have form a community. Possibly, I I love to do this if I if someone's messaging me, they can't they wanna show me something on their phone, and I they can't send a screenshot in TikTok. I always send them over to Instagram. Send me the DM on Instagram because you can send a photo to someone via the Instagram platform. And that way, at least then, they're following you on another platform.

Helen: 05:47

So you have a backup. So finding a way to steer people to your other apps, not necessarily to get on your platform and say, follow me on Instagram in case TikTok goes away. A lot of people did that back during the first ban. It was very, I think, an unsuccessful attempt to try to pull your audience over there. But if you make a reason why they need to go over there, then they're more likely to go over there.

Helen: 06:10

So that's one way to to to really think about how to move your audience. Find let me just try and articulate that a little better. Find a way to have your followers sorry, think of a way to have your followers steer over to another app without telling them follow me there. So whether it's asking them to DM you something or telling them that there's things on that platform, you know, check my Instagram story if you wanna see what happened yesterday and such and such a thing. So a lot of times I will when someone messages me, I'll say, well, check my Instagram story because I'll post more more likely and more more personally on my Instagram story.

Helen: 06:50

If you are someone who already has a YouTube channel, start sharing people over there start sharing your YouTube videos with your followers. In your DMs, you can paste the link even though it's not ideal because it's not a clickable link. You can send someone over to YouTube channel by sending a link and telling them to copy and paste it. So there's little ways where you can use your DMs to communicate and get people over to your other platforms. This way, all your eggs are not in one basket.

Helen: 07:18

It's also helpful because to have multiple channels where you have subscribers, they're not always seeing the content on, for example, TikTok because of the algorithm. So now my Instagram followers, some of them are the same as my TikTok followers, and they're actually seeing my content over on Instagram. So there's just these are all things to think about in a way of broadening your reach and even use LinkedIn. It's my new baby. I'm going over to LinkedIn, and I'm posting things there.

Helen: 07:45

And I'm staying on task. Alright, let's dive into the trends. Excited to get there. We had to go on that tangent today because it is a hot freaking topic and I didn't wanna leave it out. Alright.

Helen: 07:56

Our first trend for today is called dance it out. And this is where you can grab 2 friends, so it usually requires 3 people. Listen. You could be creative. There's clone effects where you can do a clone of you and yourself to other people of yourselves.

Helen: 08:10

You can also do split screen where there's 3 of you. But the trend is grab 2 friends and try and do this fun dance where you slide in in socks, sunglasses, and you do some moves. Really, really fun one, really easy one. And if you don't wanna do the dance, maybe try and use the music for something else. It's always scary now to that when trends are attached to music, because I think we're all a little gun shy on adding music and then having our videos muted.

Helen: 08:34

But I think that we should not let that stop our creativity. So I have no intention of not using music ever again on my videos. Of course, I'm gonna use music. I love it. It's my favorite thing to make music videos.

Helen: 08:47

But now, I don't necessarily add music to my speaking videos. Where I used to do that more as a rule, now I just if it's a speaking video and I'm trying to get something across, unless I need music for the mood, I'm not adding music to my speaking videos any longer. I have learned the hard way. So that's just my listen. That's again my personal choice.

Helen: 09:07

You still can do it. Use music. I mean, hopefully the music won't go away again. Alright. The next one is fearless heroic.

Helen: 09:14

Love this one. It's a Kardashian audio where you can tout yourself how you're fearless, amazing, and all the things iconic. I think there's a bunch of different adjectives that she uses in the audio. You can have it be about you can use this on book talk. This can be about a stack of you if you have your favorite books, if you have a favorite author.

Helen: 09:35

You can do this about your favorite foods. You can do this about your products. You can there are so many uses for this one. I don't think anybody can not find a use for this one. So it's a it's a nice easy one.

Helen: 09:45

Give it give it a whirl while it's hot. The last one is this crazy lady cap cut template that I've seen again and again and again. And I think it's a fun one because you can use the audio with or without the template, and it's still kind of going hot. And it will you can show off something dramatic. So for you drama queens out there, here's the one for you.

Helen: 10:06

Grab the audio. Have good have a good time with it. Grab the tap cap cut template if you don't wanna be in the video, and you can really have have at it with that. Alright. Next up, I have in the in the newsletter next is about the workshop.

Helen: 10:21

So just a reminder to sign up for it, and we'll see you later, hopefully. And let's get on to original content ideas. The first one is based on our workshop today, which is try a transition. Think about challenging yourself if you've never done one before, if you've wanted to try 1, or if you've done it and you're not so great at it, come to the workshop, learn the little tricks, and then try a transition. This is such a fun way to up the game on your videos.

Helen: 10:48

And what I have done when I was doing baking videos, I was doing transitions. That was some of the first transitions I ever did and people were asking me how I did it. And that's really how I started making tutorials, believe it or not. But you can take something where you have a bowl with 2 eggs in it, and then you push it to the screen and pull it away and the eggs are cracked. So if you're in cooking TikTok, you can change things by holding up.

Helen: 11:09

I did one one time I did something where I had bread crumbs, and I went like that, and then the chicken cutlets were breaded. So I did, like, little tricks with just simple transitions. They don't have to be outfit changes. They don't have to be makeup, dramatic makeup changes or hairstyle changes. Actually, I have trouble doing those now because my hair is not not as flexible to change.

Helen: 11:29

And when I was wearing wigs, it was great because I could change my my look quickly. But so there's you don't have to think about transitions as only clothing, makeup, hair. It can be transitions in food. You can transition from products, from one thing to next. Hold it up the camera.

Helen: 11:44

It becomes something else. Lots of easy fun things you can do to up the game on your videos using transitions. Next idea is I think Julie picked this because it was a page out of my book, dance around town. Challenge yourself to do some videos, And you don't need music for this. You don't have to blast music in public.

Helen: 12:03

If that is not something you want to do. You can literally put a song in your head and then just shimmy around town and you put that to music, it's gonna look like you're dancing in the streets. It is so much fun. And the more crazy you're willing to go, the more fun it is because then you have might have reactions of people around you. And I know this is for the people with a ton of anxiety.

Helen: 12:25

This is a hard pass, and I completely understand. But maybe challenge yourself to do something more unusual and more out there than you normally would do and just see what happens. Okay. The last idea for today is trying a reaction stitch. So Julie did one this week and she reacted to someone talking about how why do millennials look so good?

Helen: 12:46

Like, why why are they they look so healthy and young. And she did a reaction video to she stitched it, and that video went immediately viral. So you'll you'll wanna think about stitching something that already has some traction because that means that person's opening hook already got viewers in. So you don't wanna just stitch a random thing that has 10 views, because if nobody hooked in on it the first time around, they're not likely gonna hook in on it with you as a stitch. Find something that's a little viral, already has some attention.

Helen: 13:19

Maybe it's controversial. Maybe it's a discussion you wanna add to. And then do your stitch. So much fun. You can check out Julie's in the newsletter.

Helen: 13:27

She had a good time with it, and she didn't have a lot of negative comments, which a lot of times with her viral videos, she'll get a lot of negativity, but not not not this time. So yay to that. For the tutorial today, I'm gonna be straight up honest. I didn't have time to shoot a tutorial, a new a new one this week because I was skiing with Julie. So I didn't have my tutorial tripod going going with me.

Helen: 13:50

So what I've put up here for you for today is the tips for going live tutorial. That one is evergreen. If you have not seen it, it's worth a look. If you're trying to learn how to go live, if you've never done it before, you'll want to know what your phone screen looks like when you go live on TikTok. The suggestions that I make in this demonstration apply to all the apps.

Helen: 14:12

So if you wanna go live on Instagram, and you haven't done it before Facebook, whatever, it all applies. The cool thing about going live on another platform like Facebook is that the comments in the chat, when the live gets posted after, you can see the comments later. The frustrating thing with going live on Instagram and TikTok is the comments are happening live, but they don't attach to the video when you download the video. So you can't see the comments that were happening in the chat. And, unfortunately, that's one of the things I love about Facebook lives, that you can actually go back and catch up and see what the comments were and maybe engage with those people after the fact.

Helen: 14:48

So, unfortunately, all the apps don't do all the good things, but we can only hope that they will evolve and eventually each one will get better and better. And so that is the wrap up for the week. You can go to the newsletter to find the music suggestions. I'm not gonna start talking about music. I'd rather you go download them yourself and listen.

Helen: 15:09

And if you landed here via a podcast platform, don't forget to subscribe so that you get all the links that have things that we're talking about today in the podcast. And you can do that at hellosocialize.com. Now depending on if the new website is live by the time this posts, you might notice a new look to the website. And we are very excited about it. So if you don't see it right at this moment, look for it in the next couple of days.

Helen: 15:35

You're going to be able to see there a nice learn link where it has a drop down menu, and it will have tutorials, podcast, workshops, courses, Sorry. Not podcast. It'll have all the things for learning, tutorials, workshops, and courses all in one drop down, then a link for the podcast, then a little about us, and we're probably gonna be adding a blog too. So excited about all of that. Things are really happening over here at Socializ.

Helen: 16:01

Thanks to my partner in crime, Julie. And that is it for today. So we'll see you Friday. Have a great week. Bye.

Helen: 16:09

Thanks for listening.