The Socialize Strategy - On Camera Confidence
Welcome to The Socialize Strategy. I am a little thrown off because I'm recording this in the morning, and I typically don't record in the morning. My voice isn't always awake in the morning. I'm not always awake in the morning. It takes me a while to get rolling where I'd wanna, I guess, be in front of a camera.
Helen:But I am heading out again. This week has been a travel week. I've been was in Toronto the beginning of the week again, and then today, I'm leaving for North Carolina. I'm just going for an overnight to location scout for a shoot that is at the end of the month. So I'm doing a I could have done it as a day trip, but I prefer to do an overnight so I'm not going to and from in the same day.
Helen:So I decided I'm gonna record this morning. I'm gonna get it done and tell you about some things. Next week, I'm gonna focus on travel things. But this week, the unsponsored by section segment is going to feature two things I use pretty frequently. And I like to keep it with things that I actually do use on the regular because it's more real for me, and it's also things like maybe you would be interested in them because I use them so often.
Helen:One, Julie makes fun of me all the time for this, and I'm gonna talk about it. It is my, my phone case with the beads that I can wear. Now I saw I didn't buy this because I saw, you know, an 80 year old woman with it. Not that that would matter. If I liked it, I would get it anyway.
Helen:But I saw this on a 30 year old, and she was at a bridal shower. And I was like, what's that? She was wearing it like this, like a cross body, and hers was I forget even which one she had. I think it was a chain link. And I thought, gee.
Helen:That is so cool. I love the way it looked. And I immediately asked her, and she told me the brand. And you can get these string hangy things on Amazon very cheap. But she gave me the brand she had because it was a really cool chain link version.
Helen:And then she told me about the wooden beads one, which is lighter weight. That's what I have now, the wooden beads. But I do have the chain link one, and it does look good. So when I when I'm on a production shoot, that's typically the one I'll use. I'll put the the chain on.
Helen:It just looks a little more hip, I guess. And I will wear it sometimes as a crossbody, so I always have my phone there. Sometimes I wear it as a necklace. She makes fun of me. Julie, go.
Helen:Make fun of me. I don't care. I mean, she makes fun of me in a in a fun way. She's not mean by any stretch. But she's always teasing me like, the phone necklace?
Helen:Yes. And guess who's always ready for a moment. I'm not digging in my bag trying to find the phone at the bottom. I'm not checking my pockets where the thing could fall out, a backpack, whatever. It is right there.
Helen:I can pick it up, whip the chain off my neck, or shoot with the chain on my neck. It's a little more limiting that way. Sometimes I do it for safety so I don't drop the phone. But I love this thing. And, again, I'm not gonna promote buy the most expensive one, but the brand I love and I am committed to is OSSA, and their website I believe is OSSA New York NY.
Helen:Hold on. I'm gonna check the website right now so I'm not telling you the wrong thing. Let's see. Phone case. OSA NYC.
Helen:Let me see. They are oh, it's Ossa, New York spelled out. So 0 S S A N E W Y 0 R K. And they have jeweled ones, beaded ones, crystal ones. They have shorts, so you could have it as like a little hand purse.
Helen:They have long. There are so many of these things on the market, so you pick one that works for you. But trust me, if you get one, you might get hooked on it the way I'm hooked on it because it's just right there. And I like the wooden beads because they are lighter, so it doesn't feel like it's extra weight on me. I'm a fan.
Helen:product for today is one I use almost every day, but not every single day, and that is my dry shampoo brand. And I'm gonna tell you this one because I've tried a bunch and I also love the brand for their hair, any of their hair sprays, their hair refresher spray, which is no longer available makes me sick because it's my favorite thing. And so now I'm just using the dry shampoo and their regular hairspray as a backup to that because they stopped making the hair refresher spray. They really should come back with it. I'm gonna write to them.
Helen:But it's Oribe, I think that's how we say it, o r I b e. I have little travel ones so that I take them with me. The travel one for the dry shampoo is packed, coming with me in my suitcase, so I could use it tomorrow. But it is called Gold Dust Dry Shampoo. It doesn't go on white so that you look like you're adding kinda got a gray hair to your head or anything.
Helen:It goes on a lighter shade of it's not even white. I'm telling you. It even says on the thing, oh, brush it out so that the the white residue. No. There's no white residue.
Helen:I'm I'm here to tell you. If I have tried dry shampoos, I have tried them all. And the smell is refreshing, light, and not cheap and cheesy. The texture is not sticky, and it doesn't require you to brush your hair like crazy to get it out. It's light, and it refreshes your hair from scent to look.
Helen:So 100%, if you're gonna and and it's an investment because the small little bottle is like 20 something. But I only got those 20 something small bottles just because of traveling. When I go back now, I wanted to try it, make sure I liked it. Now I like it, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna get the tall one to keep, one in each of my residences because this is it. If you want the dry shampoo, invest.
Helen:It's the best one. They also have a a root cover up. Again, not that harsh texture to the most root cover ups. It's light, and it's I don't know. It's just they are they and they know how to do it.
Helen:So, Arribae, boom boom. You got me. On we go. I love doing this segment because I could just be so raw and real, and I could tell you straight up, and I cannot lie. So I'm going with it every single time.
Helen:These happen to both love, so I can't nothing bad to say. Let's get to the topic for today, which is talking to camera and trying to make yourself feel comfortable talking to camera like I'm doing right now. And it's hard to do this in the beginning. I remember it so clearly. I remember wanting to talk to the camera and feeling, like, awkward about it when I was on TikTok, and I would just be like, cringe.
Helen:I I you know, meek. My voice wasn't even my voice. I look back at those videos, and I'm like, yikes. But I don't take them down because, like I say, that was part of my, oops, part of my learning, my journey, my growing up on social media. I I started growing up on social media at the age of 60, so you can grow up at any age.
Helen:Maybe. No promises. Mostly, I'm not a grown up still. But you can you can get used to it because of doing it again and again and again. It gets easier and easier.
Helen:Even when I'm looking at the back camera right now, it's funny because the three the way the camera is horizontally and the the way the lenses are with the three lenses, it's so funny. I have two eyes, a mouth, and then the two little other lenses, whatever they are, the flash and the other thing, they're like little cheeks. And I feel like I'm talking to a face right now. So turning your camera to the side to practice to make it look like a face is one way to do it. It's a cute face, actually.
Helen:Looks like almost like Mickey Mouse face. So you can picture the phone as a little character. When you turn it the other way and you're in selfie mode, it's really, really important not to look at yourself in selfie mode because you think you're talking to yourself and your audience. You're not. You're looking down.
Helen:Bad news. You're also gonna start criticizing and looking at yourself too much. So you'll stop thinking about what you're saying, and you're gonna be analyzing, oh, shoot. Did I smooth my makeup enough or whatever the heck you're gonna be thinking about? You're looking at your lines and stuff, fixing your hair.
Helen:I can't even see my hair. I don't know why I'm fixing it because I got the back camera on. But it's a good idea to look up. So when you're doing the selfie camera and if you're recording in your regular phone camera, if you look up at those numbers that are counting down, number one, it'll keep you on track, like you'll know how long you've been recording. And number two, you'll just start making a face out of those numbers.
Helen:Like, I look at the zeros at and that becomes my face. And then when I start recording, I'm in the zone. I'm talking to one person. And it's very natural as you do it day after day after day. And then also watching your videos can help you assess.
Helen:Like, do I feel real? Why was I talking so strange? You know, why do I think I have to be so perfect? Because you can really start to separate yourself from yourself. You become more objective about yourself.
Helen:I have a couple of friends, private clients actually I've worked with that I won't even, you know, they've become friends I guess, but they will tell me that they hate editing. They hate editing themselves. And I'm like, what? I don't, I am so disconnected from myself, it's like I'm editing someone else. It's just crazy.
Helen:And that's why I can be objective and go, oh, this was a funny thing I said. I'm leaving it in. Even though my perfectionist me might have wanted to take it out, I can now objectively look at my videos like an editor and think, oh, that was cute, like when I did that mistake. Leave that in. Or that was, oh, that was funny.
Helen:I looked silly and goofy. I looked more authentic when I did that mistake or I did that face or whatever. So if you can disconnect yourself from yourself by doing it again and again and again and editing yourself and being separated, it just comes from practice. So that's why the thing that we put in the newsletter today was to record something daily. And even if you don't post it ever, you're practicing.
Helen:You're to record it and you're going to edit it. You're going to look at yourself. You're going to like start assessing. You can be critical, but not don't be critical of your looks. Don't start analyzing like I gotta go get things fixed on my face because I'm staring at that.
Helen:Because you're the only one staring at that. No one else is staring at it. Believe you me. And if they are, sorry for them, Basically, they need to get a life. So just record, and it will help you practice.
Helen:Sometimes I record a video and I will go, God, I just sounded so scripted because I know I was trying to say a certain thing. And then I'm like, let me just try it again and just be like as if I'm in practice mode. And then the video is better. So maybe also by thinking you're in practice mode, your video will be more natural. You'll think about somebody who might be listening, one person.
Helen:Like, I'm just picturing a person right now listening. Hi, Julie. And I know she's like, and I don't care. I mean, she's fun and funny and she's my friend. And I think that's what you when you find that friend Hi Lorraine.
Helen:It's you now. And my friend changes all the time. It depends on what I'm talking about. When I'm talking about my unsponsored by content, I do think about you Lorraine because I know that you like my honest opinions about things. And why do I know that?
Helen:Because she messages me and tells me. She writes me back. And she responds to the newsletter and lets me know what she likes and what she doesn't like. So I know she's listening. So I can think of her when I'm when I'm recording.
Helen:Think of somebody who you know might be listening that you want to be talking to, that one person. And then your other, tip could be just to channel a character, and that doesn't mean be a fake person. That means stepping, I think just like I was saying about editing, stepping outside of yourself and just being like, oh, this is my on camera me. I can be real. I don't have to be filtered.
Helen:I'm not in a meeting. No one's gonna judge me. I'm not on stage. It's not like I have one shot at this. I can just totally be me because I can edit that out.
Helen:And if you try and channel that side of yourself, that is almost it's almost like you're creating your on camera comfortable self. So you're not making up a character. You're not standing on stage, and you're not going, me, Mario. I love to be Mario for Jonathan. But I'm not faking a character.
Helen:I'm just allowing myself to be my on camera character, which is the real me, telling you the truth about things, being silly, being honest, and, I don't know, just sharing my love of content creation. Helping talking about something that you really love is really helpful to becoming authentic. If you're trying to talk about something, like if I had to get on here and talk about anything in forget it. Like, or world politics or something that I'm, you know, trying to think, like business tips or finance things, I would literally be trying to think of the things. I could never be authentic because I don't know it.
Helen:And I don't I'm not comfortable in it because I don't I don't know it enough to to speak to it. So the thing that you know well is what you're gonna wanna talk about, and you're gonna have an easier time being authentic. And that's at least a place to start because then you could build up to where, okay, now you wanna study another other subject and talk about that. I'm studying fainting, because me and Julie are gonna talk about it. So I've been really researching vasovagal syncope, which is the technical term for people who faint at the sight of blood or at the feeling of pain or the fear or something like that.
Helen:That's what it is. I've been studying it. I don't know it. I'm not a doctor. But now, I because I'm comfortable talking on camera and I did my research, now I can talk about that topic and feel comfortable.
Helen:Because I did some research, and I'm not gonna claim to be the expert on it, but I'm gonna speak from experience about it. So that's a really good example of how you can channel your practice being your real self by teaching something or talking about something that you know really well. And then the comfort level will transfer over to something you don't know so well, and you'll be able to talk about that subject. Okay? So, I mean, anything I study long enough, can talk about.
Helen:I've learned about sensitive teeth. I can talk to a dentist all day long about sensitive teeth. I can tell you what causes it, how to how products work that fix it, how they block the tubules, and that's that that leads to the nerve. I mean, I can give you all the technical details, but I'm comfortable talking about it. Even though I don't know maybe the medical terms in the moment, I might lose that for the moment, I can quickly take a refresher and be able to speak to those facts and feel natural.
Helen:Okay? So practice on the thing you know well because then you can transfer those skills and skins to the things you don't know well. Okay. The next one is, I like this one a lot because I helped Betsy, who is in the studio, with this because she's really, really good at Zoom and completely comfortable speaking on Zoom meetings and feels like she can be herself even though she's talking into a camera on her Zoom meeting because she knows to look into the camera and then look at her people. She also positioned maybe her people at the top who she's talking to.
Helen:You can, you know, slide them up to the top of the screen. That is if you're good at doing it doing that thing, then you can take those that vibe and bring it to your content two ways. One, you can actually take clips from the Zoom meeting and cut yourself out and and put it in your video and format it for social media. And I have a tutorial for that. I taught that in the studio, I think.
Helen:But you can do something like that. Or as you're practicing on Zoom, when you're recording in your regular camera, you're gonna visualize the Zoom meeting. In that moment, you're gonna be like, hi, everyone. I'm on a Zoom meeting. I'm your teacher for today.
Helen:We're gonna learn about how to use Zoom. And just visualize the face on your lens as your Zoom meeting. People, You can do it. Betsy, I know you can do it. But I know now she's using her Zoom clips for her social media content, which is a great solve because she's already natural talking to her Zoom meeting camera.
Helen:The other thing is that you you you wanna keep going even though you feel uncomfortable, so you have to push past. Like I always say, anything that's, like, terrifying, you wanna kinda push through it. It you don't always it's not always possible to go around it. I I had to do chemo. I was terrified.
Helen:But it was like, I can't avoid it. I gotta do it. So I had to push through it. So every little thing that was terrifying got me closer to being on the other side of it. So every day that you record and record and record and practice, practice, practice, eventually, you're gonna look back and be on the other side of it.
Helen:Amber from the studio wrote me, and I know she's probably listening too because she really liked last week's episode here. But she wrote me that she did a split screen recently, and she had because she hadn't done it for the time, she we had it as a challenge a couple of months ago in the studio. And when she revisited it and she kept and she did it again, it was easier. So repetition makes learning happen. You don't even realize it, but you're gonna remember, oh, I did that last time.
Helen:Oh, right. Oh, Amber, I'm gonna give you a tip right now, actually. When you are recording both clips, press and hold on your camera to lock the lighting and exposure because you will have a easier time covering up the middle line. I don't even remember if I even said that in the tutorial. So this is like a bonus tip just for Amber or anybody else who wants to do a split screen video.
Helen:When you're recording both characters, lock the screen, record character one. By the way, even if you stop recording, your screen will stay locked until you unlock it. So if you want to lock that exposure and lock it will lock your focus. So make sure when you lock it that you're locked in position, and then you lock it so that it focuses on you or put something there that's your subject. So it's focused on you, and it's also gonna lock the lighting in the room, which is very helpful.
Helen:Because this way, when you put them together, even the slightest change in lighting will give you a line between the split screens. Okay? So try that on your next one. That's your challenge. Hold on.
Helen:I'm gonna take a sip of my tea. Toot. One of my private clients, hi, Lisa, if you're listening, she was telling me how she is more comfortable on lives and doing her TikTok lives, but then she panics when she has to record content. So I was like, girl, go to your lives. Download.
Helen:Take clips. Actually, it gives you clips even. It gives you clips suggestion clips to download. You can make content out of that. And now she's able to record videos because so crazy because I'm seeing it.
Helen:I'm seeing her evolve from taking the live clips and putting them on as content. She's almost like finding her voice to be able to copy copy? Maybe it's not the right word, but be the same way when she records herself for videos now, for content, specifically that she's gonna post. So she's using her live skills and now channeling her live self when she's making her content. I see it.
Helen:And, Lisa, if you don't know, it's making a big difference because I see the evolution. Most fun I have recently is when I do these one on ones, and I can I because I don't do any formula one on ones when I say formula? I don't do, like, tell every client this or tell every person that because that's my formula. No. I look at that person and I go, what's their thing?
Helen:And so when I saw when I heard from Lisa and she was telling me I really, really like going live, I just panic when I'm recording videos. I go, hey, wait. We have a solution for you right here now in the moment. Take your lives, make them into content. Start putting those things on there and see which things are getting more engagement.
Helen:So I really like to look at person by person who I'm talking to to get into what's their vibe. Because everybody, every one of us has a different vibe on camera and a different way of communicating, a different thing that we feel comfortable doing. There's things I don't like doing. I don't like making vlogs and doing voice overs on my vlogs. I don't enjoy it.
Helen:But I like doing fun transition vlogs or or, like, little that spinning transition thing. That was a fun vlog thing for me to do. So find the thing that you love and then help get that to help you do the thing that you don't love. So I don't like vlogging, but I found a solution to vlogging now that I like, that makes it easy for me to do it. Really, you can always find a solution.
Helen:I'm I'm that's my how my brain works. It's like, well, wait. Let's analyze this. What do you like doing? Okay.
Helen:How can we take that to help you to improve what you don't like doing? And how can we make find a happy medium place? So, okay, if you want help from me, I have I do private coaching, whatever. I'm putting it out there. I have a studio where I help people every week.
Helen:I'm going live today. As a matter of fact, just for funny shits and giggles to tell you, I planned the noon Zoom meeting, and now I have to be at the airport at two for a 02:30 flight. So guess what? I'm wrapping this up right now, getting myself to the airport, and I'm gonna I'm gonna use my free pass to get into the lounge, or I'm just gonna find a place to sit and record the Zoom meeting at the airport. So you can always find a way.
Helen:And when I say a Zoom meeting, that's my weekly meeting with my studio students where I teach a lesson live. And so if you want help from the studio, it's that's affordable. It's only $36 a month, and you can get a live meeting with me every week. I'm always giving feedback in the community chat. I'm teaching a lesson every single week in there that's recorded.
Helen:So even if you come four months later, you can go back and see the lessons that were taught, and you can see what other people posted because we share our challenges in each of one of the lessons. It's really, really great. There's no way I can not say it because I'd be lying to you, and I enjoy it so much. And the feedback I'm getting from my students is amazing. And Amber wrote she was in the chat.
Helen:If you go come to the community this week, you'll see what Amber wrote in the chat. But I'm gonna read to you something that I just got this morning from mister Yep Yep, who is a member of my studio. Hold on. Few transcription. So he left me a voice message in Instagram in Instagram, and it says, I wanted to thank you really quick.
Helen:Just a quick message. Thank you for inspiring me to make quality videos because I know my latest stuff is music, but Paris Hilton friended me. She commented. She likes my stuff, and this doesn't happen to everybody. This is because I have quality videos inspired by you to keep going.
Helen:And I know it's concert stuff, but it's so great and validating, and it makes me feel so good. So thank you. Thank you, Helen. Thank you. What?
Helen:I start to cry. But those are the kind of messages I'm getting from people who are in the studio. So if you want help, if you want support, if you want motivation to learn how to make quality videos, all of those things come and hang with us. It's so fun. I'll leave you with that.
Helen:Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next week when I'm back. Hopefully, we'll have baby news. Ah, my son and daughter-in-law are supposed to be having a baby by Monday, June. Can't wait to meet her. So hopefully, next time I record, I'm gonna have some really fun news for you.
Helen:Alright. Have a great weekend. Bye.
