The Socialize Strategy - Engagement Tips
Hi, welcome to the Socialize Strategy, the Friday edition of the Socialize Podcast, where we take a deeper dive into the subject featured in today's newsletter. Before I dive in, I want to say one thing about a hot topic, which is landscape mode on TikTok. I wanna spend just a minute on it because I've talked about it before, and I think there's just so much, confusion where TikTok is saying it's pushing this feature out, and yet the views on the videos are just not delivering. And I have a theory on this, so I thought it was worth mentioning. If you are just posting your same old content that you have in vertical video, and you're just changing your harp your frame to horizontal and posting the same type of content, I don't think that is the purpose of doing horizontal landscape videos on TikTok.
Helen:The purpose the way I see it is utilizing the horizontal frame for the types of videos that look better in that format. So, for example, for me, I'm doing tick TikTok tutorials. I'm holding my phone up in this direction, which is the shape of the phone. And so I don't really need all this extra space to highlight or teach that lesson. So for me to just decide to turn my phone this way because, quote, TikTok is pushing it out.
Helen:Let's film it that way. That content doesn't need to be filmed that way. And, therefore, that video is not gonna do great in that format. If I was on a vacation and I'm shooting, like, beautiful landscape shots or I'm shooting a sporting event or something where the entire use of the landscape horizontal frame makes sense, then I think that video would have more engagement on the platform. So I just want to put that out there because I think what's happening with a lot of creators, they're just like, oh, let me just turn my phone.
Helen:And then they're just in the middle of there talking, and it doesn't really matter if they're horizontal or vertical. So it's not really gonna help their engagement. And the person watching is not gonna tap the full screen button and turn the phone because they can just simply look at you straight up and down in vertical format. So just keep that in mind if you are a TikTok creator and you're confused about landscape mode and why it's not helping your engagement. Think about making different content.
Helen:I was actually thinking about pulling about some pulling out some of my old cooking videos and seeing how they did on my page if I was to because I really did use the vertical the whole horizontal frame, during the pandemic when I was making YouTube cooking videos. So that would be a good use of the horizontal frame. Okay. Food for thought. And now let's get to today's topic, which is engagement.
Helen:And why does engagement matter? Why does engagement on content and social media matter in the first place? Well, obviously, that's how you get more views. More engagement equals more views. And we get so many questions about this.
Helen:It was time to finally tackle it and try and deep dive and do a little chat about what how to increase your engagement, what makes for good engagement, and what are some some tips to help you get there. Alright. 1st, let's start with why does engagement matter in the first place. So obviously, the platform loves key metrics like likes and comments. But in my ex personal experience, in Julie's experience, when you create a piece of content that is relatable, so therefore someone shares it, where it's teaching something and therefore someone sends it to someone or saves it to their phone.
Helen:Those metrics definitely increase engagement. It is facts on my videos. When I just do a fun video for myself and people are just commenting, I could have hundreds of comments and only 10 saves or 10 favorite where people favorited the video, that video is not gonna get as many views as a video that I share that has 10 comments and a 100 saves. So the saves are a higher metric than the likes and the comments. It is a fact.
Helen:I've seen it again and again in my own content, and I learn a lot about these platforms from my own content. It's the same thing on Instagram. It's the same thing on Facebook. When people are saving or reposting your content, that's what's gonna give you a higher engagement rate. Okay.
Helen:So I I before and then before I get into tips on engagement, I wanna actually address this one interesting thing that's a question that we get all the time, which is should you follow back everyone who follows you? So that's because that's engagement right there is when you have someone that follows you and you think, oh, I'm gonna follow them back and create engagement. I'm gonna make sure that person sees my videos. But that strategy does not work for the long haul. And I beg you to think about what you want your experience on your app to be.
Helen:So if you follow everyone back, sometimes that's content that you're not really interested in. So if you're watching something and you're you're really interested in food food TikTok or recipe videos, and then you're following everyone back and it happens to be somebody who does making this up skateboarding, maybe you're not really interested in seeing skateboarding videos. So when their content comes up on your page, you may not like, comment, or engage on it because you really rather wait for a recipe to come up. So what you're doing is 2 things. You're doing a disservice to yourself, because you're wrecking your own experience, and you're getting things on your feed that you're not interested in.
Helen:And you're also wrecking that person's experience, because now they have a follower that's not even liking their videos or watching their videos. So it's a disservice to both parties. So you don't have to think about it from the standpoint of, oh, I feel bad. You know, that's what I did a lot in the beginning on social media. I'm like, I gotta follow everybody back until I really understood how it works.
Helen:You don't, you don't want to follow everyone back. You really want to create a community that matters to you and you wanna make your experience on your social media app good for you. So you're seeing the types of content that you want to see. Alright. So now let's talk really about how to get engagement.
Helen:It's not easy, and it's also requires a bit of strategic thinking. So the first thing is it starts with you and your ability to be a good viewer. So if you're commenting on other creators' videos, putting yourself out there, sharing and engaging, and and even even when it's something where you really like a creator and maybe I don't really necessarily want this video, you can actually hit the share button. And then that can creates the metric as if it was shared even if you don't send it to someone. So if you wanna help a creator, a really good idea to help that creator is to do the like, tap the like, do a comment, hit the arrow, and do copy link because that creates the metric of the fact that it was shared.
Helen:You can also save it to favorites, but then they are gonna have your favorites be all out of whack if it's not a video that you really, really wanna save. So only do that when you really want it. The other thing that's helpful is to create content that prompts your viewers to engage. So that's either asking a question. And I think I said recently that I did that on a on a a thing with my washing machine when I had some problems with it.
Helen:So I put the question out to the TikTok universe and the social media universe in general. I put it on Instagram too. And I tried to get some answers, and there was a lot of people that know about those appliance things and were commenting. So creating a question type of content or asking your audience for feedback definitely creates high engagement. There was a creator during the pandemic who was her son's wedding, and she wanted an opinion on dresses.
Helen:This before this was before everybody was doing, like, what dress should I wear to this event? Now it's very common. But she was one of the early adopters of that idea. She just did, like, what should I wear to my son's wedding? And she tried on a few dresses, and that was a major major viral video for her.
Helen:And I also believe she was an older creator, so maybe young creators were doing that at the time, but older creators were not. So it really, really helped her. And then she had people helping her pick her dress out for her son's wedding. So that's fun because you can really get honest opinions. People are very honest on the inter interweb.
Helen:The other thing is a big one for me. Because in the beginning when I was building a following, I was obsessed obsessed on answering every comment. I'm like, these people are taking the time to comment. I am gonna answer every comment. And I happen to know that a good friend of mine on the app, who has a I think she's got, like, 3,000,000 followers now.
Helen:In the beginning, she was answering every flippant comment, every single comment. She was literally. And I said, how do you keep up? Because after a while, when you have viral videos, it's impossible. You just can't do it.
Helen:You can't keep up. And you could try as you might, but I actually got a little keyboard because I was, like, determined. I'm gonna answer every single comment. So if you, have the size account where you can do that and you can tackle every comment, take an hour every day if you can when you're laying in bed or watching TV. And just power through the comments and try and make sure you're responding to your loyal followers so that they know that they are they're spending time commenting and that they're being seen and heard.
Helen:If you don't have time to respond to the comments, what I'm doing now a lot of the times is I go like like like like, make sure I like all the comments that people see that I've seen their comment, even if I can't spend the time. If I'm in a rush, if I'm busy at work, I have a busy week. I try to make sure I hit the like button on the comments to make sure that people know that they are seen. One of the big things I believe, I think is at my core is helping people to feel seen. I I think I'm driven to do that in a weird way.
Helen:When I have people on shoots and they're not used to being on camera and it's so difficult for them, I love to help them feel comfortable being seen. So that's a big part of, I think, who I am as a person. When someone walks into a room and I can tell they're uncomfortable, I immediately go over to that person and make them feel welcomed in. So I'm just a big believer in in helping people achieve their potential. I love it.
Helen:Okay. Onto another strategy, which is collaboration. I love this. I love to collaborate with other creators. I try really hard when people reach out to me and they say I'm gonna be in New York.
Helen:Do you think you we can get together to make some video content? I really, really try and make myself available. And it's sometimes it works and sometimes doesn't just because of timing. But I think collaboration helps engagement because you can both and on Instagram, you can both share that video on your feed and that person's feed. So that get gives it double the amount of eyeballs.
Helen:And depending on the platform, for example, if I have a bigger following on one platform and the other creator has a big bigger following on another platform, like my Instagram following is much less than my TikTok. So when I collaborate with a person with a big Instagram following, that's beneficial to me because I'll post the thing to my TikTok and they get more eyeballs on their on their page. And then when I they post it on theirs on Instagram, then I get bonus eyeballs. So collaboration is key. And it does it is a two way street, and you can really have some fun with it.
Helen:You can have a sense of community. So other people see that you're willing to open up your feed and include other one other people in it. I kinda love it. I'm a big collaborator. I just really do.
Helen:And I think that the Instagram collaboration feature is I've said this before many times. It's one of my favorites because it does help you have two things happening at once where you're getting in front of 2 audiences. And I'm really, really hoping that TikTok eventually hops on to this one because I think it's gonna be a really key one for them. I think I said that backwards. I think TikTok needs to hop on what Instagram's idea is.
Helen:Sometimes my dyslexia kicks in. So I don't know what how which way I said it until I listened to it back. The next one is going live. So if you have enough followers on whatever platform is your favorite to go live, it is really, really a good way to create some engagement and really build community among the people that are all in there together. One of my favorite things when I go live is when I can't answer all the questions because it's happening too fast.
Helen:But I see that the people in the chat are helping each other and they're answering each other's questions. I think that is the key. I think right there is how you can build a community of like minded people in your feed. Because most of the people in my lives are people that are following me. And so they're co followers of the same person, so they have that in common that they both fall they're all following me.
Helen:But then, also, they are obviously all wanna learn because that's why they're following me. So when they are in the chat and one of them learns something, they're excited to teach the other people in the chat. So going live does help engagement, and you don't have to go live and do battles or anything like that. I have a really good tutorial about how to go live and strategies for going live, where you can make sure that you have a list in front of you so that you're not scared when you first turn the camera on and you feel like you're alone. Things like having that list is helpful.
Helen:Understanding what the buttons are before you go live, because it can be terrifying. I remember the first time I went live, I didn't know how to turn it off. I was on a live going, how do I get out of here? It was so funny. I think about it.
Helen:I can remember exactly where I was exactly the whole thing. I can even remember a few of my followers who were actually in that in that live. So funny. But we all start somewhere. So you just gotta put yourself out there.
Helen:And people are very kind. Even though you find, yes, we have negativity on social media, we have a lot of kindness. And there's always people willing to help and be your moderator and help you out on the live. So if you, put that tutorial, I'll definitely put that tutorial in here and in the newsletter so that you make sure you so you have that. Because it's a key way to really understand some of the nuances behind going live.
Helen:Because when you go for the first time and all the buttons are there and you're not sure what the hell is going on, it can be intimidating. So I I think that was one of my more helpful tutorials and it was just a last minute idea to throw that out there. And while we're talking about going live, I wanna say that Denise from In Your Face skincare does this cute strategy that I like where she sends out an email to her email list to alert people when she's going live. So sometimes I noticed in my email box an hour before her live, I'll get an email that says going live tonight at 7 PM. And I'm thinking, oh, so it alerts me even how crazy is that?
Helen:It's such a basic thing to of a way to alert your followers. If you have an email list, that's a great way to do it. You can also make a video and post it, although the videos don't get seen sometimes enough because of the algorithm. So really, if you have if you are a person that has an email list set up, that's a great use of your your email list. Give them a heads up when you're going live, and they'll come and support.
Helen:Because I tend to do that. I'll go on. I'm like, she's on now. Let me go see what she's talking about. To wrap it up, I'm gonna just leave you with this idea that the the best use of community, I guess, the best how should I say this?
Helen:Let me just, like, retract. The best way to build engagement is by using the community aspect and thinking of it as creating a friend group. So it's not just you by yourself putting your content out there, and it's, you know, throwing it out to the universe and hoping for the best. No, it's you sharing a bit of yourself with your posse, with your friends, with your friend group, and how they will come and be with each other in your comments. So if you create that safe space and that sense of community, that brings loyalty into the equation.
Helen:And then if you're trying to monetize in any way, grow an audience for whatever reason, or find ways to to really monetize your your account, it really starts with that loyal following. So I highly recommend thinking about building community more than I need more likes and views on my videos. Think about I need more friends in my life. Think about it that way. And it might just put a different perspective.
Helen:I love to think about social media, like real life. I think that is your little secret sauce. Alright. I'm gonna leave you with that for today. I hope that you have a really good weekend.
Helen:If you landed here by accident, we do have oh, I should mention this before I leave that I am having a free live workshop where I'm having a guest on. So I'm gonna be meet I'm so excited that she said yes to me. Gina from skinny taste, who I am so fan girling over this because I've been friends with her for ages. I've been following her forever. I love her cookbooks.
Helen:I always make her recipes. And she's gonna be joining us for a live podcast, which we are gonna create do as a workshop. So we invite you in. If you register, it's free. And you can join as I meet her for the first time.
Helen:I'm gonna interview her, and then we're gonna open up for some questions from the listeners. So if you're on the workshop while we're doing this, you'll be able to put your questions right into the chat and have Gina answer them. And I'll answer some too. Fair enough. Alright.
Helen:I hope to see you there. Come to the workshop. It's gonna be our first little experiment. You know what's funny about it? Because it's the first one, we're gonna be working out the kinks.
Helen:So you might get to see something that doesn't actually get posted on the podcast when it gets posted. It might be something that we end up having to edit out. So be there or be square. Thank you so much for listening. Again, if you're looking for workshops or TikTok course or any kind of tutorials, you can go to hellosocialize.com, and you'll find all of that there and a whole lot more.
Helen:Thanks for being here. Bye. Have a great weekend.
