The Socialize Strategy - Elevate Your Content
Welcome to the socialize strategy. Happy Friday from Tampa. I'm on the road this week. I've had a lot going on. It was a really busy week and a perfect week for me to have taught the vlogging lesson last week in the studio.
Helen:Because I think what I'm going to do with all the clips that I've recorded, even though I've been posting bits and pieces along the way, I'm going to string them together into a vlog. So I'm gonna challenge myself with my challenge that I gave my students in the studio. So I'm excited about that. In the meantime, I do wanna share, as you might notice, I'm holding a microphone instead of my podcasting normal microphone. So I wanted to talk a little bit about my behind the scenes setup of on the go podcasting because it is a little different since I don't I do like to travel in a carry on.
Helen:So I don't wanna pack and take make room for a big microphone and all the wires and whatnot. So I bring my mobile microphone, but I don't wear it because I'm gonna show you the difference in the audio. If I take this microphone and I put it on like I usually do for my videos, the sound is nice but it's not as podcasty and clear. So when you hold these microphones and that's why a lot of the influencers hold these little microphones close to their mouth, it has a different more silky melty vibe as long as you don't pop your peas when you're too close. So you wanna make sure that you talk gently when you're close to the microphone.
Helen:But at the same time, it does give a nice quality and that's why some of them do the whisper videos. And, just a little bit about that. I do have a setup here in a hotel room, a really nice hotel room that they they got for me for this conference. So I'm so grateful. I have a little living area behind me instead of just a bed, which is great.
Helen:The bed is in the other room. And, I will say this table was in the corner against by a a light. So I showed a little behind the scenes in my, social media. But I moved the table out so that I can get some light from the window on my face. So it'd be a little more appealing for my YouTube version of this podcast.
Helen:So that's a little bit about being, flexible on the go and not panicking that you don't have the exact same setup you usually have. Of course, I have my portable tripod, so that's easy enough. I have my laptop with my notes, but the microphone situation is a little different when I'm on the go. I just thought I would share that. Now, the other thing I wanna talk about is why I'm on the go this week and before I get into the topic of today, which is very connected with what I've been doing all week.
Helen:So the topic for today is really how to elevate your social content. And my presentation here in Tampa was for a fur outdoor furniture conference where I shared tips about social media, how to make videos but make it simple but make them good. And so my presentation is, first of all, it's so much fun, and I really had such a great or, it was received really well from the audience. And I was you know, I have a lot of funny things I say about being a content creator at this age. And often I will start with, you know, I'm a I'm a Gen X TikToker in a boomer body and, you know, usually, depending on the crowd, that gets some laughs.
Helen:And I do share a lot personally about how I do my content, and I demonstrate a lot of things that are very funny to those people. So I was trying to show them good camera angles versus bad. And I was holding up my phone and then I said, now if you go down here, that's a no because we're gonna see all of my double chins. And they've you know, they love that because when I'm speaking to a group, I can be very relatable especially when I see who the audience is. So if they are primarily in the 40, over 50 crowd, I relate to them in one way.
Helen:If they're younger, I will often relate to you know, make jokes about myself being, like, I could be your mom, but I can teach you how to do social media. So I really cater my presentation for the audience kind of like a comedian caters their bit to depending on who is watching. Anyway, I learned that from Julie because I'm, you know, practicing stand up with her on on our personal mother daughter podcast. So something fun and interesting might be coming soon if you follow us over there. If you don't know, we do have a podcast together called Yours Truly with Helen and Julie.
Helen:You let me say it again. Yours Truly with Helen and Julie. And there's where we do a mother daughter just to catch up every week, and we talk about different topics. And this week, we have been working this past two weeks, we've been working on talking about stand up and how funny it is how can I write some jokes about being, an 60 influencer, a TikToker, and what that looks like? So, anyway, I'm I went way off topic.
Helen:But my point is when I'm at these presentations, I do share a lot of content about how to elevate your social media. So the fact that this is our topic for this week just makes perfect sense. It's almost like I'm a little bit shit redoing my presentation. Not fully because that's an hour long, but I am gonna share some of the things that I shared even yesterday during the conference. So let's start with editing because I think that of all the things I mean, we can record videos.
Helen:And I as I told them yesterday, you can record the crappiest videos, and I could edit them into good videos. That is how good editing can be to change your content. You can really up the game if you learn how to edit. And that's what I told them. I'm like, the first thing you kinda wanna do is get yourself a little a space to figure out how to record yourself speaking and saying something and how to cut it up and make it tighter.
Helen:Because we all just like, if I would never post this long winded thing that I'm saying right now, I would tighten this up on social media. I would have very clear points that I would say. I wouldn't go off on a tangent necessarily. So those are the types of things that social media content really warrants. And the other thing I talked to them about, which isn't in the newsletter today, but I'm going to share it with you, is especially with businesses, they think they have to do commercials on their social media and they think they have to make ads.
Helen:And the last thing the scroller wants to see is a commercial. And we all know it because guess what we do when we see the sponsored ads? Scroll, usually. We don't always watch them. We immediately know we're being sold to.
Helen:You know, it says sponsorship, so you know it's an ad. And unless somebody's really sucked you in with a hook of why you should listen, a lot of times we scroll just by nature. So, as I was saying to them, you almost wanna share your passion for your business versus share your products. And that is a very subtle difference in how you can sell something without selling it. If you share what you love about it, if you share what excites you about it, if you share some information about it, maybe inside info about it, you know, how this product is made and why it's priced like this because this is what's involved in making it, like the guy with the belts, the TikToker that went viral showing how his belts were made hand by hand, every single one of them.
Helen:Those are the kinds of things people will grab onto. So that's the first thing I'm gonna say. And now I'll get into the five tips to edit to elevate your content. And these are editing tips. Because, again, I talk about where to hold the camera, where to set up the lights, and all of that when I'm doing my full on presentation at these conferences.
Helen:I really walk them through it. But when but in this newsletter today and where I wanna focus is the specific things related to editing that can up your game on your content. Because like I said, you can take any shitty old video and make it good with good music, with good editing, with some fun graphics coming in. When there was spots where you flubbed up, you throw up some kind of funny face face that, oh, gosh, I made a mistake, but I kept going. There's lots of fun things you can do.
Helen:And so I'm gonna start with number one, ditch the pauses. So I'm laughing because a lot of people that have recently asked me about, can can you tell me more about your studio when I mention it in videos? I go to their page and immediately, what do I see? Five seconds of them staring before they speak. Hello.
Helen:I'm gone already. You gotta cut that off at the beginning. Oh, sorry. I spit into the microphone. You gotta cut that off.
Helen:You gotta take off the beginning. The word has to come the minute the video starts. And this is one thing that I taught in the workshop on Tuesday this week when I was teaching those the people the corporate people how. I was literally showing them, look. Do you see all this air?
Helen:I zoomed in on the timeline and I showed them physically the air that they had before they started speaking. And, oftentimes, I I tapped it. I cut it. And I said, look. That's two seconds you wasted with air, with space.
Helen:So cut off your pause, especially at the beginning. Try and tighten it up in the middle. Try and cut out your filler words if you do a lot of them, and you'll be so aware of them if you start editing the out the um's. You'll start not saying them because I stopped saying when I had to edit them out. I didn't want more editing work.
Helen:So I just edited myself while I was speaking. So think about tightening up. Think about stopping and pausing to get your thoughts together and then speaking. So that you're not lingering long words to think about the next thing you're going to say. It's better to finish the sentence and then start the new sentence.
Helen:Because when I'm editing that little spot that I left, I could edit that out a lot easier. I could see the spot too on the timeline. You could see in the audio where the audio stops and you could easily edit out. You don't even have to be listening to find the pauses. K?
Helen:There's lots of tips for that. Next one is engaging titles that add context. And I did a demonstration for them because one of the corporate people had a video where they were saying words like bold, fierce, dynamic. And I was like, you know, you could pop up those words right on the screen to punctuate the what you're saying in the beginning of your video. And they were so excited because I taught them how to time it when they said it each time.
Helen:So having those titles come on also helps your SEO, like having a title about what your video is about. Winter fashion tips. How to maximize your closet for winter. Whatever it is that your topic is because then maybe it's more searchable when your video is in the search engine. So you wanna make sure you're putting a little title up there for context or you're putting words up there that fly on the screen to keep your viewer engaged.
Helen:There's lots of different ways to add text. Also, those animated captions are fun. A lot of people like watching the words when they pop on. I have thoughts on that. It's either distracting or it's good.
Helen:Right? If I have my audio up on my phone and I'm listening, I often find that the captions are almost distracting and I find myself staring at them instead of the person. But when I'm if I'm in a quiet place and I don't have headphones in and volume is down, I appreciate the captions because then I can see what the person's saying without having my volume up. So it's a toss-up. I won't say do one or do the other.
Helen:I'm just saying sometimes as a viewer, I I I go back and forth on what I prefer depending on the moment that I'm in. The other thing now is quick cuts and zooms and a lot of people over zoom. They're like zoom in, zoom out, zoom in, zoom out. They use the press when they're pressing and they're recording in the social media app and you slide your thumb up and down, it zooms in and out if you didn't know that. And And a lot of people just overuse that feature like to the point of like please stop zooming.
Helen:It's making me seasick. But it's also some of creator's style. Some of the creators use this as a style is what I mean. They want it to be zoom in, zoom out. And that's how they have maybe built their built their following.
Helen:I don't know. So just think about how often you need to make quick cuts without making someone annoyed. And it's also nice to punctuate something that you might say. Did I pop the p? Punctuate.
Helen:You could word you could pop that word out by putting by putting the text on, by putting the zoom in. So you have a couple of ways you can either do with text or you can do it with a zoom just to punctuate certain words. And that's that's always fun. The next one is sound mixing. And I love this because how many times have I said to people who ask me what to do?
Helen:Why why is my music so loud? Put it all the way down to, like, 3%, under 7% if you can see a percentage. You know, it goes down by numbers. It says hundred and it goes all the way down. Under 10 for sure.
Helen:Under seven for some under three for some. Some of the musics are so loud and they start soft and then they build. But the time it's built and you're talking and then the music starts overtaking you. No. Listen to the whole music.
Helen:Make sure that you're adjusting for the loudest part of the music. That is a hot take right there. Adjust for the loudest part of the music. Okay? Listen to it and then lower it.
Helen:So, if it's like too loud when it gets to that part, it has to be even lower for the beginning. Even if you can barely hear it in the beginning. It's okay because it's gonna get annoying to someone when it gets really really loud. Alright? So it's and also with speaking videos, I like to say try and use instrumental music.
Helen:I know that a lot of people don't and that's fine. You know, sometimes just the right song has some words and you want it and so you're gonna do it. But usually, instrumental tracks that have long instrumental sections are better for speaking videos since the lyrics are not fighting with your voice. So I will leave it that to you to decide, but I encourage you to consider that. And I do it to myself.
Helen:I pick one, and I'm like, oh, I love this one. But I can hear the words, and now I'm starting to pay attention to the words to the song, especially if you're a person who listens to the words in a song. The other thing that can help you is to pay attention to what you like when you're watching videos. What editing styles do you enjoy? There's that girl in the bathroom.
Helen:You know how many people have asked me, how does she make her videos? It's editing. She probably shoots, like, three or four versions of her performing the song wide, close, funny things. Then she edits. This is not like, she stops and starts her video and moves around the bathroom.
Helen:I assure you that's very, very likely not what she's doing because she's in perfect lip sync. And that's hard to do if you are stopping and starting your in in app. I would almost love to call her up and say, am I right? Because you're really not using doing this in the app. But I can I can 99% say she's not doing that in the app?
Helen:She is recording different versions of herself singing and performing and then she's layering them. She could even be layering them together and then cutting between them by using overlays. That's a little more advanced editing. But she's definitely editing and she's cutting those pieces together from different performances. That's what makes it so much fun.
Helen:So those types of videos, if that's engaging to you and you wanna create a style that's similar, you don't need to copy someone. But you could say, oh, I like when she cuts quickly between a wide shot and a close-up. Maybe try that. You can do that yourself. That makes it fun.
Helen:Like, what's what's engaging? Are you a person who reads titles more? Does that engage you? Maybe use titles more on your videos. So think about the things.
Helen:Notice. I think notice as a viewer. And this is what I do say in the in my live, meetings. I say, when you're sitting there watching and maybe judging, maybe maybe consider judging more like critiquing to decide what you wanna take into your content. So instead of being judgy and when you're scrolling, think of it more like, how would I critique this video?
Helen:Why did I like it? And why didn't I like it? And then think about that for how you make your own content. That's what I encourage you to do. I'm gonna keep it a little bit short today because I am going to meet Lorraine, my my pal, Lorraine Ladysh, who I had here on as a guest a while ago.
Helen:We've been in touch off the apps for so long now. We have a lot in common, and we are friends I would say we're friends in real life for sure, and we're actually gonna finally meet in real life. So I'm so excited about that. We're gonna talk about some work collabs. And, you know, she's she's really into it and into content creating and learning a lot in the studio as well.
Helen:She will say she's been learning for me for the past couple of years, and she has helped to elevate her content by learning how to do better transitions. And she's a fashion creator, so this helped her in her content. And so I I encourage you, if you're somebody who's just, like, I need a little help, but I don't you can't commit to something big. You don't wanna do a private session. It's not as it's not as efficient.
Helen:To to buy into the studio for a month is like getting me for a month instead of an hour. A lot of people reach out to me and I'll say, join the studio. I'm I'm it's really great. And they're like, wait. I wanna do a private session.
Helen:And they'll pay me for a private session. And I'm like, get in the studio because you're gonna get more like me every week in a way. But some people really just need a jump start for their content. So, yes, I am available for doing private sessions. I am also available for conferences and workshops and corporate things.
Helen:And I love all of it. I love to teach. And I love to just prove by being that you don't have to be a certain age to succeed on social media. And I just enjoy it so much. It's never work when I'm talking about it.
Helen:So find something that you love to talk about because it'll be a whole lot easier. And I'll leave you with that thought today. Have a really happy Friday. Have a great weekend. Woo.
Helen:I can't wait to have a fun weekend with Jonathan. We're gonna have him with us for the weekend. I'm gonna say I don't wanna say what team, but Jonathan loves the Eagles. So I'm sure we're gonna be like, go Eagles this weekend at the Super Bowl. I don't really have any stake in it one way or the other, so I'll go I'll go with my buddy.
Helen:Then I'll support his team. Anyway, have a great weekend, and I'll see you soon. Bye.
