The Socialize Strategy - Content Creation Habits
Welcome to the Socialize Strategy. Happy Friday. It's July 4, July 4 weekend, Independence Day here in The United States. So we're celebrating a nice long weekend. I'm so excited.
Helen:It's beach time for the mothership and I've had my kids here all week so that's been really fun. And believe it or not, my son and his wife and their baby are gonna come for the weekend. I wasn't sure they were gonna venture out of their their cocoon of of new babe newborn and they are coming. So excited to see them later today and spend some time with the baby girl. Okay, let's kick it off with the unsponsored by segment because I have a funny one for you today.
Helen:And actually I have two things. One is in the toy realm weirdly and the other one is in the skincare realm. So let me just pop the toy realm up here and it's not Hangry Pets. But from the makers of Hangry Pets, this is Happy, Happy Yappers. And the way it works is it repeats what you say.
Helen:What does it do? What does it do? It repeats what you say. This one happens to be a parrot. I'm going to press the button because it also plays this classic.
Helen:Alright. I'm gonna take it off. I'm gonna turn it off But I'm gonna tell you about it because it is hilarious. Alright, it is, it's a wrist. Do you remember these slap bracelets?
Helen:These oh, let shut it off. Why won't it go off? Hold on. If you're watching me instead of listening, you would see him in person. This is a wrist bracelet.
Helen:If you remember, they were called slap bracelets back in the day and they're like this and then you snap them on and you slap them on your wrist. So it's a slap bracelet meets a little bird that talks back to you and it repeats what you say. And I like to say it speaks any language. So if you speak Russian, it will speak Russian right back to you. Very funny.
Helen:But it only repeats what you say. And then it also plays the music. It also makes bird sounds. This one happens to be a parrot, but there's so many others. There's a pink flamingo.
Helen:There's yellow tweety birds. There's bluebirds. You name it. It's a whole line of happy yappers. And the reason I'm talking about it is because my client who is Hangry Pets is also doing happy yappers and was asking me, oh, do you have any content ideas?
Helen:So he sent me some, and I have been having such a blast with this. Because quite honestly, I I wear it around the city to see if I can get some shots of it in different situations, and then constantly people are talking to me and asking me about it. So I do think they maybe have a little hit on their hands. But it's a cute one. So if you are interested, it is called Happy Yappers.
Helen:I think it's funny that my whole career in my twenties and thirties into my forties was in the toy industry. So when my kids were growing up, I worked on Furby, HitClips, Poochy, Giga Pets, I'm trying to think of, handheld games, My Little Pony. This was my whole entire, years of raising my kids was in me working in the toy industry. So it was really kind of cool for them to see me go to shoots and it would be, Julie just found a shot with me and Rihanna because Rihanna was at the launch of one of the products that I worked on for is for Tiger Electronics. So when I think about it, my whole entire career was really more interesting to them when they were little.
Helen:And now I think it's funny that I got away from the toy industry as they gotten to be adults, and I'm doing more of the testimonial work and the interviews and Blistex and Olay and that kind of thing. And now suddenly this toy thing has come back into my life, almost like karma now that I have a grandchild. Don't you think that's weird? I do. I think it's weird.
Helen:Because it's like my life has come full circle and now I'm back to, oh, what am I do I have my hands on the hottest toy of the of the upcoming toy season? Because that's what happened when I worked on Furby. Was anyway, they're doing a talk documentary about Furby. So pretty soon, I'm gonna be I'm actually gonna fly me out to somewhere for an interview to be interviewed about the Firby phenomenon and my involvement in it. So that's funny.
Helen:Wow. That was a very, very long digression from my unsponsored buy. And they are not paying me to talk about this product. I just think it's so funny that I spin around with me in my bag, taking to places, traveling and so it's on my mind because every time I take it out I get good compliments and funny conversations with people when I take it out. The other unsponsored buy is Skin Care and the reason I'm going to talk about them, Doctor.
Helen:Hauschka, here is the logo. I don't think I've talked about them yet but this is a brand that is it's all made from good ingredients. And you'll see when I tell you, never in my life have I used all of a lip balm. I'm not kidding. My lip balms, they come, they go, they land somewhere else, who knows where.
Helen:I have used this to the bottom. It's a first. It's crazy. That's how much I like it. And the timing was great because then I was really I was using it even after my lip injury.
Helen:So I was like, Oh, I know this is good for it. So it's not going be something that I'm putting that's got chemicals. It's really good. And I love that they're the reason why I know about this brand is because I helped them launch their podcast. And so their podcast is about giving back because their company gives back to feed because they're all about fresh ingredients and gardening and healthy foods for people.
Helen:And the CEO actually has this personal passion where she wants to help feed feed the hungry. She thinks everybody, all children deserve a healthy meal when they go to school. And I love her mission and she has a podcast all about it. So doctor Hauschka, check it out. I like everything about their mission, their products.
Helen:The lip balm, the eye balm. Also I've used almost the whole eye balm. There you have it. I might have even talked about them before because I'm having a deja vu. But if I did, sorry, I really do like them.
Helen:Okay. For today's topic, how to create effective social media habits is really, it's really the core of what this is about because even though the newsletter says post every time you open the app because that's, somebody did that as a, way to put herself in the habit of posting and being consistent. And her way of doing it was to tell herself I'm not going to scroll until I post something. And it was an interesting thing because that's what's trending but the way I see it, I like to look at the big picture of why is that, what does that really mean? It's not just post every time you open the app because what if she wants to open the app five times a day?
Helen:Then she's posting five times a day. So she's stopping her self from using TikTok or using her social media unless, until she posts something. So that's her trigger. But what I see it as, not, I see it as creating a habit, not doing that particular habit but creating a habit of some kind. So she happened to make her habit, when I open the app before I scroll, I'm going to post.
Helen:You can make your habit, every day at noon I'm going to post. To what? In the morning, in the evening is the only time I'm gonna scroll, so those are the times I'm gonna post. You could say every Tuesday and Thursday I'm going to go live, and that could be like something that commit to because going live does help your views. Before you go live, you should always post.
Helen:Those are the kinds of things I think that this speaks to. I I'm not so wrapped up in the actual thing that she, that's creator did to create a trend. I'm more intrigued and kind of enlightened by the fact that she is creating a habit. So I don't think we all have to say, oh, every time we open up the app we have to post. I don't think we all have to do that.
Helen:No, no. I think we all have to decide what our habit is going to be. What is going to make you consistent? What is going to make you know that you're doing this thing that you've committed to? And how are you going to make that trigger happen?
Helen:Happen? And in her case, she did the thing where she's not gonna post until she, and not gonna scroll until she posts, and it's working for her. So I wanna talk about why it's working, even more so. But it's because she's treating that thing as a requirement. Like I'm not going to, I used to do, I'm not gonna eat breakfast until I go running.
Helen:So therefore I would wanna go run, that's just, that was my thing. Don't quote me on that one because I'm sure some workout guru is gonna come after me. But I used to like to get up in the morning and go for a run on an empty stomach. I like to run, I like to exercise on an empty stomach. I feel like my muscles or my body is concentrating on the exercise versus any kind of digestion.
Helen:And that's just what worked for me, especially running because I would get an upset stomach very easily. If I even ate a half a banana and went for a run, I would be, the banana would be repeating on me. That's a really good example because bananas definitely give me like a weird repeating on me thing when I exercise after eating one. So even though healthy morning, eat a half a banana, go for a run, burping the whole time. Sorry.
Helen:But that's what happened. So that's like an example of a habit I created for myself that I was gonna get up before I do anything, before I eat breakfast, I'm gonna go running. So therefore I would always, eventually I'm like, oh I'm getting hungry, but I go running so I could eat breakfast, you know what I mean? So it would, it created a good habit for me. And that's just an example of what, because it works because it forces you to do something because you've decided you're gonna do it, whether you've said it out loud, you know, we've talked about habits before and if I say something out loud, immediately know I'm gonna do it.
Helen:Some people are like, well that's not good reason, know, I would have to take a class or I'd have to sign up for something. And everybody has their thing. So maybe there is something that you sign up for, like the studio. For example, I can't believe I'm just, that was not planned. But if you sign up for the studio and you know every Tuesday we have a challenge, you might be more motivated to do it because you're paying for the studio.
Helen:Not a lot by the way, dollars 36 a month. That's not even that's like a dollar a day to get help. To get help every single day. And motivation and a plan, you have a small business plan, you have like the Tuesday challenge, you have our weekly meetings. Anyway, the point is that makes you accountable.
Helen:And the other kind of cool thing about the studio is you're accountable to each other. So when somebody shares something in the chat, everybody's commenting and like, oh my god, that was so good. You know, I would've how did you do that? Like people asking. So it's the interaction, knowing that you have others that are supporting you.
Helen:That is great. Just like going to a group exercise class is a lot easier to be motivated for than I'm gonna turn on my YouTube video and do my exercise. Right? It's something that triggers you. So find out what works for you.
Helen:What has worked for you in the past to set a goal, to accomplish something or to create a habit. And use that to make this a new habit. Use your whatever triggers you. That's what has to happen. So if you never post and then all of a sudden you say gonna post three times a day, odds are you're probably not going to do that because you haven't set yourself up for success for that.
Helen:So I think the whole thing is making sure that you know what it is that drives you to do the thing and be consistent and use that knowledge of yourself to create this new habit. Funny because the book Atomic Habits has been, it's in with me all, it's in my room with me all the time. And once in a while I open it up and I read a chapter because that was a really big, that had a really big impact on me. That you could do something for five minutes a day and you can make change over the course of a length of time. And I did it with squats and then now I'm doing it with push ups.
Helen:And Amber, if you're listening, you know that every day I try I try a push up and I'm doing a reverse push up. So I'm starting with my arms straight and I'm just slowly working my way to the ground until I get to the point where I can't hold it anymore. And then I let myself drop. And I so I do that. And then I also second part of my habitual daily routine, which is literally five minutes, I go along my dresser and I do actual push ups all the way up and down, up and down.
Helen:I do 10, I'm up to 15, next week I'll be up to 20. And each day I just do more. Because I know, I saw what happened when I decided I was going to learn how to squats. I asked how to do squats. I did a little bit every day for five minutes a day and I would get deeper and deeper and deeper.
Helen:And over the course of a year I made change. And I can squat from not being able to squat to all the way to the floor. So I know it's possible. And I think that if you know what works for you, that's what you gotta tap into for content. You have to relate the real things in life.
Helen:What helped you if you were on a diet and you lost weight and you did it successfully? What made that click? And then use that same system for content creation. It's also letting yourself be less than perfect because I know a lot of people are like, well, I can't, you know, I've made this video and I like how I look or they're obsessing over something about the background or whatever it is. And a lot of times you have to just let go and say, it's just gonna be done.
Helen:It's not gonna be perfect. I'm just gonna post it. One time I had a video, I literally had a video. I'm surprised a lot of people didn't come at me in the comments. I had hairs sticking straight up.
Helen:I didn't even realize. Whatever. I'm like, I can't erase these hairs and I am not reshooting this whole video. So it's going. Another time I did a tutorial and there was dust on my screen.
Helen:I didn't even notice it. I was teaching the lesson on my screen and, you know, sometimes I don't even see the dust with my naked eye, but then when I watch the video back, I'm like, how did I not clean off my phone screen? But you know what? Let someone comment on it. Maybe I'll get some engagement and I just post it anyway.
Helen:So I do not wait for perfection any longer and nor should you. Just let it rip. Let it rip. Use the newsletter every Tuesday to come up with ideas. Get yourself into a rhythm like you know you're gonna post.
Helen:So go to the newsletter, save each one of those trends, just put them into your weekly folder. You can clean it out every week. You can unfavorite things. By the way, if you didn't know on the platforms, if you have added something to the favorites, you can go to that favorite, tap on that video, and you can uncheck it so you can take it out of the favorites at any point. And once it's in the favorites, it's not living there forever.
Helen:You can take it out. You can remove it. This way, if you have a weekly folder, which is actually a really good idea, might do this for myself. I love when I have an idea randomly on the spot and I'm like, why don't I do that idea myself? If you create a folder that's weekly trends and you go, okay, I got the newsletter.
Helen:One, two, three, four, I'm putting them all in there. This is what I'm going to do. Holy crap. Why didn't I think of this sooner? Because a lot of times, I'm digging back looking for the newsletter to find what the trends were because I'm like, oh, let me pull one of the trends out for this week.
Helen:So now what I'm going to do is when I send when I receive my newsletter, which I get from myself, I'm going to go to each trend and I'm going to save it to my favorites into my weekly fate weekly trends folder on TikTok and I'm going to do it on Instagram. And this way each week when I put the new ones in, I'll take the old ones out if I didn't do them or I'll save the ones I still might want to get to. This is brilliant. Take this idea from me right now and make a folder for weekly trends because that way when you're stuck for content, you could just go back and quickly look. Now content ideas are a little harder because you are going to have to go back to the newsletter because there's no there's no trend link for content ideas.
Helen:So reading those Tuesday content ideas and making a note of it, maybe putting it in your notes is another strategy. Also another strategy if you like using notes instead, you can copy the links and put that put the links to the trends into your notes and have your weekly content a note for all the things that are coming to you in the newsletter and also the ideas. And you can just write a quick note about each idea. That way you don't have to go back and look for the email. It'll help.
Helen:I do think so. Alright? So that is the plan. You're going to create a habit, decide how often you want to post, and go hard. And go with abandon.
Helen:Without abandon? I think it's with full abandon. I love when I get an expression reversed. But you're just gonna post without with freedom and carefreeness and say, F it. Like, I don't care if somebody wants to comment on it, say something negative, whatever, whatever.
Helen:Let them, let them, let them. Let them feel, let them say, and just carry on with your bad self. Because I love when I saw a post recently and it was so funny because it was like live the cringey life or something like that. It was like the idea was this guy was saying, you know, if you think you're cringey, good. Be cringey.
Helen:If you're not cringey, you're not living because that's what you need to be. You need to be living like you don't care. And sometimes you don't care. You're being cringey. I actually saw the video on a plane and then I got off the plane and there was I know for some of you are gonna have seen this Instagram story.
Helen:But I came off the plane at United in Newark. And I saw, like, they had a little thing. You know those cutouts? They have sometimes that pumpkin patches where you can put your face inside the pumpkin or your face inside the scarecrow or something like that. So they have an airplane now.
Helen:It's a cutout cardboard thing of an airplane, not cardboard. You know, it's nicely made. And it's got a cutout so you can be like you're in the pilot seat. So little kids can come up and be the pilot on the on the plane from and the parents can take a picture. So as I walked by, I said, oh, that's so cute.
Helen:I can't wait. You know, one day I'll have like one of my my my grandkid will be wanna be in the plane. And then I went, I'm gonna be in the plane right now. That is so cringey. And I actually thought about that guy's video because I was gonna keep going.
Helen:And I went, that guy, he just said, live the cringey life. And I'm like, I'm doing it. So I asked some girl who's right there. I said, would you just videotape me for a second? I want to walk into that plane.
Helen:By the way, if you ever are asked to videotape something for someone, here's a tip of advice. Don't decide when you're going to start and stop recording. The minute they say, can you can you video? And you press, I press record and I go, okay, it's recording. Just hold the phone.
Helen:Let it record. Don't stop and start for the person. I can't, I was so mad because I had her, I had her record and I said, okay, just keep recording. She stopped and waited for me to walk in and missed the whole funny part of my video was when I was walking in behind the plane and she wasn't recording. So I, I'm annoyed at her for that.
Helen:However, she was very nice to record me. But I'm like why did she stop? I pressed record and said here, just hold the phone here while I walk in. So the whole time I'm thinking she's recording, she didn't record until I got into the plane. You know, sometimes I have to give better direction to my strangers.
Helen:But it happens to me every time. I hand the phone to someone, I go, it's recording, just hold it. Don't stop it. Let it record. They don't understand that I'm going edit it later.
Helen:That's the thing I have to tell them. I have to say, just let it record because I'm going to edit it. That's what I'm going to say next time. I'm living and learning right here right here now on the podcast. But I want to make sure that my content when I ask strangers to do it, it's actually usable content and not that they didn't record.
Helen:Yikes. The problems of asking strangers. Here you have it in a nutshell. But it's okay. I appreciate all the strangers that help me out on the spot.
Helen:And when I record for people, when I'm stopped, I'm always like, alright I'm recording. I'm getting behind the scenes. Like I give them a whole commentary about what I'm recording. So that they know that I'm recording the beginning and the ending and oh my God you're funny and also I'm taking pictures while I'm recording. Press the button, hit the stills.
Helen:Anyway, alright it was a really fun week. I had my day at 6 Flags with my son Jonathan for his birthday. Every year we go, usually on July 1, this time we on July 2 because it was thunderstorming like crazy. So we went the day after. We had so much fun.
Helen:We had his friend there, Omar. And then Omar's brother Omar's brother, wait, I said I was going to talk about him on the podcast so let me stop and remember to say it. On so he works in e commerce and he has this whole he makes money like almost as a reseller on the internet. It's quite amazing. He's branded something and then he has this whole like resell thing that he does.
Helen:It was so intriguing. But he was intrigued with me and my life and my social media. And I was intrigued with his thing because he's doing he's running ads and he's successfully, monetizing his business through ads. So we learned a lot from each other. And I think Julie and I are gonna start to run ads for the studio, which would be a lot of fun, and to see what happens and to see how that really you know, right now, I just depend on social media or the newsletter or word-of-mouth.
Helen:And I'm like, maybe I gotta try and page out his book and run some ads. So maybe you'll see some ads from me soon for the studio. Be nice if you see them. Make a nice comment because you know I'm so committed and I really care about my studio students. And I can't wait to see them next week.
Helen:So everybody have a great fourth. And, studio folks, will see you at the next meeting and everyone else get in the studio so I can see you at the next meeting. Bye.
