August 23, 2024 • 26 mins
In today’s episode of the Socialize Strategy, we are talking about common mistakes influencers make when they first start influencing and even later as they continue to grow their audience!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Helen (00:00):
Welcome to the socialized strategy. Happy Friday. Fun
topic for today and maybe a lotof people will enjoy it because
don't we all love to talk aboutpet peeves? Well, this is a
little bit like that. We'regonna cover common influencer
mistakes and you've seen themfrom some of the very big
influencers.
(00:20):
And also probably there are someof these things that you've done
unknowingly yourself. So we'regonna tackle that topic. But
before I do so, I wanna shoutout to our sponsor, Premium
Ghostwriting Academy. And why iswriting a perfect fit for
today's sponsor? I always lovewhen the sponsor ties into the
topic of the newsletter.
(00:41):
And I think it fits because allthe content we create on video
does have thought behind it. Nomatter how quickly it's done or
if it's done slowly andmeasured, writing is at the root
of it. Because if you thinkabout it, you always have to
think about your hook, yourstory, the content itself,
whether it's told with speakingor with text on screen or if
(01:02):
it's voice over or just purely aspontaneous performance.
Ultimately, there's a messageunderneath that is being
conveyed. And so a good writerwho gives thought to that
message upfront will definitelyhave an edge to get your viewers
attention.
So if you are a good writer,I'll shout out the sponsor all
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(01:44):
So check it out and the linkwill be here in the show notes
and also in the newsletter. Nowlet's keep going because I do
love this idea that writing isat the root of everything we
create, even if we don't realizeit. And a lot of times, I'm
gonna be honest with you, whenI'm making a tutorial, I'll
instead of just starting withhere's how to do such and such,
I try and think of a differentway to start it. Because I'm
(02:05):
like, first of all, is myaudience bored? If they're
scrolling and every time it's atutorial, it's here how to do
it.
So I try to be a little creativeabout why I'm teaching the thing
or maybe start it off a littledifferently just from my own
head. I get sick of saying thesame opening as well. So
thinking about your content froma standpoint of a writing
(02:25):
perspective is a really goodidea just to stop, pause. If you
were a writer of a show, youwould and if show is video,
you're watching a show, it stillhas writers behind it thinking
about how it's going to be funnyor how it's going to be
interesting or how they're goingto tell the story. So don't
discard or disregard, notdiscard.
(02:47):
Don't disregard the idea thatwriting is involved in all of
the content you create, even ifyou don't like to think about
it. I really get frustratedbecause I don't think of myself
as a good writer. And when Ihave to write the caption, it's
torture sometimes. I'm not a fanof the written word and having
to come up with the the text formy videos. I have much easier
(03:07):
time just coming up with a videoconcept and creating.
So if you really take a minuteand put yourself in the writer's
seat and put your writer's haton and try and think about how
you can make your content moreinteresting, it's gonna help you
just really rise to the top,honestly. So let's keep going
and get into the topic fortoday. And we started off by
saying it does seem likeinfluencers have been around
(03:29):
forever, but only in the pastfew years has the influencer
space really, really turned intowhat it what it is now. It's
unbelievable when you thinkabout it because it's whenever
something comes into being, youcan't remember life without it.
Just like when the Internet cameand a lot of us like me, I
remember no Internet.
But it's hard for me to rememberno Internet. Like how did I find
(03:51):
out things? I don't evenremember now. We had to go seek
things at the library or we hadto look things up. I don't even
honestly, it's almost forsomebody who lived through it.
It's still difficult for me toremember a time without it. So
in the same way, we reallyalmost can't remember life
without influencers where therewere people in our phones
talking to us and sharing thingswith us. Think about it. Where
(04:12):
did we learn about the thingsthat we purchased? It's it was
just a different time.
But now with the prevalence ofinfluencers, there is so many
there are so many creatorsaspiring to be influencers now.
So we wanna share commonmistakes just so that if you're
trying to get into the space andyou're building an audience and
you've got a community happeningor you're building for your
(04:35):
brand, you know what to thinkabout and to how to keep your
content primo so that you don'thave no engagement on your
videos for the wrong reasons.Alright. So let's start from the
beginning. And my first I'mgonna go with this one as a pet
peeve because it really is.
Creators who complain abouttheir views. If you are an
(04:56):
influencer and you've been doingthis for a long time and all of
a sudden now we all areexperiencing it. The views are
terrible. I am telling you withthe following I have on TikTok,
it is terrible. I have videossometimes that don't even get to
a 1000 views and for a creatorwith that many followers, that
(05:17):
percentage is such a low amount.
And so I could be a person thatcould be complaining about it or
frustrated by it or aggravatedand getting on my soapbox. And I
have never made a video aboutit. I just am not interested in
complaining. I am here to showup for the 1,000 people that
(05:37):
make it to the to the views. Youknow what I mean?
That's what I'm here for. So ifyou turn your mind around and
think, oh, well, this is this iswhat it is right now. And I'm
gonna show up in my best way forthe few people who are seeing my
content. And that's how you haveto look at it. So don't waste
time.
Don't waste time and energy andputting yourself into that
(05:59):
negative space, about somethingthat you really have no control
over and none of us do. So thebig thing is to focus on
creating that good content forthe viewers that you are
getting. And you can always lookif a video doesn't do well, you
can always say I'm posting itagain in a week or wait a month,
and I'm gonna post it again in amonth. And maybe the algorithm
(06:19):
will do its wavy thing whereyou're on a roll. Sometimes I
get on a roll where a bunch ofmy videos are getting good views
and all of a sudden back down,and then they're getting crappy
views.
Whatever. This is the rollercoaster we're on and we can't
control the ride, unfortunately.We just have to keep getting on
it if you're interested inriding roller coasters that is.
(06:40):
Okay. So the next one is toeliminate that high guys
mentality.
And this is not necessarilybecause you're saying the words,
hi guys. It's the idea thatyou're talking to a group of
people who are all together inthe same room when in fact we
are all individually looking atour phones. So we are alone. So
when you're talking to me as acreator and you're like, oh,
(07:02):
guys, guys, guys, you're notgonna believe this. I mean,
maybe I'll listen to that.
But a lot of times I'm justlike, guys, I'm here by myself.
Who are you talking to? Youknow, so I think maybe this idea
that these bigger creators havegotten into where it's like my
people, my posse, my family,like talking to everybody as a
(07:26):
big group. It can work if you'restill personal about it, but it
could also backfire if yousuddenly are thinking that it's
this large group that aresitting all together in a space
when actually it's just you andthat person. So try to really
think about yourself.
(07:47):
Like, what do you like whenyou're viewing? Listen to the
creators who you're watchingwhen you scroll and decide for
yourself. Do you like whensomeone's referring to you that
way? Or do you rather whensomeone feels like they're
talking to you 1 on 1? And maybeyou're a person that get that
gets creeped out if you thinksomeone's talking to you 1 on 1
and maybe you like the groupthinking.
(08:08):
Everybody's to each his own,honestly. So this is not to say
this is right and this is wrong.This is to say that try things
to see what your audience grabsonto more likely because you'll
see a pattern if if you'reconstantly, doing like a big
group talk and then you suddenlydo one video where you're going
(08:28):
like mano a mano talking to oneperson and that one does better.
Maybe that's what your audiencehas been missing. Maybe they've
felt that you weren't they werenot important.
When I hear big creators say,guys, guys, guys, you know, blah
blah blah. I'm always like, I Istop and I hesitate. And I
think, you know what? I'm nothere for this. Like, I'm not one
(08:50):
of I'm not one of your fans.
I'm I I look at it. I think somany of us have a parasocial
relationship where we don'twanna think we're one of
someone's many fans in a lot ofcases. And maybe that's just my
personal thing. I don't know. Ilike a 1 on 1.
I like to feel connected withthe person that I'm watching.
(09:11):
You know what? Who's a reallygood person to maybe think about
related to this? But I'll noticethat there are creators like a
Bethenny Frankel type person. Idon't know if that's
controversial to mention her.
Whatever. But she's she willtalk like as if she's with her
fans. Okay? So it's like, youguys gotta believe you guys and
(09:33):
for some reason that doesn'tdisturb me coming from her. And
I don't know why.
And I think if I try and thinkabout it hard, it's like maybe
because I think of her in moreof a she's been on reality
shows, so she is in that kind ofcelebrity ism. So she's
appreciating her audience as herfans. And so maybe there's some
(09:54):
value there to her being like,you guys are so important to me.
And so maybe then I can beaccepted as one of the people
that she is thinking. I don'tknow.
But I think it really depends.So think about maybe you
personally, how you'reconnecting with your audience
and decide if that high guysmentality is could work for you.
(10:16):
It's not a hard pass. It's justa mat matter of maybe who it's
coming from. I think I'm havinga therapy session here all by
myself.
So thanks for listening becauseI'm really trying to figure it
out. What don't I like about itand why am I always advising
against it? And I think becausemaybe for me, it has worked out
to be more like I'm a one on oneteacher for my each one of my
(10:39):
viewers versus, I'm in a wholeclassroom with a bunch of
people. And when I do TikToklives and when I do workshops, I
am in a classroom and my wholetone changes. And you'll notice
that on my workshops.
If you listen to the workshops,I'm in with a whole bunch of
people. But right now, I'm justhere with you in this moment for
this podcast. So maybe you couldhelp me out. I would love
(11:00):
feedback on this. I would Iwish, at some point, I wanna
have a community discussionforum thing that's gonna be
coming soon where I can get somefeedback.
Like, do you really do you agreewith this, or am I crazy? Or
what's your take on it? And Iwould love to have some sense of
that. So maybe, hit reply on theemail if you want for now and
tell me. Alright.
(11:21):
Now the next one is not creatingan audience first type of
content. So what is audiencefirst content? It's really
flipping it around and making itnot about you. So I'll use
myself as an example. I like tothrow myself under the bus
whenever I can.
But if I started everything,every piece of content, and I
said, I'm gonna teach you howto, or I'm gonna show you blah
(11:47):
blah blah, or I'm going to, orI'm the TikTok teacher, and I'm
gonna explain how this is done.I don't think that would
resonate as quickly as the oneswhere I say, if you wanna learn
how to do an outfit transitionlike this, or here's how you
notice the you versus the I. Andit's a such a simple shift. You
(12:08):
can do it with any piece ofcontent. Think about what you
were gonna say and then say,okay.
Now think about it from theperson the view of the listener,
the point of view of thelistener. And so think about
what is valuable about what youare sharing, what is valuable to
them. I just had a really funnyarrangement with the word
valuable. Valuable? I don't knowwhat just happened.
(12:32):
Thanks for taking that ride withme. Anyway, if you think about
your audience first, think aboutwhat they need, think about what
your content is doing for them,how it's making them feel. Is it
gonna teach them something? Isit going to enlighten them? Is
it gonna be something relatable?
And put it into a you versus ame. And this, of course, circles
(12:54):
back to being a good writerabout it. So analyzing your
content from a writing, how isit how is it written? Even
though maybe you're not writingit down when you're saying it,
there's words. So how is itwritten?
And then thinking about flippingit, flipping it around, because
you don't necessarily want to beconsistently highlighting
(13:14):
yourself and what you're doing,and then not being able to be
relatable to your audience.Hopefully, that explained it. I
don't know. Yet another soapbox.Sorry about that.
But sometimes I get in I get init. Alright. Next one. This is
probably one of my favorites,but poorly edited content. Don't
be the person that is pressingthe record button and talking
(13:37):
before you've got it fullypressed or letting go before you
finished and cutting your wordsoff.
Don't be that person. Record alittle extra and then edit it.
Edit it. Tighten it up withediting instead of recording and
letting go too soon and losingthe last word or losing the
first word, please. Because it'sso annoying to listen to content
(13:58):
that it's chopped weird.
I I understand tight editing. Ilove tight editing. I'm a fan
of, like, even cutting out thebreaths on some things, you
know, and sometimes when I go Ido a little that or I breathe,
and I wanna tighten those upsometimes. But so I'm a fan of
the tightening. I just don't I'mnot a fan of over tightening
(14:19):
where it's like you don't finishthe sentence and then you're
onto that.
And then and none of it makessense because you haven't
finished the word on the lastsentence before you're talking
about the next sentence. Sothat's a big that is definitely
classified as a pet peeve forthe mothership. I can't stand
it. I will immediately scrollthe minute the first sentence is
clipped. I'm out.
So you're losing me. If you'renot losing anyone else, fine,
(14:41):
but you're losing me on thatone. The other thing is while
we're at it, I have to give ashout for the microphone
problems that I'm noticing.There's so many people that are
not setting their wirelessmicrophones to mono. And so
their sound is only coming outof 1 headphone, and that is a
huge pet peeve.
When I am scrolling and promotedcontent is coming out of one of
(15:02):
my headphones, like, this is aprofessional ad. Didn't they
hear that and fix that beforethey because you can once you do
it, it's hard to fix it. But Iknow that there's an editing
program I can use to to fix it.But don't don't have your head
your sound coming out of oneheadphone. Because what's weird
about that if the person iswearing the other headphone,
some people just wear oneheadphone.
If you're only coming out ofthis headphone, your video is
(15:25):
gonna have no sound at allbecause the person's wearing the
wrong headphone, which is alsoweird. But I know this is asked
backwards, but mono meanseverything is recorded on both
channels. Stereo means you mighthave a pair of microphones and
one of them is recording on onechannel and the other is
recording on the other channel.So depending on which microphone
(15:48):
you are wearing, you're onlygonna come out of 1 headphone.
It's crazy bonkers backwards.
I don't write the rules. Ididn't make up the words. I'm
just telling you how it is.Okay? Make sure your little plug
that goes into the phone is setto mono so that you come out of
both phones.
Just think opposite and thenyou'll be fine. It's like think
(16:09):
backwards. So that's it. Wedon't want poorly edited
content. You don't want longlong breaths in between lots of
pauses.
You wanna be tightly edited butyou don't wanna over tighten to
the point of chopping off yourwords. Okay. Another mistake a
lot of influencers make, oh mygoodness, is getting excited
about collaboration requests andthen accepting every single
(16:32):
thing that comes by their emailor they get reached out to for.
So when you start creatingconsistently and you are getting
noticed by agencies and brands,it's exciting. And you think,
Oh, yes.
Yay. I'm gonna make $200 hereand $200 there and ding, ding,
ding, and you're $50 here and afree product there. What happens
is your content will getcluttered with use quote selling
(16:58):
products and your audience isreally going to start to get
annoyed. And then if you startdoing things where they're not
even things you really use,you're not even going to be seen
as authentic anymore. Sothere's, like, just a
combination of problems thathappens when you start to get
these opportunities.
And I'm gonna share a tip fromLorraine Laddish, who's a big
(17:19):
influencer here, and I mentionedher often on these podcasts.
Thank you for letting me,Lorraine, use your name again
and again. But she's she hasbeen an influencer long before
and much sooner than a lot ofthe 2020 and beyond influencers
have come out of the woodwork.She's doing this much longer
than that, like, 10 years fromfrom now. So we're back we're
talking back in 2014.
She's an early influencer. Andshe still only posts 10% of her
(17:43):
content as influencer assponsored content. So she still
does 90% authentic herself, herlife, her family, things she
really does like, things thatare not sponsored. So this way
her audience knows immediatelywhen something is sponsored and
also has enough of a vibe of herto know why she's promoting a
thing or that there are somethings she just really likes and
(18:05):
she's not even getting paid topromote them. So just it's a
really tough it's a really toughone.
I'm gonna say that there's a lotof influencers who struggle with
it because we know you have theaudience and it's time to
monetize. It's like you'vegotten this far and it's time to
make it worth your time, but itcould be really, really messy
and it could start to have yourloyal followers falling off,
(18:29):
unfollowing, not interested inyour content. So doing
collaboration any collaborationthat comes your way could be a
mistake. So stick withauthenticity, trust with your
audience, keep that trust bybeing yourself, being true to
yourself and and and trying tobe mindful of the balance of
your content. Alright.
(18:51):
Now, lastly, I'm not gonna I'mgonna not gonna sign off without
answering a couple of questions.But I just wanna say as an
overview for this message of oftoday about mistakes influencers
make, there's many more that youmight wanna add to this. There
could be influencers who moveout of their lane. We can, like,
I can run off and say, why is aninfluencer about fashion all of
(19:13):
a sudden now going into talkingabout some kind of public
scandal that's happening. And alot of people do that because
they get swept up.
And the next thing you know,you're not sticking with your
expertise or your niche or whyyou've come to your audience.
And so I always say, look atyour core belief, your North
(19:34):
Star. Why are you posting andwhat's your audience with you
for? And stay true to yourself.Because if you start just
hunting, pecking into everydifferent area just because you
think, Oh, everybody's talkingabout this now, I gotta talk
about it.
And you will get pressure a lotof times as you grow. Creators
(19:54):
will come into your commentsoftentimes and ask you, what's
your take on such and such? Idon't know. It's not my area. A
lot of times I just wanna say Idon't have a take on it because
my take doesn't matter.
It's not where my expertiselies. If you wanna ask me about
sound quality, about video, howthings are done and you want me
to weigh in on something likethat, I'm all in because that's
(20:16):
my area of expertise. You wannaask me about production, content
creation, tips, and strategy,and things like that. I'm in for
that. And I'm even in for thingslike give me I'll talk about
baking tips because I like tobake.
But there's certain things thatI'm not an expert in, and I'm
not gonna start spewing out myaudience about something that
I'm not well versed in. Soalways think unless it goes to
(20:39):
audience first. Think about whatyour audience is following you
for and what do they wanna hearfrom you about. And you don't
have to talk about somethingjust because everyone else is
posting about it. That's all Ihave to say about that.
Okay. Let's get to thequestions. Hooray. I'm off the
soapbox. Two questions fortoday.
How can you not show your facein a duet? Love it. Love the
(21:03):
question because when you tapduet now and a lot of people
will say, oh, my gosh. The onlyoption I have is to record in
real time. And actually you cando something as simple as taking
your phone and putting it downon the table.
So it turns to black on the Duetside. So the cam or put
something over the camera. Soyou can flip the camera and put
(21:23):
it down or you can put somethingon top of the camera. And then
you can just record the Duet andput titles on it. But I've
noticed that some people aregonna have this green screen
option.
So when they tap Duet, you cantap green screen and then you
can put a photo. You canactually insert a photo in front
of, in front of your on yourphone. So you don't even have to
have your have the black screenthere. You can have some photo
(21:46):
there and you can do that.Obviously, there's different
layouts for duets.
Just be mindful when you do aduet. It's a good idea to do
something that so that it's notjust taking that person's video
and then not putting anythingwith it to change it because the
algorithm doesn't really pushvideos out that are not. It it
looks like you're stealingcontent in a way. If you're just
(22:07):
using green screen and puttingsomeone else's video up there
and not doing something to addto it. That's the whole strategy
on duets in general.
They want you to be enhancingsomeone else's content or being
with someone else's contentversus just sharing it and not
showing your face or showingsomething else on the side. And
then the next the next big finalquestion is, well, I don't have
(22:31):
an answer for it. No, I do havean answer. My followers are not
seeing my content. Help.
And also this flips to I'm notseeing the people I follow as
content. So you can look at itboth ways. But I have posted,
oh, this week a tutorial toexplain how to do manage
collections, and you can do thison TikTok and on Instagram. And
(22:53):
what I urge you to do is if youare not seeing someone that you
follow's content and even whenyou tap on followers and you're
just watching the followingfeed, if you're not seeing their
content, when they do come upand appear on your page, take
one of their videos, put it intoa collection, call it favorite
creators or something. Pick yourtop 10 who you don't want to
(23:14):
miss.
This way you can check-in onthat collection, tap on those
videos and then tap on theusername and you can scroll
through some of their updatedmost recent videos. So that way
you can be in touch with yourfavorite creators, even though
the algorithm on the For You orFollowing feed is not sending
you their content. But if it'sthe opposite where your
(23:37):
followers are not seeing yourcontent, it's equally as
frustrating and it's obviouslyharder to manage. What I might
suggest is this is be mindfuland careful about this, but
perhaps you can send one of yourvideos to a handful of your
(23:58):
followers and say, oh if youhaven't seen my content recently
check this out and maybe add meto your favorites. And so you
can prompt your followers to bereminded of you and then
consider putting you into theirfavorites.
So and I would do this carefullybecause there's nothing worse
(24:21):
than having somebody sending youevery single one of their videos
when they post something. It'shorrible. You don't want that.
You don't wanna do that tosomeone. You don't wanna be that
someone that's constantly everytime you post a video, you're
sending it to a bunch of yourfollowers in a direct message.
That can be annoying and thatcan cause someone to unfollow
you. But done strategically,carefully, mindfully, cutesy and
(24:44):
demure. I had to. I'm sorry. Iwanna say something about that
before I leave too.
But do it in a way that's notobnoxious so that you don't
prompt someone to unfollow you.Alright. Lastly, because I did
say demure and cutesy, I have tosay one more thing before I
leave you. Oh, this is a longone today. Sorry.
But these trends that come outof nowhere and they go hard like
(25:06):
the demure cutesy mindful trend.I just wanna say that it's
really great when it happens andit's so fun because you can hop
on it really fast. But whathappens with these types of
trends is they go so hard andthen they're gone so fast. They
go so hard or whatever peoplehop on it so fast, honestly,
(25:28):
that they are done quicklybecause people jump on it and
then the For You page is floodedand then everyone's sick of it
quickly. So just one of thethings to think about is when
you hop on one of those trends,if you hop on it early enough,
you're gonna be in the wave.
But if you wait too long andthen you're hopping on it a week
(25:49):
later, you might be in that thatbucket of people where people
are scrolling now becausethey've seen the trend and
they've it's been done to death.So as always with trends, it is
a it is a fine line betweenbeing on trend and being too
late to the trend where it's itactually does you a disservice.
(26:11):
So just think about that. Andit's another fun thing to think
about bringing a trend back thatyou haven't seen in a while
because maybe people willwelcome it if it's if they are
sick of one trend, and they'lllook back to an older one. So
ponder that as an idea and havea really good weekend, and I'll
see you next week.
Thanks for being here. Have agood one. Bye.
Welcome to the socialized strategy. Happy Friday. Fun
topic for today and maybe a lotof people will enjoy it because
don't we all love to talk aboutpet peeves? Well, this is a
little bit like that. We'regonna cover common influencer
mistakes and you've seen themfrom some of the very big
influencers.
(00:20):
And also probably there are someof these things that you've done
unknowingly yourself. So we'regonna tackle that topic. But
before I do so, I wanna shoutout to our sponsor, Premium
Ghostwriting Academy. And why iswriting a perfect fit for
today's sponsor? I always lovewhen the sponsor ties into the
topic of the newsletter.
(00:41):
And I think it fits because allthe content we create on video
does have thought behind it. Nomatter how quickly it's done or
if it's done slowly andmeasured, writing is at the root
of it. Because if you thinkabout it, you always have to
think about your hook, yourstory, the content itself,
whether it's told with speakingor with text on screen or if
(01:02):
it's voice over or just purely aspontaneous performance.
Ultimately, there's a messageunderneath that is being
conveyed. And so a good writerwho gives thought to that
message upfront will definitelyhave an edge to get your viewers
attention.
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So check it out and the linkwill be here in the show notes
and also in the newsletter. Nowlet's keep going because I do
love this idea that writing isat the root of everything we
create, even if we don't realizeit. And a lot of times, I'm
gonna be honest with you, whenI'm making a tutorial, I'll
instead of just starting withhere's how to do such and such,
I try and think of a differentway to start it. Because I'm
(02:05):
like, first of all, is myaudience bored? If they're
scrolling and every time it's atutorial, it's here how to do
it.
So I try to be a little creativeabout why I'm teaching the thing
or maybe start it off a littledifferently just from my own
head. I get sick of saying thesame opening as well. So
thinking about your content froma standpoint of a writing
(02:25):
perspective is a really goodidea just to stop, pause. If you
were a writer of a show, youwould and if show is video,
you're watching a show, it stillhas writers behind it thinking
about how it's going to be funnyor how it's going to be
interesting or how they're goingto tell the story. So don't
discard or disregard, notdiscard.
(02:47):
Don't disregard the idea thatwriting is involved in all of
the content you create, even ifyou don't like to think about
it. I really get frustratedbecause I don't think of myself
as a good writer. And when Ihave to write the caption, it's
torture sometimes. I'm not a fanof the written word and having
to come up with the the text formy videos. I have much easier
(03:07):
time just coming up with a videoconcept and creating.
So if you really take a minuteand put yourself in the writer's
seat and put your writer's haton and try and think about how
you can make your content moreinteresting, it's gonna help you
just really rise to the top,honestly. So let's keep going
and get into the topic fortoday. And we started off by
saying it does seem likeinfluencers have been around
(03:29):
forever, but only in the pastfew years has the influencer
space really, really turned intowhat it what it is now. It's
unbelievable when you thinkabout it because it's whenever
something comes into being, youcan't remember life without it.
Just like when the Internet cameand a lot of us like me, I
remember no Internet.
But it's hard for me to rememberno Internet. Like how did I find
(03:51):
out things? I don't evenremember now. We had to go seek
things at the library or we hadto look things up. I don't even
honestly, it's almost forsomebody who lived through it.
It's still difficult for me toremember a time without it. So
in the same way, we reallyalmost can't remember life
without influencers where therewere people in our phones
talking to us and sharing thingswith us. Think about it. Where
(04:12):
did we learn about the thingsthat we purchased? It's it was
just a different time.
But now with the prevalence ofinfluencers, there is so many
there are so many creatorsaspiring to be influencers now.
So we wanna share commonmistakes just so that if you're
trying to get into the space andyou're building an audience and
you've got a community happeningor you're building for your
(04:35):
brand, you know what to thinkabout and to how to keep your
content primo so that you don'thave no engagement on your
videos for the wrong reasons.Alright. So let's start from the
beginning. And my first I'mgonna go with this one as a pet
peeve because it really is.
Creators who complain abouttheir views. If you are an
(04:56):
influencer and you've been doingthis for a long time and all of
a sudden now we all areexperiencing it. The views are
terrible. I am telling you withthe following I have on TikTok,
it is terrible. I have videossometimes that don't even get to
a 1000 views and for a creatorwith that many followers, that
(05:17):
percentage is such a low amount.
And so I could be a person thatcould be complaining about it or
frustrated by it or aggravatedand getting on my soapbox. And I
have never made a video aboutit. I just am not interested in
complaining. I am here to showup for the 1,000 people that
(05:37):
make it to the to the views. Youknow what I mean?
That's what I'm here for. So ifyou turn your mind around and
think, oh, well, this is this iswhat it is right now. And I'm
gonna show up in my best way forthe few people who are seeing my
content. And that's how you haveto look at it. So don't waste
time.
Don't waste time and energy andputting yourself into that
(05:59):
negative space, about somethingthat you really have no control
over and none of us do. So thebig thing is to focus on
creating that good content forthe viewers that you are
getting. And you can always lookif a video doesn't do well, you
can always say I'm posting itagain in a week or wait a month,
and I'm gonna post it again in amonth. And maybe the algorithm
(06:19):
will do its wavy thing whereyou're on a roll. Sometimes I
get on a roll where a bunch ofmy videos are getting good views
and all of a sudden back down,and then they're getting crappy
views.
Whatever. This is the rollercoaster we're on and we can't
control the ride, unfortunately.We just have to keep getting on
it if you're interested inriding roller coasters that is.
(06:40):
Okay. So the next one is toeliminate that high guys
mentality.
And this is not necessarilybecause you're saying the words,
hi guys. It's the idea thatyou're talking to a group of
people who are all together inthe same room when in fact we
are all individually looking atour phones. So we are alone. So
when you're talking to me as acreator and you're like, oh,
(07:02):
guys, guys, guys, you're notgonna believe this. I mean,
maybe I'll listen to that.
But a lot of times I'm justlike, guys, I'm here by myself.
Who are you talking to? Youknow, so I think maybe this idea
that these bigger creators havegotten into where it's like my
people, my posse, my family,like talking to everybody as a
(07:26):
big group. It can work if you'restill personal about it, but it
could also backfire if yousuddenly are thinking that it's
this large group that aresitting all together in a space
when actually it's just you andthat person. So try to really
think about yourself.
(07:47):
Like, what do you like whenyou're viewing? Listen to the
creators who you're watchingwhen you scroll and decide for
yourself. Do you like whensomeone's referring to you that
way? Or do you rather whensomeone feels like they're
talking to you 1 on 1? And maybeyou're a person that get that
gets creeped out if you thinksomeone's talking to you 1 on 1
and maybe you like the groupthinking.
(08:08):
Everybody's to each his own,honestly. So this is not to say
this is right and this is wrong.This is to say that try things
to see what your audience grabsonto more likely because you'll
see a pattern if if you'reconstantly, doing like a big
group talk and then you suddenlydo one video where you're going
(08:28):
like mano a mano talking to oneperson and that one does better.
Maybe that's what your audiencehas been missing. Maybe they've
felt that you weren't they werenot important.
When I hear big creators say,guys, guys, guys, you know, blah
blah blah. I'm always like, I Istop and I hesitate. And I
think, you know what? I'm nothere for this. Like, I'm not one
(08:50):
of I'm not one of your fans.
I'm I I look at it. I think somany of us have a parasocial
relationship where we don'twanna think we're one of
someone's many fans in a lot ofcases. And maybe that's just my
personal thing. I don't know. Ilike a 1 on 1.
I like to feel connected withthe person that I'm watching.
(09:11):
You know what? Who's a reallygood person to maybe think about
related to this? But I'll noticethat there are creators like a
Bethenny Frankel type person. Idon't know if that's
controversial to mention her.
Whatever. But she's she willtalk like as if she's with her
fans. Okay? So it's like, youguys gotta believe you guys and
(09:33):
for some reason that doesn'tdisturb me coming from her. And
I don't know why.
And I think if I try and thinkabout it hard, it's like maybe
because I think of her in moreof a she's been on reality
shows, so she is in that kind ofcelebrity ism. So she's
appreciating her audience as herfans. And so maybe there's some
(09:54):
value there to her being like,you guys are so important to me.
And so maybe then I can beaccepted as one of the people
that she is thinking. I don'tknow.
But I think it really depends.So think about maybe you
personally, how you'reconnecting with your audience
and decide if that high guysmentality is could work for you.
(10:16):
It's not a hard pass. It's justa mat matter of maybe who it's
coming from. I think I'm havinga therapy session here all by
myself.
So thanks for listening becauseI'm really trying to figure it
out. What don't I like about itand why am I always advising
against it? And I think becausemaybe for me, it has worked out
to be more like I'm a one on oneteacher for my each one of my
(10:39):
viewers versus, I'm in a wholeclassroom with a bunch of
people. And when I do TikToklives and when I do workshops, I
am in a classroom and my wholetone changes. And you'll notice
that on my workshops.
If you listen to the workshops,I'm in with a whole bunch of
people. But right now, I'm justhere with you in this moment for
this podcast. So maybe you couldhelp me out. I would love
(11:00):
feedback on this. I would Iwish, at some point, I wanna
have a community discussionforum thing that's gonna be
coming soon where I can get somefeedback.
Like, do you really do you agreewith this, or am I crazy? Or
what's your take on it? And Iwould love to have some sense of
that. So maybe, hit reply on theemail if you want for now and
tell me. Alright.
(11:21):
Now the next one is not creatingan audience first type of
content. So what is audiencefirst content? It's really
flipping it around and making itnot about you. So I'll use
myself as an example. I like tothrow myself under the bus
whenever I can.
But if I started everything,every piece of content, and I
said, I'm gonna teach you howto, or I'm gonna show you blah
(11:47):
blah blah, or I'm going to, orI'm the TikTok teacher, and I'm
gonna explain how this is done.I don't think that would
resonate as quickly as the oneswhere I say, if you wanna learn
how to do an outfit transitionlike this, or here's how you
notice the you versus the I. Andit's a such a simple shift. You
(12:08):
can do it with any piece ofcontent. Think about what you
were gonna say and then say,okay.
Now think about it from theperson the view of the listener,
the point of view of thelistener. And so think about
what is valuable about what youare sharing, what is valuable to
them. I just had a really funnyarrangement with the word
valuable. Valuable? I don't knowwhat just happened.
(12:32):
Thanks for taking that ride withme. Anyway, if you think about
your audience first, think aboutwhat they need, think about what
your content is doing for them,how it's making them feel. Is it
gonna teach them something? Isit going to enlighten them? Is
it gonna be something relatable?
And put it into a you versus ame. And this, of course, circles
(12:54):
back to being a good writerabout it. So analyzing your
content from a writing, how isit how is it written? Even
though maybe you're not writingit down when you're saying it,
there's words. So how is itwritten?
And then thinking about flippingit, flipping it around, because
you don't necessarily want to beconsistently highlighting
(13:14):
yourself and what you're doing,and then not being able to be
relatable to your audience.Hopefully, that explained it. I
don't know. Yet another soapbox.Sorry about that.
But sometimes I get in I get init. Alright. Next one. This is
probably one of my favorites,but poorly edited content. Don't
be the person that is pressingthe record button and talking
(13:37):
before you've got it fullypressed or letting go before you
finished and cutting your wordsoff.
Don't be that person. Record alittle extra and then edit it.
Edit it. Tighten it up withediting instead of recording and
letting go too soon and losingthe last word or losing the
first word, please. Because it'sso annoying to listen to content
(13:58):
that it's chopped weird.
I I understand tight editing. Ilove tight editing. I'm a fan
of, like, even cutting out thebreaths on some things, you
know, and sometimes when I go Ido a little that or I breathe,
and I wanna tighten those upsometimes. But so I'm a fan of
the tightening. I just don't I'mnot a fan of over tightening
(14:19):
where it's like you don't finishthe sentence and then you're
onto that.
And then and none of it makessense because you haven't
finished the word on the lastsentence before you're talking
about the next sentence. Sothat's a big that is definitely
classified as a pet peeve forthe mothership. I can't stand
it. I will immediately scrollthe minute the first sentence is
clipped. I'm out.
So you're losing me. If you'renot losing anyone else, fine,
(14:41):
but you're losing me on thatone. The other thing is while
we're at it, I have to give ashout for the microphone
problems that I'm noticing.There's so many people that are
not setting their wirelessmicrophones to mono. And so
their sound is only coming outof 1 headphone, and that is a
huge pet peeve.
When I am scrolling and promotedcontent is coming out of one of
(15:02):
my headphones, like, this is aprofessional ad. Didn't they
hear that and fix that beforethey because you can once you do
it, it's hard to fix it. But Iknow that there's an editing
program I can use to to fix it.But don't don't have your head
your sound coming out of oneheadphone. Because what's weird
about that if the person iswearing the other headphone,
some people just wear oneheadphone.
If you're only coming out ofthis headphone, your video is
(15:25):
gonna have no sound at allbecause the person's wearing the
wrong headphone, which is alsoweird. But I know this is asked
backwards, but mono meanseverything is recorded on both
channels. Stereo means you mighthave a pair of microphones and
one of them is recording on onechannel and the other is
recording on the other channel.So depending on which microphone
(15:48):
you are wearing, you're onlygonna come out of 1 headphone.
It's crazy bonkers backwards.
I don't write the rules. Ididn't make up the words. I'm
just telling you how it is.Okay? Make sure your little plug
that goes into the phone is setto mono so that you come out of
both phones.
Just think opposite and thenyou'll be fine. It's like think
(16:09):
backwards. So that's it. Wedon't want poorly edited
content. You don't want longlong breaths in between lots of
pauses.
You wanna be tightly edited butyou don't wanna over tighten to
the point of chopping off yourwords. Okay. Another mistake a
lot of influencers make, oh mygoodness, is getting excited
about collaboration requests andthen accepting every single
(16:32):
thing that comes by their emailor they get reached out to for.
So when you start creatingconsistently and you are getting
noticed by agencies and brands,it's exciting. And you think,
Oh, yes.
Yay. I'm gonna make $200 hereand $200 there and ding, ding,
ding, and you're $50 here and afree product there. What happens
is your content will getcluttered with use quote selling
(16:58):
products and your audience isreally going to start to get
annoyed. And then if you startdoing things where they're not
even things you really use,you're not even going to be seen
as authentic anymore. Sothere's, like, just a
combination of problems thathappens when you start to get
these opportunities.
And I'm gonna share a tip fromLorraine Laddish, who's a big
(17:19):
influencer here, and I mentionedher often on these podcasts.
Thank you for letting me,Lorraine, use your name again
and again. But she's she hasbeen an influencer long before
and much sooner than a lot ofthe 2020 and beyond influencers
have come out of the woodwork.She's doing this much longer
than that, like, 10 years fromfrom now. So we're back we're
talking back in 2014.
She's an early influencer. Andshe still only posts 10% of her
(17:43):
content as influencer assponsored content. So she still
does 90% authentic herself, herlife, her family, things she
really does like, things thatare not sponsored. So this way
her audience knows immediatelywhen something is sponsored and
also has enough of a vibe of herto know why she's promoting a
thing or that there are somethings she just really likes and
(18:05):
she's not even getting paid topromote them. So just it's a
really tough it's a really toughone.
I'm gonna say that there's a lotof influencers who struggle with
it because we know you have theaudience and it's time to
monetize. It's like you'vegotten this far and it's time to
make it worth your time, but itcould be really, really messy
and it could start to have yourloyal followers falling off,
(18:29):
unfollowing, not interested inyour content. So doing
collaboration any collaborationthat comes your way could be a
mistake. So stick withauthenticity, trust with your
audience, keep that trust bybeing yourself, being true to
yourself and and and trying tobe mindful of the balance of
your content. Alright.
(18:51):
Now, lastly, I'm not gonna I'mgonna not gonna sign off without
answering a couple of questions.But I just wanna say as an
overview for this message of oftoday about mistakes influencers
make, there's many more that youmight wanna add to this. There
could be influencers who moveout of their lane. We can, like,
I can run off and say, why is aninfluencer about fashion all of
(19:13):
a sudden now going into talkingabout some kind of public
scandal that's happening. And alot of people do that because
they get swept up.
And the next thing you know,you're not sticking with your
expertise or your niche or whyyou've come to your audience.
And so I always say, look atyour core belief, your North
(19:34):
Star. Why are you posting andwhat's your audience with you
for? And stay true to yourself.Because if you start just
hunting, pecking into everydifferent area just because you
think, Oh, everybody's talkingabout this now, I gotta talk
about it.
And you will get pressure a lotof times as you grow. Creators
(19:54):
will come into your commentsoftentimes and ask you, what's
your take on such and such? Idon't know. It's not my area. A
lot of times I just wanna say Idon't have a take on it because
my take doesn't matter.
It's not where my expertiselies. If you wanna ask me about
sound quality, about video, howthings are done and you want me
to weigh in on something likethat, I'm all in because that's
(20:16):
my area of expertise. You wannaask me about production, content
creation, tips, and strategy,and things like that. I'm in for
that. And I'm even in for thingslike give me I'll talk about
baking tips because I like tobake.
But there's certain things thatI'm not an expert in, and I'm
not gonna start spewing out myaudience about something that
I'm not well versed in. Soalways think unless it goes to
(20:39):
audience first. Think about whatyour audience is following you
for and what do they wanna hearfrom you about. And you don't
have to talk about somethingjust because everyone else is
posting about it. That's all Ihave to say about that.
Okay. Let's get to thequestions. Hooray. I'm off the
soapbox. Two questions fortoday.
How can you not show your facein a duet? Love it. Love the
(21:03):
question because when you tapduet now and a lot of people
will say, oh, my gosh. The onlyoption I have is to record in
real time. And actually you cando something as simple as taking
your phone and putting it downon the table.
So it turns to black on the Duetside. So the cam or put
something over the camera. Soyou can flip the camera and put
(21:23):
it down or you can put somethingon top of the camera. And then
you can just record the Duet andput titles on it. But I've
noticed that some people aregonna have this green screen
option.
So when they tap Duet, you cantap green screen and then you
can put a photo. You canactually insert a photo in front
of, in front of your on yourphone. So you don't even have to
have your have the black screenthere. You can have some photo
(21:46):
there and you can do that.Obviously, there's different
layouts for duets.
Just be mindful when you do aduet. It's a good idea to do
something that so that it's notjust taking that person's video
and then not putting anythingwith it to change it because the
algorithm doesn't really pushvideos out that are not. It it
looks like you're stealingcontent in a way. If you're just
(22:07):
using green screen and puttingsomeone else's video up there
and not doing something to addto it. That's the whole strategy
on duets in general.
They want you to be enhancingsomeone else's content or being
with someone else's contentversus just sharing it and not
showing your face or showingsomething else on the side. And
then the next the next big finalquestion is, well, I don't have
(22:31):
an answer for it. No, I do havean answer. My followers are not
seeing my content. Help.
And also this flips to I'm notseeing the people I follow as
content. So you can look at itboth ways. But I have posted,
oh, this week a tutorial toexplain how to do manage
collections, and you can do thison TikTok and on Instagram. And
(22:53):
what I urge you to do is if youare not seeing someone that you
follow's content and even whenyou tap on followers and you're
just watching the followingfeed, if you're not seeing their
content, when they do come upand appear on your page, take
one of their videos, put it intoa collection, call it favorite
creators or something. Pick yourtop 10 who you don't want to
(23:14):
miss.
This way you can check-in onthat collection, tap on those
videos and then tap on theusername and you can scroll
through some of their updatedmost recent videos. So that way
you can be in touch with yourfavorite creators, even though
the algorithm on the For You orFollowing feed is not sending
you their content. But if it'sthe opposite where your
(23:37):
followers are not seeing yourcontent, it's equally as
frustrating and it's obviouslyharder to manage. What I might
suggest is this is be mindfuland careful about this, but
perhaps you can send one of yourvideos to a handful of your
(23:58):
followers and say, oh if youhaven't seen my content recently
check this out and maybe add meto your favorites. And so you
can prompt your followers to bereminded of you and then
consider putting you into theirfavorites.
So and I would do this carefullybecause there's nothing worse
(24:21):
than having somebody sending youevery single one of their videos
when they post something. It'shorrible. You don't want that.
You don't wanna do that tosomeone. You don't wanna be that
someone that's constantly everytime you post a video, you're
sending it to a bunch of yourfollowers in a direct message.
That can be annoying and thatcan cause someone to unfollow
you. But done strategically,carefully, mindfully, cutesy and
(24:44):
demure. I had to. I'm sorry. Iwanna say something about that
before I leave too.
But do it in a way that's notobnoxious so that you don't
prompt someone to unfollow you.Alright. Lastly, because I did
say demure and cutesy, I have tosay one more thing before I
leave you. Oh, this is a longone today. Sorry.
But these trends that come outof nowhere and they go hard like
(25:06):
the demure cutesy mindful trend.I just wanna say that it's
really great when it happens andit's so fun because you can hop
on it really fast. But whathappens with these types of
trends is they go so hard andthen they're gone so fast. They
go so hard or whatever peoplehop on it so fast, honestly,
(25:28):
that they are done quicklybecause people jump on it and
then the For You page is floodedand then everyone's sick of it
quickly. So just one of thethings to think about is when
you hop on one of those trends,if you hop on it early enough,
you're gonna be in the wave.
But if you wait too long andthen you're hopping on it a week
(25:49):
later, you might be in that thatbucket of people where people
are scrolling now becausethey've seen the trend and
they've it's been done to death.So as always with trends, it is
a it is a fine line betweenbeing on trend and being too
late to the trend where it's itactually does you a disservice.
(26:11):
So just think about that. Andit's another fun thing to think
about bringing a trend back thatyou haven't seen in a while
because maybe people willwelcome it if it's if they are
sick of one trend, and they'lllook back to an older one. So
ponder that as an idea and havea really good weekend, and I'll
see you next week.
Thanks for being here. Have agood one. Bye.
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