The Socialize Forecast - 7/30/24 Algorithm Gone Crazy
Welcome to the socialized forecast, July 30, 2024. Happy Tuesday. Thanks for joining me. I'm gonna get into a couple of quick things before I dive into the trends. And that is, we are seeing the for you page having a lot of older videos being pushed out.
Helen:And I'm wondering if you're having the same experience, and I'd love to know. So I can tell right away when I start to see my my comments and my alerts are comments from older videos, much older videos like months old. And I'm so curious if you are seeing when you're scrolling, are you noticing that the date on the video you're watching is recent or is it older? Are you noticing it? I'd love to do some research and figure out why it's happening.
Helen:Do you think it's happening on everyone's accounts? I will tell you this, Julie started a new TikTok account. She's doing it. She's doing an experiment on a new account. And she even said her first two weeks on the app with the new account, she's not seeing any recent videos.
Helen:They are all much older videos from people on her page that are showing up, but the videos are from weeks ago and sometimes months ago. So I don't know what's going on with the algorithm and why that's happening. I'm noticing that my current videos are getting views, But I'm really noticing a uptick in older videos getting traction. And I don't mean a lot of traction. I mean, I'm noticing comments, I'm noticing likes, and I look and I can even see.
Helen:In some of the videos, my hair is precancer. Long hair. So the videos are like 2 plus years old, if you think about it. I don't get it. I don't understand it.
Helen:What looking closely at it to try and figure out why do we think it's happening? Is there something that's causing this trigger? I don't know. It's a mystery and I'm just putting it out there that if you're noticing it, you are not alone. The other thing I want to mention is that I have decided I might do an experiment.
Helen:So you might see it in the next few days if I once I finish editing and post it. But I've been asked often about the TikTok shop and how it works. And because I don't use it, I don't like to advise on something when I don't use it myself. So I recently bought this tripod. Where is it?
Helen:It's not even with me right now, but I recently bought this oh, I'm using it. Right? I'm using it for this recording. I bought a tripod that's a selfie stick and also a tripod, and I like a lot of things about it. So I decided to do an experiment where I'm going to make a video showing my 4 tripods and putting the TikTok shop link to one of the tripods in.
Helen:I know this is probably not the best strategy for a TikTok shop. I should just focus one video on the one thing that I'm showing, But I might do a couple of videos about this particular tripod and see what happens. I want to understand how the TikTok shop works. I've so far got it set up to link the product, and now all I have to do is post the video. And then supposedly, then I'm gonna have a shop thing on my page where people can go and shop for my other products.
Helen:But I don't have any other products right now. I just have the one tripod there. So this is just gonna be a test, and I'm gonna announce it as such. And I'm gonna give full disclosure on everything I learned by doing it. I sure hope I don't mess up my account by taking this leap.
Helen:But for you, I'm doing it because I think that I've avoided it for so long. And I so therefore I'm limited in what I can teach when it comes to monetizing with the TikTok shop. So I decided I'm gonna give it a go. What's the worst case scenario? I can just maybe turn it off.
Helen:I guess. I hope. And I'm gonna learn right along with you. You can follow along with my journey and we're going to give it a leap of faith. I have no idea what's going to happen, but come along for the ride.
Helen:And the goal here is not for me to make a lot of money from a TikTok shop. It's really more to learn about the TikTok shop because I don't know that I'm going to commit to it enough to have those kinds of videos in my feed. And I don't want to really mucky up my feed with shopping videos. So I'm just gonna play it by ear. I'm gonna see how it goes.
Helen:I'm gonna it's gonna be one day at a time. So come on for the ride for that. Alright. Last thing for today before I get started is that this afternoon at 5 PM EST, I am finally having the workshop with Joanna Voss, the talent agent. If you're not already signed up, I've talked about it so much that if you're interested, I'm sure you're already signed up.
Helen:But if you're if you missed it till now, hop on that link and join us at 5 PM so you can get your questions answered. We're gonna meet in real time. As a matter of fact, in all honesty, we thought about having a quick pre call and I decided, no, I prefer to have the moment we meet in real time with everybody in the in the chat with us in the workshop. And then we'll have another meeting following that so we can talk further because there's other things we want to talk about business wise. But I thought it would be really cool to leave it as it should be.
Helen:1st time we meet is going to be at 5 PM today. 1st time we meet in person. We've been chatting via text and email, but this is gonna be the first time we meet face to face. So you're gonna be in it if you're with us this afternoon, and I don't want it to be fake. So I am purposely not speaking to her on a zoom call before 5 o'clock today.
Helen:So join us and let's see what happens. We have a lot. We have a lot we wanna say. I hope that we can both get all the things in and that we wanna talk about. The first trend for today is a little dance trend called the brat coconut tree dance.
Helen:I am gonna say that for the past two dance trends that we have put in the newsletter, both of them are going hard. So they were good picks on our part. And I did one I did both of them already myself. And so now we're bringing in a third one to see if that one pops off as well. So check it out.
Helen:Think about it if it's it's super easy and it's, you know, kind of coconut inspired. Or you can just use the audio and have some fun with it. But if you haven't seen the Apple, if you haven't tried the previous ones yet, the the Charlie XES one, the Bratz Summer Dance, or the, call the police emergency emergency, you might wanna hop on one of those too, and you can just go back to last week and the week before's newsletters to get those. Because those are good ones, and they are going hard on the for you page right now. Next up, we have one that's called that 8.
Helen:The reason it's called that is the audio is someone chewing, not my favorite sound necessarily. But the idea here is that you show off something that you really love and you can pretend to be eating something and add titles about it, or you can just use the audio. You can think about something you saw that you thought was really good. Somebody did a really good dance trend really, really well, and you would say that ate like she ate. Meaning she did a great job on that dance or whatever.
Helen:So you can look at one of my dance videos and say, hey, she ate. It's kinda like she slayed, same kind of reference. So something that is would have that kind of a reference and then you can put that in the video with on the text and then you can use this sound. So that's a fun one, a very easy one. You don't have to do much to to make that one work.
Helen:The last one is a lip sync. I've already done it. I haven't posted it yet as of this recording, but it's funny because it's talking about something that's your vice. So what is it that's your vice? And the the alternative is what do you expect?
Helen:And and the audio is I like to work. It's about working and that's her vice. It's a Kardashian audio, of course. So it's her vice is like, I just like to work. What do you want me to do?
Helen:Do drugs instead? So it's a fun lip sync, but you can use it for not necessarily work if it's something that you love doing. If you're a person who loves to work out, if you love to bake, if you love to make TikToks, whatever it is, you can use this audio and reference your thing that you do because you love it. And what else are you supposed to do and challenge your audience And then highlight your but it can also be highlighting your niche. So run with that one.
Helen:It's nice and easy and nice and fun. And it's an easy lip sync. Although I always say lip syncs, there's a nuance with the lip sync. You don't wanna be slightly off. You want to try and get every breath, every break, every pause, and even the way the mouth articulates the words.
Helen:If you listen to or look at the original, the mouth shape too, it's really very the people that do this well are pros at it. And I like to think I try hard to be as good as the pros, but I do look at the nuances of all of it. The breath, the tone, the way the lips might be together on a t or open on a certain vowel. And I really go, I lean in hard when I study a lip sync. So if you're that person and you like a good lip sync, this one's for you and you can enjoy it.
Helen:Alright. Now let's get into some original content ideas. This one is inspired because I'm working with a client right now that was asking me how to make product videos without being in them. So this is the idea of this is bring one of your products to life, whether it's nail polish or hangry pets, these stuffed animals, whatever it is, try and think of a way to bring your product to life in a different way. So you don't necessarily have to be in the video, but your product is now the feature of the video.
Helen:So maybe your product is the the feature in the trend or turning doing a head spin transition with the product or making making stop motion with the product. Something where your product comes to life without you having to be in the video. It's a fun challenge because you wanna think about what is your product's personality if it's a skincare brand. Is it healthy? Does your product like to quote eat healthy because it's promoting a healthy lifestyle and maybe you have a healthy skincare line.
Helen:And now your products are having a character video where they're talking about what they're going to eat today to stay healthy. You can really think outside the box. You have to be willing to take that leap and have your product become a person in your own mind. So take take a chance with that. And I'm gonna make I've actually gonna record a video that gives ideas for product related content when you don't wanna be in it.
Helen:So I'll be posting something like that pretty soon as soon as I get around to recording it. Next one is Olympic moments. This is good. The Olympics are in full swing, so it's pretty easy to do. I'm actually going to bring up the a video from that I wasn't able to post back 6 months ago when I filmed the female Olympians out in Los Angeles.
Helen:I wasn't able to share that content yet, but now all the content is released. The Olympians are in Paris. So I'm gonna be pulling out content of when I worked with some Olympians. So that's gonna be a fun one for me to connect to the Olympics. But think about maybe sharing, favorite moments so far.
Helen:There was somebody who went viral sharing one of the surfers who, dove under the water and and and lost his bathing suit on his way out. And it was just like a little a little moon over over, the ocean event in Tahiti. So fun things that you can share the Olympics. Maybe you can do a little comment or commentary about the Olympics. One thing I will say is be mindful of using footage in your video that is not yours.
Helen:So a lot of times TikTok will flag specifically TikTok will flag you for a video that's not your own content. And it's really frustrating because some creators do this and they can do reviews and have videos playing behind them and they don't get flagged and other creators immediately get a violation slapped. So watch closely and be careful when you're using footage that is from, like, NBC Olympics, and it's not your footage to use. So maybe think of a creative way to highlight it. Maybe it's a still photo of a of a scene or just you talking about a scene instead of putting footage up there that could get you in trouble.
Helen:I'm just giving you that alert because I was literally I slapped with 4 violations this week for posting my own videos to my TikTok story. I posted 4 videos of my own to my story, and I got 4 violations. And I've appealed them and I haven't heard anything. So the violation thing is is so strange. I don't, you know, don't take any chances with your account if you're not sure.
Helen:And be aware that some people get violations for doing something and some people don't. And so you're just gonna get frustrated if you're trying to compare yourself. It's really, really aggravating. So and I feel your pain. Trust me on this one because it's happening to me.
Helen:Next one. How would you start over in your industry? So this can be if you have a big social media following, you can say, how would I, what would I do different if I was starting over on Instagram? Or if I was starting over on TikTok or Facebook or YouTube. So you can take that tactic or it can be what you would do if you were starting over in your industry.
Helen:If you were in, if you're in PR, if you were in sales, if you're in engineering, what would you do differently? Got the set if you started over knowing what you know now? And I just think that's gonna be very fun for a lot of different people to dive into. It's something we don't think about often. So it's a good, good piece of content for changing things up if you are in a rut.
Helen:Now let's talk about the tutorials. Woo hoo. I always love a good tutorial tutorial. This week's tutorials, I have shared the, call the police dance because that tutorial is I mean, people as soon as I did the dance, I knew I was gonna get a bunch of requests for the tutorial. So that one is for sure a good one.
Helen:And if you haven't done that dance yet, it's a good one to check out. You might as well. The other one that's a nice and that one's, by the way, easy to do transitions because even if you don't do the cuts exactly the way I did them, as long as you set your camera up and you change outfits and you stand roughly in the same place, the I've seen a lot of videos that are not great that are still getting a lot of views, even though they didn't do the edits that great. So you could still do well depending on your outfits or you the theme of your video. So that's a really good one to maybe tackle if you haven't if if you wanna do something creative, if you wanna try a transition for the first time, that would be a nice easy one.
Helen:The other one I posted, in terms of tutorial this week is the is how to do that brat dance. Because a lot of people don't realize that you're supposed to set your camera to record at 2x And then when you play so when you do the dance, it is at half speed. You will have to mouth lip sync everything half the speed. And then when the app plays back, it speeds it up and it gives a little herky jerky feel. What's funny is I did this whole tutorial, explained it.
Helen:At least I think clearly. And I still have people that say, Oh, you could just speed it up after the fact. And I'm like, guys, guys, guys, guys, let me be clear. There's no point in speeding it up if you didn't shoot it at half the speed. The point of the trend is not to speed up the dance, but it's to record it at half the speed and then play it back at regular speed.
Helen:So the idea here is we don't want a sped up video. We want a video that was recorded in half the time. I hope in half the speed, I should say. I just hope that's clear. I don't know why I still am getting the wackiest comments on that video about, like, just speed it up and press the speed button.
Helen:No. Because then you're gonna be doing this dance at double speed. The idea is to record it slow and then speed it up to normal. Okay? So that is my, my 2¢ about that.
Helen:Sometimes it's funny when I I think I teach something so clearly, and then I get sometimes the wackiest comments on it. But that's how it goes. That's how it goes on the world of social media. Everybody's got an opinion and that's just what we have to deal with. Okay.
Helen:I'm gonna answer one burning question that came in this week, and then I'm gonna wrap it up. So today's question is, why can't I see when someone has reposted my video? And why can't I see on my feed when I have reposted someone else's video? So it's a 2 part question and it's a good one and it begs to be demonstrated. So I probably will do a tutorial, but I'm gonna explain it.
Helen:And this way you can look at your phone while I'm talking you through this and then look for these commands that I'm talking about. So the first thing is if you wanna see who reposted your videos, if you go into your activities and you have the ability to sort, you can sort by likes, comments, mentions, what else? You can sort by groups. There might be an option to sort by others. And when you tap others, that will show you who who reposted your videos and who maybe used a a sound inspired by one of your videos.
Helen:So that's where you can see who's reposting. And then if you go to that person's account, you're not gonna see it reposted on their main thumbnails. You're going to have to look across the top above their thumbnails. There's little icons across the top on people's thumbnails. If you look at the across the top, and you would see an an icon which has two arrows, and that's the repost icon.
Helen:And these 2 so you have to tap and look at the feed of videos that they have reposted. So it's not on their main thumbnails of the videos they posted. It's gonna be under some people have their likes visible, their liked videos visible. And now you'll see reposted videos as another bucket of content. So it's an icon above the person's thumbnails.
Helen:If you're on the person's page, you would tap the the squares are the initial feed. The little arrows going into different directions are the reposts. I know that's hard to visualize when you're just listening and not seeing. So try and look at an account when I'm talking when I'm, you know, you're hearing me say this. I'm gonna open an account right now and try and so across the top, you'll see above the thumbnails on the person's page, you'll see sort of a sequence of 6 dash dash lines, which is their main feed.
Helen:You'll see an arrow going up and down. That is the reposted videos that they have reposted. So if you tap that icon, it shows all the videos they've reposted. The other icon you'll see might be favorite and a heart, The little flag and a little heart. And if they have allowed their favorites and hearts to be visible, you'll be able to see what people have favorited and liked on their page.
Helen:Okay. So that is how to know who reposted your videos and how to see what people's what other people are reposting. But the last part of the question, which is how come you don't see the videos you've reposted on your feed? It's the same situation. You're gonna go to your feed.
Helen:You're gonna go above your thumbnails. And there's a bunch of icons. There's the little dashes. There's the little shopping icon. There's the heart icon to show what you've liked.
Helen:There's the favorite icon to show what you've favorited. And there's an up and down icon which shows what you have reposted. So in the same way, you can see it on someone else's feed. You can also see it on your own feed. Oh, I hope that was clear.
Helen:And I know it really is gonna take you looking above the the thumbnails for you to see what I'm talking about. And now I'm reminding myself to maybe do a tutorial about this. Alright. That's it for today. Thanks for listening.
Helen:I will see you Friday. I'm looking forward to this afternoon. I'm recording with Joanna. So I'm excited about that. If you haven't signed up for that workshop, get on it immediately because it's coming up this afternoon and I can't wait to post it.
Helen:We're going to be, we're going to I know it's going to be a good one. All right. Thanks for listening. Have a great week and I'll see you Friday. Bye.
