The Socialize Podcast

Helen: 00:01

Welcome to the socialise strategy, the Friday edition of the socialise podcast where we take a deep dive into the topic of the week. I'm Helen Polisi, and we are going to talk about going live and some tips for going live. Before I do that, just a quick reminder that the next free editing workshop is posted and open for registration. It will be held on March 12th at 5 PM EST. So if you're interested in that, do go grab it.

Helen: 00:28

You can sign up the links in the show notes here. The link is in the newsletter as always, and you can always go to hellosocialize.com and click on workshops. Alright. Let us let's get into it. First off, if you are trying to go live, whatever platform you want you are on, whether it's Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, even on YouTube, wherever you're going live, LinkedIn, you really should think about what the purpose of your life is because it'll help you get into a place of being more prepared, being more ready.

Helen: 00:58

A lot of people have fear about it. Make sure you check by you can go to Google. Most of the apps are pretty clear on how many followers you need in order to go live so that you're not frustrated trying to figure it out. And it's because you don't have enough followers to do it. But it's a lot of fun, and it's a great way to engage with your audience and be more personal with them.

Helen: 01:19

I really, really enjoy it. It's probably one of my favorite things. I used to when I was having a really stressful day at work, I would say to Julie, I'm gonna I I need a break. I'm gonna go on TikTok live just because it was my happy place. I knew that I'd get some good vibes in the chat and have a nice engaged listeners tapping in, and I I just kind of love it.

Helen: 01:39

So I'm a people person, so I like to get some feedback. So if you are not that excited about it and you're nervous, but you know you wanna do it, let's I wanna go through a few things of how to make it easier for you. And one thing is if you to set your expectations properly. So don't think that you gonna are gonna go live for the first time and you're gonna have a room full of people, a virtual room full of people that are gonna be listening and stay the whole time. It is really, really not the case.

Helen: 02:07

You will likely have people tapping in and out pretty quickly, which gets frustrating. I remember the first time I went live for a good period of the time, I had 0 zero people in the room, in the chat. And it it's very intimidating because you can't just stop talking. It's a good idea to continue to talk because when people do come in, it's there's a chance that you're live will show up on the for you page. And if that happens, you don't wanna be just staring into the screen with nothing happening.

Helen: 02:33

So make sure you have a plan. I love to make a list of things I wanna talk about. And don't get stressed out. Almost consider it a practice run so that when there are no people in the chat, you're not getting stressed out about it. And you can continue to do your thing.

Helen: 02:51

And it's so much fun to relax and think of it as chatting with friends. A good thing to do for engagement purpose is to go live after you post a video. So posting a video first, there's a couple of good things that that happened because of it. Number 1, you have something to talk about. Oh, I just posted a video about this and maybe you can get people talking about it.

Helen: 03:13

And number 2, that tends to get your video pushed onto the for you page. So if you go live shortly after posting, your video will be seen. How do I know this? Because a lot of times I'll be I'll be scrolling and I see someone's video and then 2 scrolls later I see that they're live. So clearly the algorithm is pushing out that person's video, the person who is alive.

Helen: 03:34

So think about that. And you can also use that for as you're talking points. Talk about why you made the video, you know, what the comments are that are coming on it, why why you were prompted to make a video about that, and that can help to kick off your live so you have immediately have something to talk about. And planning that list of topics is key because it'll keep you on track. I find when I'm on the lives, I get so the minute I start to read the chat, I forget what I was saying.

Helen: 04:01

And then it's helpful to have notes because then I can at least go, what was I saying? And a lot of times when I'm doing the live, I'll write down little notes about the things I'm saying in the moment so that when someone distracts me with a comment or I see someone come in and I wanna say hi, I can look back at my list and I can get back on my train of thought because I do go shoo, like squirrel. I'm off I'm off and running somewhere else. To ease your nerves, you can FaceTime. Think of it as a FaceTime situation.

Helen: 04:28

The tricky part there is you're not getting that feedback from another live person. So if you are comfortable and you have someone that can go live with you, that's a another great way to relax. When you are live with a person, At least when you're talking, they can read comments. When they're talking, you can read comments. And it makes for a little time back and forth where you can gather your thoughts when someone else is taking the reins.

Helen: 04:54

So if you have the ability to go live with someone, that's key and it can really help to ease your nerves the first time because it will actually feel like you're on a FaceTime and other people are listening, which is fun. But if you can't go live with someone or you don't have anybody to do it with, if you think of it as a FaceTime, that can really help how you approach it. Think of having friends over, what kind of things you wanna talk about with them. It's just it's so much fun. You'll get such positive feedback.

Helen: 05:22

And if you have negative feedback coming into the comments, we're gonna talk about comments next. The the way to do that is number 1, ignore. But number 2, be aware that you can mute people that are saying rude things in your chat. So I have made a TikTok tutorial about going live where I show the screen so that if you've never seen what it looks like to go live, I show you what all the buttons do. So that is I'm gonna put that in the show notes and as well that's in the newsletter today.

Helen: 05:51

I think it's important to be able to see the screen because when you go live, your screen does look different, and it can be very intimidating. I remember the first time I went live. I didn't know how to turn it off. I didn't know how to get off the live. I was like stuck in the live.

Helen: 06:04

I didn't even know where to go but the end button was. So it is intimidating. And so you just wanna make sure you're prepared. And so seeing the screen, I showed the screen. I took some screenshots when I was live once so that I could demonstrate on my phone for you to see it what the screen looks like when you're live, and it's so key.

Helen: 06:24

So please watch that. And what I do say in that video is, if you are reading your comments, don't read them out loud immediately because a lot of people write things in, the trolls especially, that when you read words they mean something else and it's a very kind of a strange thing has happened to me a couple of times. So don't immediately read every comment out loud. If anything, read it in your head first. And then if you want to read it out loud and then address it, that's great.

Helen: 06:51

That's a great way to engage. But I just urge you to not read it out loud until you read it in your head first. It's very I wish someone had told me that one before because it's really crucial. Oh, my goodness. As a as a matter of fact, it can be very off putting when you have something happen where a troll comes in and you don't know what to do and then they're really being being obnoxious.

Helen: 07:12

So in the tutorial, I do show that when you tap someone's username in the comments, you can there's dots that you can tap and then you can mute them for the whole live. You can mute them. You can block them. If they're really being rude, you can just block them as a as a as a a user from you from your account so that they can't even see you. So do do look at that video so that you can see what the buttons are, so you know what you're doing.

Helen: 07:34

There's a lot of things you can do when you're live. You can flip your camera. You can mirror your camera. So if you're holding something up and you want someone to read it, you can mirror it so that it's in the right direction. You can also put a banner over your live, which talks shows you what tell tells your audience.

Helen: 07:51

It shows what you're there about. Maybe if you wanna put your website or if you're trying to sell something or promote something, you can put your information up there. If you're a coach of some sort, you can put your coaching info. It's really helpful to have a banner if you are there for a purpose because then you don't have to say over and over what your purpose is. I found that I was struggling in the beginning when I went out live when I first launched my TikTok course, and I wanted to keep telling people about it.

Helen: 08:17

So I kept having to say it. And then I felt very repetitive for the people who are in there and had been there and there for a while. You don't wanna be repetitive for the people who are staying. But you also need to be repetitive for the people who are just coming and going. So it's a catch 22.

Helen: 08:31

You're caught in the middle there, and you're not sure. It's it's a tough thing to navigate. So having a banner over your life will solve that because you don't have to be repetitive. And then people will ask you about the things like, oh, if I put a workshop up here, someone will ask me, when is the workshop? Or how can I find the link?

Helen: 08:48

So it prompts me to talk about it, but I'm not forced to continuously mention over and over and over again. It's a really good idea to offer some type of value to your audience when you're live. I love to take questions. I urge people to ask some some specific questions so that I can answer them on the spot. And I know I've seen some food people do actual actual baking or food prep on the live.

Helen: 09:13

And that's helpful because people can ask them questions as they're doing it. I would be too stressed out to do that. I don't know if I could multitask to that extent where I'm doing something and then reading comments and doing something. I think that would stress me out. So really know yourself before you take something like that on.

Helen: 09:28

Maybe start with something simple. Maybe if you are in the food space and you're not ready to start preparing food on camera, maybe you can take some questions, talk about a recipe, and say what you're going to do. If you're a jewelry maker, talk about your process. If you're an artist, if you're in a book talk, I know people love to talk about book talk. What's what book are you reading right now?

Helen: 09:49

What's intriguing? What's intriguing about it? Why did you pick it? And so having a topic that you can really grab onto is gonna help you. It's gonna be just such a good thing for your listeners.

Helen: 10:01

And it's also gonna keep you going, kind of like how I have to keep going here. These podcasts. I gotta keep going. So I have a list, and it really does help. The other thing is to be confident.

Helen: 10:13

Don't be don't be nervous and shy and and meek and mild because you're trying to portray something to your audience. You're trying to share. And you don't want to have to have people feeling sorry for you in the chat and saying, oh, gosh, don't worry, it's gonna be okay. I'm telling you people are so encouraging that they will, If you are panicking or something goes wrong, a lot of times I've had situations where I plan to do something and it went wrong on a live. I'm trying to remember exactly what, but I remember I was trying to figure something out.

Helen: 10:45

Add someone in, I forget what it was. I mean, the people in my chat were so lovely. They were they were trying to talk me through it. Even when I do my workshops, and something was going wrong recently on one of my workshops, my phone kept zooming. I mean, if you were on that workshop, my goodness, I am so sorry.

Helen: 11:00

But I did figure it out after I did go do exactly what someone in the chat said and what Julie had sent me as a link and I should have stopped the workshop for that moment and fix the phone. But my nature is to plow forward, make the most of it in the situation. Keep going. I've joked about it maybe a little too much, but keep going and get through it. Because people are very, very supportive.

Helen: 11:22

And there's not a lot of people that are going to just make fun of you or or make you feel bad about yourself. If anything, they're gonna be like, it's okay. It's your first time, you're gonna get better. Because really practice makes perfect. And the more you do it, the more confident you're gonna be.

Helen: 11:37

Whatever you do, don't complain. If you're you have an audience that is not high numbers, because that's insulting to the people who are there. If you had a party at your house and you invited people over, and then you were only complaining about the people who didn't show up, I don't think the people who were there would wanna stay. They feel pretty shitty and they'd wanna leave. So think about it in the same way.

Helen: 11:56

I always say, think about social media as real life. How would you treat people that come over your house? Would you want to entertain them so that they wanna stay? Would you wanna offer them something whether it's food or drink to keep them feeling good about about being there? Just think about how you can offer food and drink on a live, but you can certainly offer some value.

Helen: 12:17

You can share some stories. A lot of, lives, I've seen people play all these music and try and get people or do trivia. That's always fun too. And I know these, there's a lot of lies where they do these battles. I don't I don't know about those since I don't participate.

Helen: 12:33

But doing things like a one time I did TikTok trivia, that was a lot of fun. It was very in it was highly engaged with the people in the chat when you have everybody answering the questions. So there's a lot of fun things you can do. Do not get discouraged. Do not complain and feel apologetic.

Helen: 12:50

If you're apologizing constantly, it sounds nutty. People are gonna start getting like alright. Alrighty. She apologized enough times. I had to really I have to stop myself from doing this because often when something goes terribly wrong, I mention it too many times.

Helen: 13:04

Even though I plow through, I tend to get too concerned about it in my own head, and I have to battle that. I'm practicing hard at improving on a lot of things. Now that I'm putting myself out here and doing content more, I'm trying really hard to improve. So I self assess, I listen to things back. Gosh, I wouldn't wish I didn't say that so many times.

Helen: 13:29

So be don't be afraid to listen to your lives and see what you did. See how it felt because you can download your live after. I show that in the tutorial. You can download it after. You can watch yourself.

Helen: 13:42

Think of yourself as a viewer of your own life. How would you judge yourself? Would you say that you were cohesive? Were you apologizing too much? Were you repeating too much?

Helen: 13:52

Were you too distracted? What was it entertaining as a viewer, and then you can improve that way. So hopefully, this was helpful. I really enjoyed talking about I know you know that I enjoy talking about social media because I'm here twice a week doing it. I enjoy it.

Helen: 14:07

And I hope that you learn from the things that I share. If you have questions, please send them in because I love to answer questions at the end of the podcast. I haven't had any new questions recently, and I've answered a bunch over the past few weeks. So if you have questions, either respond to the newsletter, there's a link at the bottom which says submit questions, and you can pop a question in there. And I will answer it because I'm looking for some new questions each week.

Helen: 14:32

Thank you so much for being here. Much appreciated. Love having you. If you landed here by a podcast search, of course, subscribe to the newsletter so you can get the links. And don't forget that we do have the free TikTok course and free workshops on the website, hellosocialize.com.

Helen: 14:48

You can find the next one, which is editing 106 transitions. We're gonna do some transitions, and I'm gonna do some on the spot live. So I hope to see you there. And and as always, thank you for tuning in. I really enjoy being here.

Helen: 15:03

Have a good, have a good weekend.