The Socialize Strategy - Audience First Mindset
Welcome to the Socialize Strategy, the Friday edition of the Socialize Podcast, where we take a deeper dive into the subject featured in our newsletter. So let's jump into it. I have to say, I really like the subject for today because I've probably been living by it since I started on social media. And that is why you need an audience first mindset. I love this topic because when I first started, although I was doing random dancing videos and baking videos, my purpose was during the pandemic to bring a sense of happy and joyfulness to my followers, my friends and family as well, because I really started at first on Instagram and then moved into TikTok.
Helen:So I brought my Instagram mindset into my TikTok world. And it was just so much fun because I knew that I wasn't doing it for myself. I was always doing it for people who were holed up in their house and they were going crazy, bored. I was having baking raffles. And so I think that my core beginnings on social media were so focused on my audience that I've I always started that way, and I've always thought that way.
Helen:But I think now when people take a step into pursuing social media, there's this goal behind it. They either wanna become an influencer, a content creator. They need to promote a small business. Maybe they're trying to become an expert in their field and put themselves out there to find work or work opportunities consulting. So if that is the case, you really need this mindset even more than I did when I started when it was just for fun.
Helen:You you need to prioritize how you make the content so that you're prioritizing your audience. And the reason for doing that is they'll feel more included and more connected, more engaged, and they'll want to be staying with you and following you and potentially supporting your business. So first, let's define it. What is an audience first mentality? As you're first building a brand, when you're making the content and you think, oh, I'm gonna do some examples.
Helen:I'm gonna actually talk about the examples we put in the newsletter this week, which is if you're a beauty or a fashion influencer, do you think your viewers are more likely to engage in a post where you're going to a cousin's birthday party or wishing your cousin a happy birthday? Or would they more likely to engage with a post where you're showing yourself getting ready for that party, showing off your outfit, your makeup, etcetera? And if your goal is the beauty and fashion direction, and that's where you've been leaning, you'll want to do the second strategy so that you can include your lifestyle. But you're including the part of your content that is quote your niche for that content. So that you work that niche into your content.
Helen:So you don't have to say, I'm not gonna post anything about going to and doing anything personal or wishing a family member a happy birthday. You don't have to avoid doing it. Just think about how you might circle in what your niche is into the content so that you're staying consistently on topic. At least at first when you're building an audience because that is your purpose. As you grow and your audience becomes bigger, we'll talk about that a little bit later in in this, podcast.
Helen:But I just wanna mention that when you start, you want to kind of always lean into that focus. If you're a small business owner, are your viewers more likely to engage with an anniversary post about your business Or a post where you tell the story of how you got started and now talking about how many years you've been in business? So if you think about that, probably the people who are listening would be interested in knowing how you started. And that would be more appealing than just me celebrating me for my anniversary of my business. Alright.
Helen:So just keep those things in mind. And a quick way to determine if you are in the right mindset thinking about your audience is to take a step back and say to yourself, if this video popped up on my For You page and I was interested in skincare or fashion, would I pay attention to this post about this fashion influencer's birthday party? Or would I really be focused on it more and likely to save it if she's showing me what she's wearing and how she's picking out her outfit for that party? So that's a basic outline and you can apply that outline to any business. The other thing that's maybe a bit of a misconception and I think if I say how I start and how I help people and how I think about my audience because I'm always trying teach them something.
Helen:So you might think, okay, audience first content definitely has to be educational in order to keep them interested. And really that is not the case. So if you think about it, there's 3 types of content. Okay. We talked about this in the newsletter.
Helen:3 categories which are educational, entertaining, and relatable. So I'm going to give you a bit of a basics about each one of those. Obviously, educational is easy. It's what we mentioned above videos that share valuable information that a viewer wants to save or remember. So, for example, in my case, I'm teaching TikTok, so I'm sharing the tools I use.
Helen:I'm sharing how to do certain things, strictly educational posts. And on my feed, those usually do better than my other content. And I'm perfectly okay with that, and I'm just not gonna stop doing other content. But that's educational. Entertaining is gonna be more content that is entertaining that can be audience first because you're still thinking about how your audience is gonna connect with what you're saying.
Helen:So I'm gonna actually give an example to make it easier. If you're a person who might be interested in doing lip sync or skits or something, You could do an interaction between you and a customer, a former customer, a pretend customer, where you're showing how you treat your customers. That is audience first because you're taught you're showing your customer as an actual persona, and you're showing them how you interact with them. So that's very valuable. If you think about it, how you wanna be treated when you walk into a store, if it's a real brick and mortar, or how you wanna be treated online.
Helen:If someone makes a customer service call, that would be a great one because I find that so aggravating when I do online when I have to call call the online companies to do process a return or something. So things like that. Thinking about how you can differentiate yourself and your business by showing a fake interaction with a customer. That would be one example. Another example might be, you and your coworker having an interaction and perhaps like, oh, here's a great example.
Helen:That personality hire video that went viral where the girl was saying, you know, clearly she was the personality hire in her company. And that was a really cool one because it made me start to think, oh, who are the personally personality hires that I've worked with in my life over the years? It was very thought provoking. It was also very relatable and people who can relate to themselves as the person that personality hire might share that video. And there was nothing in that video that was about a business or about anything specific, and yet it went so viral.
Helen:So that's a great example of how to think about your your other content that is not so specifically product driven, but how it can invite your audience in by showing who you are as a person. I mean, I'm gonna link that video for sure in in the show notes here. Another going on to the category, sorry, of relatable, that's where we're going next, is viewer on these apps love to see content they can relate to. And so let's say you have a business where and we'll use the business of appliance repair just for this example. But as an appliance repair person, you might show problems that some of your customers had and some and I particularly had a washing machine video go viral.
Helen:I'm not even in the appliance realm. And I was I actually had that go video go viral because I was asking people, do you ever have this problem where your your your water bunches up in your washer and doesn't drain? So an exam that's just a good example of how to think about maybe a problem in the business that you have that could be relatable to your customers, so therefore they'll share it. I like to always have you focus back on thinking, is the content I'm sharing something that somebody might wanna send to someone that because they can relate to it, because they think it's funny, or because they're learning 3 things, education, entertainment, and relatability. Those are always your core things to think about in creating the pro the content.
Helen:If you're a business that does, small business, let's say ships from home or something like that, you can, you can share a problem that you've had with shipping. You can do a funny skit about trying to get your packages picked up by by UPS, or whatever. You can ask advice of your audience. You can share a special moment you had with the customer. So there's so many things that you can do that related to your business that are gonna be more interesting to your audience when it's not always a sales pitch.
Helen:So just give those give those some thought. I'm gonna take a moment to say that I wanna launch what I'm calling Friday favorites. And what I'm gonna do is talk about 3 of my favorite random things. They're not gonna necessarily be content stuff. I'm gonna I'm thinking about on Tuesdays doing, Tech Tuesdays where I'll talk about the tech stuff on Tuesdays.
Helen:But on Friday, I'm just gonna do Friday favorites. So I picked 3 things for today. One of them is right here. It's my Melon and Getz candle, and it's, just my favorite brand. It's such a special candle, and I don't turn it I don't light it a lot because it's expensive.
Helen:And I get nervous that I'm gonna go burn through it too quickly. But I really, really like it. This is the strawberry one, so I'm gonna give Melonie gets a little shout out for the candle. 2nd up, I'm gonna bring in one of my skin care favorites. Now I wanna say that I don't always I have, you know, as many of us women do, we have certain things we use for certain parts of our body.
Helen:So sometimes it's hold on a second. Sometimes it's skin care. We might use a different body lotion because that brand is something we've been using forever. But I wanna just give a shout out to in your face. And the reason I'm showing you this one is look.
Helen:It's empty. Why? I love it, and I've used it up. So I'm gonna give them a big shout out. Look at it.
Helen:It's got a little drip coming. So what I love about this is first off, smell. It's kind of a citrus. This is all natural. Her business is so focused on women with aging skin as well as women who have younger skin.
Helen:I just love everything the the pop the ingredients that go into it. So I'm a big fan of this brand, and I'm just gonna give a shout out to my favorites my favorite face wash. Next up is a sweet one that I've had forever, which is my Oribe Hair refresher spray. I wish you could see this because I'm gonna do a demo. Now I just spray this on my hair.
Helen:I'm gonna do it right now if you're watching. Okay. When I get together with someone, and it doesn't have to be when I've just sprayed it. But when I get together with someone and they always say, oh my gosh. You smell so good.
Helen:This has always been a fear as we get older because you think as you this this is a terrible thing to say. But as you get older, you worry about certain smells. I mean, I know Lumi deodorant loves to talk about this. But I like to always smell fresh. And what I like about that hair refresher spray is that it's not a perfume, and it stays on your hair.
Helen:So most of the times when you go to hug someone, they're near your hair. And if you don't wash your hair every day or if you're a person that does wash their hair every day still, this puts a nice scent, and it just stays and it's clean. So those are my 3 favorites for this week. Thank you for listening. I'll list them below, and this is where you can find them.
Helen:None of these are paid promotions. Although, if you're interested in a paid promotion to be promoted on a favorite Friday, do do reach out via email. Alright. Let's carry on to the subjects. So do you always have to post audience first content?
Helen:The answer is no. You certainly don't have to make every piece of content audience first. But as you're starting out in the beginning, it's a good idea to stay focused on that until you have an audience that is completely engaged. So I've noticed that once my audience started to grow and I would just randomly put a little outside video where it was maybe me doing a dance with Jonathan or doing a trend with Tommy or, of course, our my Julie Julie and me content does really, really well. People love us together.
Helen:Mother daughter fun. But once I started doing those things, my audience saw a little piece of me that they weren't seeing in my tutorials. And I think that is really good if you want to make a connection with your audience. So for example, I had people come out of the woodwork. I didn't know you were an autism mom when I did a couple of videos with Jonathan.
Helen:And I never realized that that might be an important piece for people to know about me. And I never really thought about it as I don't know. It's so part of my life. I just live my life, so I never really thought about it much. But it was really awesome to for people to come into the comments and see, oh, she's got, you know, production business, and she does she shoots TV commercials, and she does these things.
Helen:But she's also an autism mom, and it I think it put me in a different place for these people, and it was really a nice way to connect. So I kind of love doing that with my audience ongoing and sharing a little piece of me. I do sometimes I do twirling because I just, you know, I love to twirl batons. So I I and I do think as your audience becomes interested in you, whether it's as a business owner or an influencer or whatever you're trying to do to promote online, they are going to be interested in you, and they are gonna wanna know more. But just be cautious to not make that the bulk of your content at first.
Helen:You you first need to bring people in for your expertise, for your value that you're bringing to them, and then show them little pieces of yourself and open yourself up as you as you want. And the key here is once you build, you can really play. Because now I don't really think much. I just think, oh, I wanna post this today, and I just post whatever I want. So I don't think in terms of strategy.
Helen:Whereas when I first started doing tutorials, I was trying to stay on track and trying to deliver those tutorials on a cadence, which I still do. And I wanted to make sure I was focused on that so that people knew why they followed me. And I will say I'm not on a lot of people's for you page all the time because I do post lots of random content. So strategically, the gurus might say to stay on topic for building and post often for building. But you really don't have to put that kind of pressure on yourself, and you can do it, you know, do what you wanna do because mostly people are gonna see your joy.
Helen:So the key into the whole thing is really just finding that balance and shifting your perspective on your content to see if you're really posting audience first content. And then if you aren't, that's okay. You can still continue to do that somewhat, but maybe start to pull that piece into your mindset and way of thinking as you move forward. I hope that was helpful to some, and I hope you learned a lot. Thanks for listening.
Helen:Please do leave a comment or or review and submit a question if you wanna be part of Friday favorites. You can drop us an email. But the questions are always helpful because we do look into our our weekly questions in order to pick the topic for the week. So if you landed here by the plat by the podcast platform by accident, make sure to subscribe to the newsletter by visiting our website, hellosocialize.com, where you'll find the free workshops. And don't forget that I have a free TikTok course.
Helen:So if you know someone who is scared to start on TikTok, thinking about starting TikTok, but they don't know where to start, trust me. This is your best friend. It is free. I don't ask for any payment at any point in the process. It's just go there, learn, and and then start to have some fun on social media.
Helen:That's it. Have a nice weekend. We'll see you next week.
