The Socialize Podcast

Helen: 00:00

Welcome back to the socialized strategy, the Friday edition of the socialized podcast where we take a deep dive into a topic of the week. And as always, before I get started, I will make my quick announcements, which is only one for this week. I have an editing work shop coming up on April 19th. Registration is open, it is free. And you can learn about stop motion videos and the techniques for making good stop motion.

Helen: 00:27

And as well, we're gonna cover some product transitions. So if you are someone who finds yourself working with products, whether it's, packaged goods, whether it's clothing, whatever, there are ways to make your content more engaging by doing stop motion, transitions, and they are very, very easy to do. And I'm gonna show you how to do them. So come to the workshop and learn. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

Helen: 00:51

Those workshops are always a blast. I feel that I'm hanging out with people. I do feel like I have a little student body class, and I just love to share how things are done. So please come and learn with me. I do.

Helen: 01:06

I do love it. Okay. Let's move on and get into the topic of the week, which is how to optimize your social media bio. The bio is the most underutilized thing by so many creators. And I will see sometimes big creators on these apps.

Helen: 01:22

And then I'll go to their bio and I'm thinking, oh my goodness. They're not making use of this real estate. And it's such a helpful thing to be able to go discover someone on an app, whatever it is, and you're seeing a video and you're intrigued. And then you can tap on their name and you could read what they're there for, what's their background, what's their mission, whatever information you would wanna find out about them should be in that bio. And a lot of people just have it blank, which always makes me confused.

Helen: 01:51

And also, I think a lot of times when people start out on the apps and then they suddenly explode just because they have 1 or 2 viral videos, they don't even realize that it's something that would be useful for them moving forward. So I'm going to attack basically go through a bunch of things on why and how to utilize the bio effectively and things to think about when you're making your bio. So as always remember that if I mention anything and I talk about links, usually those links can be found in the newsletter, in the email newsletter. So make sure you're subscribed so that you can click on the things I'm talking about. Alright.

Helen: 02:25

Let's get into it. So having an effective bio can help convert viewers into followers. Let me repeat that again For those in the back of the room, having an effective bio can turn viewers into followers. Why? When someone taps on your video or views your video and stays with it and watches it, and then they might think I want might wanna follow this person, but let's see what the rest of their videos are about.

Helen: 02:50

They usually go to the bio and tap on meaning tap on the username and it takes you to the main page. And at the top is the bio, which describes something about the creator. And it's helpful there if you have a mission, a niche, or something you wanna make sure people know why you're there. It's helpful to have that filled in because that might prompt the person who happened on upon your video, liked it, maybe dropped a comment, maybe even added it to favorites, it will give them a reason to follow you. So don't miss out on this opportunity.

Helen: 03:21

It's so helpful and important. And I a lot of times when I say it to people that I've just meet or I'm talking about social media, I'm amazed that it's not a given. So that's why I felt it was important. We have an episode and a newsletter dedicated to the topic. It's the first thing someone sees when they land on your page, whether it's Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, wherever you are.

Helen: 03:41

Even on LinkedIn, if you think about it. I don't think a lot of people give thought and look over their LinkedIn off often enough because things change. You might wanna reword things. I tend to do that often. I look at my LinkedIn and I think, what do I wanna lean into?

Helen: 03:53

What am I really leaning into now? And let's make sure it's in my bio. So go look at your LinkedIn if you haven't done that in a while. So here's a little reminder for you because you'd be surprised how many people are happening upon your LinkedIn page when you don't know it. Alright.

Helen: 04:04

A lot of platforms have character limits. So what I'm gonna say is even though one of our suggestions is gonna be be creative, give information, and try and be consistent across platforms, it is difficult to do that when there's a character limit. So you've gotta be creative and think how do you want it to appear. I will say bullet points are helpful. I find that and maybe I'm just a person that likes to read bullet points.

Helen: 04:30

I I don't know. But I do find that a lot of people who have bullet points tend to be the ones who have the bigger followings. So think about using bullet points. Now let's talk about, tip number 1 is take advantage of the name line. At the top, you have a username and then you have a name name.

Helen: 04:47

I think they're in opposite places on TikTok versus Instagram on I'm not even sure now. I'm getting scrambled. But you have the username is with the at sign, and then you have the name that's attached. So, for example, on mine, I have at the mothership, and I used to have my name up at the top. And I decided to change that because what was happening, especially on TikTok, is sometimes my name would show up in some as if I dropped a comment, it would show up at the mothership, and other times, it would show up as my name.

Helen: 05:16

And I thought this is confusing. Let me make it consistent. And I wanna maximize the the name line because that is being as a searchable thing, especially on Instagram and TikTok. Your name, not your username, is used for catalog catalogued searchability. So that's an important line to inform people, and it gets your content out to the right audience.

Helen: 05:38

So circling back to an example, which is me, that I have at the mothership in my username. And at the top, I changed it I changed it now to the mothership TikTok teacher because I wanted it to be consistent with my branding. And I didn't think it was as important for my name to be up there, my first and last name. I felt that more memorable is the mothership. And I was gonna lean into that.

Helen: 06:02

That was my choice. You can be a person who, let's say, your interest interest is a cars or books or whatever your your niche is. You can have your username be that and then you can have your first and last name if you want people to know what it is or just your first name and then something about your account. So think about that. I talk a lot about this in the TikTok beginner course, because I do think it's an important thing when you're setting up your account to make a decision.

Helen: 06:29

And by the way, you can change this often. So you don't have to think, oh, once I decide this when I'm setting up my account, I can't change it. You can change it every month. You can change it. You can change it often.

Helen: 06:39

I know the username can only be changed every 30 days, but I think you can change your name whenever you whenever you like. So if you have if you're not taking advantage of that, take a look at your account and decide, what do I want to show up there? What do I want people to what do I want to be searchable about that name at the top? Thinking about think about that. Next tip is mentioned already, but use short bulleted statements.

Helen: 07:02

It is better for people to absorb bullet pointed statements versus a long paragraph. And it also puts it into their mind in a more memorable way. If you think about a list of words versus a paragraph, what would you memorize easier? A list of words. It's harder to memorize a long ongoing paragraph.

Helen: 07:22

So if you think about that's how your memory works in memorization. It's probably how your quick memory works when you're just quickly observing something. And take advantage of that thinking and use your use use your bio in that way with short bulleted points. I noticed a lot of people use emojis, and that's also a fun, you know, possible use. But again, every time you use a character that's a character less of a word that you can't use and there are limits to the characters.

Helen: 07:48

So just keep that in mind. Bullet out statements will make it easier for your audience to digest information. Alright. Now let's get to the next one. Now if you know me, I had to pause my phone.

Helen: 08:02

I had to pause this for a second because Jonathan was calling me right in the middle of this. And he is relentless and he will call me continuously until I answer. So I had to pause, and I'm back. Next one, type out your email in your bio. This is so helpful, and no one tells you this in the beginning.

Helen: 08:18

That if someone unless you don't want your email known, obviously, you can make a separate email especially for your links maybe if you don't wanna be barraged in your main email with random, sales pitches or reach outs. But it is unbelievable to me how convenient that has become for reach outs when people wanna reach me, whether it's brands wanna reach me or, it clients, potential clients who wanna work with me on a commercial shoot, and they see that that's what I do for a living. So having an email in there is very, very helpful. Again, if you want to be found by email. It's just, one of those things where a lot of times when you first join the app, you don't necessarily have the option to put a link in your bio.

Helen: 09:01

So this is a perfect way to put something up there where people can reach you. I'm gonna talk about that a little bit later. But keep in mind that on when you're in a business account, you do get to click and have a clickable email. And that's great for a business account. But when you're when you're working on your, and when you're working on your bio and you're trying to and you realize I wanna stay as a personal account and you don't have a link, there has to be a way for people to reach you.

Helen: 09:27

So the other thing is when people are looking at these apps on the desktop, a lot of times the links aren't clickable on the desktop. So you might wanna make sure something's in there that's that's a reachable reachable thing for people to find you. That's just a secondary thing to keep in mind, but but important nonetheless. Now if you do have the opportunity to have a link, and again, each platform, Instagram gives you a link immediately. TikTok gives you a link on a personal account, I believe, when you get to a 1000 followers.

Helen: 09:57

So there's there's a little lag there if you're just starting out on TikTok where you don't have a link, and it's a little frustrating. But if you do have clickable link option, it's a good idea to either find a way to make it a one stop shop to everything or pick your most important link. And obviously, a lot of people use Linktree or one of those link programs. And I do have a tutorial on how to set up a Linktree if you don't know how to do that, so I've included that in the newsletter. But if you have a Linktree and you tap, then you can have multiple links.

Helen: 10:30

So if you wanna send people to your website for this or to your podcast for that, or you're trying to send them to your Amazon store because here's things that you're promoting. Whatever the things are, it's helpful to have that link tree to give people the options on where to go. I'm sure as a user, you've seen those. So as a creator, if it's something that you're interested in sending people to different places, it's a very easy thing to set up and they are free up until I think the there's like a base version that's free. And if you wanna super duper design something, then you do have to pay, do a paid version.

Helen: 11:02

But the very basic ones are free, so there's not extra money. And it's just a place people can go to learn more about you. So you might even wanna put your an email link. So a link right to somebody emailing you in your link tree. There's a lots of different ways to get people to the things you want to get them to.

Helen: 11:20

Okay? Now let's talk about the people who don't have a clickable link option because I know this is a frustration by a lot of people who start out and they want they have a small business. They're starting out particularly on TikTok. They're starting out because, again, Instagram gives you a link right away. But on TikTok, you don't get a link.

Helen: 11:37

And it's like you're being punished until you have a 1,000 followers. And I don't like it. So you've gotta think about what are you going to put in the writing on your bio that is most important to you to get people to that is easy to digest? So for example, make a little website. This is one option.

Helen: 11:57

Make a little website with a nice simple username. So for our website, it's hellosocialize.com and I capitalized the h and the s so it's readable. So somebody doesn't have to process all lowercase and remember the words running together. Capitalize the letters to separate the words because it doesn't matter. Person's gonna remember it and they're gonna type it into their browser.

Helen: 12:17

Hellosocialize.com. Easy to remember. So if we didn't have a link option in our bio, I would I would type that in. Learn more at hellosocialize.com. And I would have the little pointing arrows at it or something like that.

Helen: 12:30

So, you know, visual interest. So think about potentially setting up a one stop place where you're gonna offer all your things to your your, viewers. And when I say when I do say website, I wish I had done this first. I I've very much went down the path of different links for different things and sign up here for this and sign up there for that. And then I suddenly recently realized Julie and I Julie and I sat down together and we thought, what if everything was accessible on the website?

Helen: 12:58

So you go to one place and you can get to the podcast, the tutorials, the workshops, the what's the other thing? The course and the newsletter. And so there's 5 things that are available on one link so that I'm not sending a person to this link to sign up for a workshop, that link to sign up for, or to to sign up for the newsletter, this link to listen to the podcast. They can go to one place and then all the things are there. It's just a different mindset, and it really depends on what you're trying to promote the most.

Helen: 13:30

If you're doing promotion with your newsletter, with your, I'm sorry, your social media, but it's give that some thought because I I wish that I had maybe given some thought to that early on and always had a one stop place because I think then the build community building would have been quicker. I think it was pretty quick already just because of my social media, but I do think having a focused website is a helpful thing. So if you're not gonna do a focused website, definitely a focused Linktree that gives all of your places. So you're sending people to whatever it is they're looking for and making it very digestible. I will say, gonna throw myself under the bus, I don't think my links are the greatest because I just use my other mothership website and I have a hidden link page and they're just black buttons and they all look the same.

Helen: 14:23

So maybe I need to take my own advice and optimize my bio. Julie has to help me with that, I think, because I have to pick a good one that I wanna have to design it and that my skill set is making the video content. I'm not great with graphics and making things as pretty. I wish I I wish I was more focused on that part of it. But you've got to lean into what you do best and get people to help you.

Helen: 14:46

That's a perfect lesson right there Is get people to help you so that you're not debilitating yourself and spending hours and hours doing something which somebody else can do in 5 minutes for you. You can get help. I guess I guess it's funny. Speaking to that, get if people that are trying to learn how to edit might think, I don't wanna learn how to edit. It takes too long.

Helen: 15:06

Get help. But you can learn to edit in my editing workshops, and they and it will come quicker to you. So don't get derailed by this idea that all because you're not good at something that you should get somebody else to do it. You can learn. And I'm sure I can sit and learn how to do graphic design.

Helen: 15:23

It's just that it's not my interest. And we really love to spend time on the things that interest us the most. If there's one thing I learned in business is even with your people, have them do the things that they're the most interested in because they're more likely to deliver and be successful. Little business tip. Alrighty.

Helen: 15:43

Next up. I'm I'm really going off on a lot of tangents today, but I hope you're getting a lot of information out of this because I love to just and just share things as they come to my brain. And so it's a little bit of squirrel when I go in this direction and then kitty cat when I go in that direction. So I've gotta make sure I stay on track, which is why I have my bullet point list up here. So last thing is very related to what I have already said a bunch of times in this, but having a call to action in your bio will help direct your customers to where your content, business, lives, website, Etsy page, wherever it is.

Helen: 16:16

So, again, it's about organization and where you want to send people so that they can find everything else. I'm gonna just break it down since I've said a lot of things, and I'm gonna go backtrack a little to say the link in your bio should lead to multiple things that you want people to get to. So saying that again, if your link is your website and it's just your website, you should have all of your things accessible on your website. If you don't have a website, you should think about a link tree type of link so that when you when a person clicks, they can go to different things. And this is really important right now on TikTok because you wanna have a link that takes people to another platform in case something happens with TikTok.

Helen: 17:06

So make sure your Instagram link is in there. So when people click, they can find you on Instagram, perhaps, if things start to get hairy. Or if you you want them to find you on Facebook, or if you want them to find you on YouTube, make sure you are delivering those bullet points in your links so that people can go directly to it and it's not a lot of work for them to get to. Hopefully, I learned a lot today with this one. I love talking about I just like getting deep into the details, and sometimes that's my downfall.

Helen: 17:35

I get in the weeds too much when I'm presenting. But I often think the weeds are what people miss. And when people leave out those little bits of information, they're not giving you the full picture of what you should be doing. So I don't know. I'm I like to pull the weeds.

Helen: 17:52

Not at my not in my yard per se, but I do like to pull the weeds when it comes to presenting information and not leaving anything out. I'm going to answer 2 quick questions before we wrap up. And they I don't know if these are necessarily niche questions, but I like to ask answer the very specific that I said I was gonna ask questions or answer. Oh, my goodness. I should play that back.

Helen: 18:14

But I am going to answer 2 questions that are very specific. But I also often think that sometimes these specific questions, a lot of people maybe have them. They just haven't really articulated them because they think they're too specific. So the first one is how do I change the type of content I'm seeing on my for you page? This one is specifically TikTok related.

Helen: 18:36

The next question's actually Instagram related. But on TikTok and most of these platforms, I know that people know this to some degree, but I'm gonna spell it out. If you watch a video to the end, you will likely get something very similar delivered to you a few videos later. The algorithm is constantly feeding you what you appear to be interested in and that doesn't mean that you have to like it or comment on it. If you watch it all the way to the end, you have just told the algorithm, I love content with dogs because I just watched this dog video to the end.

Helen: 19:11

And I guarantee you, a few swipes later, you will get more dogs. It's just the way these algorithms work. So on top of that, if you like it, comment on it or save it, you even more likely get more of those. If you think, oh, I'm not going to engage in this, but I'm curious. You know, it's an airport drama.

Helen: 19:30

You watch it all the way. I rest assured you will get more airport drama because you watched it all the way. So the first thing to know is if you're trying to change what you're seeing and what you're being fed on your for you page, be careful of what you watch to the end. Because what you watch all the way to the end is more likely even than commenting, liking, and sharing is more likely what you're gonna get fed over and over again. Alright.

Helen: 19:58

So process that and think how am I gonna do the opposite of that if I don't like something? So once you see a video and you don't like it, immediately, you know, I'm not liking this swipe first off. You can also on the TikTok app, you can tap and hold, I believe, and choose not interested. You can press the forwarding arrow or the 3 dots on the right hand side, and then you can choose not interested. So that way, you can spell it out for the app.

Helen: 20:23

But quite honestly, in my experience in learning, the quicker you you swipe, the better chance you have at not seeing content like that again. So it's it's problematic because oftentimes we don't like to watch the, you know, slow down and look at the car accident when we're driving by. But sometimes you can't help it and you do it. And so it's a hard thing to break. And when I hear people say, oh, my 40 page is just filled with, you know, girls in bikinis or mean mean stuff or whatever.

Helen: 20:54

Well, that's because you're watching the mean stuff to the end because you're inviting more of it. So you have to really be mindful of that swipe being quick enough. If you can as soon as you see something swipe, as soon as you see something swipe, I guarantee it's gonna change the view of your for you page, and it's gonna help you curate your own content better. K. Next question.

Helen: 21:19

Let's see where the next question is. Okay. Here it is. So you post a reel. You're already at 20,000 views.

Helen: 21:27

This person is very specific with this and it seems to be growing. I totally get reach and awareness, but how do you make social media work for you? What does reach mean for the person or company who posted the the real and can it be monetized? That's a whole lot of questions. I'm gonna start from the back and move my way forward.

Helen: 21:46

Can it be monetized? If you have an account, which is a monetizable account on Instagram, which means I think you have have to met certain criteria to be invited into the monetization program. And off the top of my head, I don't remember what those qualifications are, but you need to be able to monetize. And the same thing with with TikTok. If you're in the creativity beta program, you are able to monetize your content that are longer than 1 minute videos.

Helen: 22:10

But is this money gonna pay the rent? That's a no. That's a no. Because the money is very small. It's like pennies in the amount of views.

Helen: 22:19

So even 20,000 views, I don't even know if that's $2. That might even be, like, 2¢. Hopefully, it's not 2¢, but 20¢. I'm telling you, it's very, very low. There was a woman on TikTok who just shared a video.

Helen: 22:32

I might try and find it, where she had 3,000,000 views on a video. That is a lot of views to get on a video, and the chances of that are much more slim than 20,000 views. But doing the math, at 3,000 views, she was flipping excited because she was get up to $1500 in her creativity beta. I'm just giving you a reference point. So I can't do the math that quickly.

Helen: 22:57

But if a 3,000,000 views is paying out $1500, what's 1,000,000 views paying? You know what I mean? Back that up. We're talking pennies, and there's not a lot of people getting 3,000,000 views on a video on a regular basis. That was, as she said, like a fluke.

Helen: 23:16

She made this video in 20 minutes at work. It's got 3,000,000 views. She resonated with somebody. So I guess I could say this, dangle that carrot, 3,000,000 views. You can make $1500 on your video if you're in the program.

Helen: 23:30

But the chances of getting a video that has 3,000,000 views, I can tell you I've been posting on TikTok for 4 years, and I post tutorials that go viral often. I have a total. I think I did a thing once. I have a total of 6 videos maybe that have over a 1000000 views. That's it.

Helen: 23:46

Over 4 years. It's not a lot of viral videos with big numbers like that over that period of time. I'm more likely to have videos that hit 10,000 views and 20,000 views. But if you are seeing creators that have consistently millions of views on every single piece of content, then you can kind of do the math. So run with that.

Helen: 24:05

I and there's a piece of information that hopefully was helpful, either helpful or discouraging. I'm not quite sure. But I'm gonna leave you with that one. Because I was just like I love seeing the numbers because I look at my creativity beta program and I have videos that get a decent amount of views on my tutorials. My creativity beta since I started it, I guess, a few months ago, months ago, maybe 6 months ago now.

Helen: 24:27

And I think it has $500 in it from multiple videos that I considered somewhat viral. So whatever. Who the hell knows how it all works? I just all I know is, don't shoot the messenger. I'm just providing the information.

Helen: 24:41

I hope you liked being here. I love it as always. Once I get rolling, you never know what's going to be said. So come visit me again next week. I'll be back on the microphone with some more fun adventures about social media.

Helen: 24:55

And thanks for visiting. If you landed here by the chance of a podcast search, make sure you're subscribed to the newsletter at hellosocialize.com so that you can get all the links to the things that I talk about and the updates twice a week. Alright. Thanks again. Have a nice have a great weekend.

Helen: 25:11

We'll see you next week.