July 25, 2025 • 18 mins
🔑 In This episode Helen shares tips for going live, how to deal with the nerves if it's your first time and why you should just do it anyway.
And here are the 3 pieces of equipment that are worth the investment if you want to up your gams:
**Wireless Hollyland Lark M2 Microphone Set: https://amzn.to/4bwInBu
**SmallRig Tripod with remote: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1897565-REG/smallrig_5291_st30_lite_one_touch_deploy.html
**Neewer LED Light: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08VGJ1TK9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?_encoding=UTF8&%3Bpsc=1&camp=1789&creative=9325&ie=UTF8&linkCode=ur2&linkId=806eee74b77c737f883af590f3e68310&tag=themuthersh0f-20Â
Live Tips:
- What to prep ahead of time to avoid awkward silence
- Why it helps to post a video right before going live (and how it boosts visibility)
- Ideas for interactive engagement: trivia, viewer questions, and casual prompts
- How to use your lives as content clips for your feed
- Why it’s okay to tell your audience you’re nervous—and how they’ll actually help
- What to do about trolls, and how to use moderators to protect your space
- Smart ways to reflect and self-assess so every live gets better
🛠Tools + Tips:
How to promote your live ahead of time (email list, reminders, profile alerts)
What to do after your live: saving clips on TikTok or Instagram for future content
A simple mindset shift: pretend only 3 people will show up—and go for it anyway
💬 Bonus Highlights:
A funny story from a live coaching session in the studio with new creators
Why one brand’s email reminder strategy stood out—and how you can replicate it
A sneak peek at some fun shoots I did this week (including a magical legging change 👖✨)
🎧 Stay Tuned:
Next week, I’ll be wrapping up the podcasting tutorial series inside the Studio! You’ll get step-by-step instructions on how to edit, upload, and publish your podcast to all platforms—no fluff, just clear direction.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Helen (00:00):
Welcome to the Socialize Strategy. Happy Friday. We are
(00:02):
gonna talk today about tips forgoing live. As you can see, if
you're watching, I'mbroadcasting again from a hotel
room. I like how I saybroadcasting, like I'm live on
air.
Anyway, I'm recording in a hotelroom after a very long shoot
day. I'm gonna drop into bedafter this. I'm I'm not even
kidding that I came back from a100 degree heat shooting a
(00:25):
fourteen hour day or somethinglike that, and we've been going
day after day like this sinceMonday. And it is really I'm not
gonna say it's grueling because,you know, I love it. But the
heat today was about a 101degrees, I think, where we were.
We're in Toronto. I've theythink the production keeps
coming here again and again. Andthis trip, even more than any of
the other ones, it has beennonstop since I touched down.
(00:49):
Meetings, an evening workshop,another meeting, shoot day,
shoot day, shoot day, long days.Then come back to the hotel.
Fifteen minutes later, meetdownstairs for dinner with
clients. It's gone it's gonelike this night after night. And
then I just come back, do someTikTok comments, do some content
of my own, post whatever I haveto do on my for my own content,
(01:12):
and then drop into bed and do itall over again. So it has been
that kind of a week. But I havetwo unsponsored by products to
talk to you about this week, andthat is because I've been using
them every day on set to filmcontent.
So the first one is somethingI'm using right up here in the
scene to light the room, well,to light me in the room, is my
(01:35):
small LED light. And this isabout a two and a half by three
and a half inch light panel. Iknow that it was known on TikTok
for a while as the Alex Earlelight because it's this tiny
little thing that clips ontoyour phone, and you can use it
to light yourself. And the funnything about this light panel is
I rarely have to bring it out. Inever I'm always using natural
(01:56):
light.
But I was in a meeting for theshoot, and we were sitting
around at a table with terriblya terribly lit room, and the one
of the people in the meeting, aguy in the meeting, was like,
ugh, can't just seem to find anygetting light on my face. How
come you ladies look all lookgood on your video? And he was
on the Zoom meeting as well. Andwe were all around the table on
a Zoom meeting, and he couldn'tseem to get lighting on his
(02:16):
face. So I said, hold on.
I could fix that. And I go intomy bag, and I pull out the
light. And so he of all there'sall women in this meeting, and
this is the guy with the withthe Alex Earle light on his
laptop to try to make himselflook better. It was so funny.
But the funnier part part aboutit is that every day this week,
I've taken this light out to useit because sometimes I'm in a
section of the house where Ihave to film and the lights
(02:38):
aren't in the right place or thewindows aren't in the right
place, and I have to lightproducts sometimes to get some,
like, kick lights on products.
So whatever. This light has beensaving me this week, so that's
why I wanted to talk about it. Idon't even think I have the
brand called Neweer andsomething like n e w e e r. You
can find any small LED lightpanel as long as it has wrote
(03:00):
some different types of light,the warmer light and a dimmable
switch on it so that you canadjust it. That is the light you
want.
I will put the link in the shownotes. And the other thing that
I used every freaking day thisweek is my SmallRig tripod. I'm
not gonna stop and demonstrateit because I don't have I have
to hold on to my microphone. Butthis one what's funny about this
(03:22):
one is when you extend it I sayI'm not gonna demonstrate it,
and then right away I'mdemonstrating it. But I can
extend it, and then this is thefunny part of it.
You pop it you can pop it on theground. I'm gonna do it right on
this table, but and it opens uplike that. And people are so
impressed when I do that. Ijust, like, slam it on the
ground and the thing pops open.And they're like, wow.
Ultimate content creator gear.And that brand is SmallRig. And
(03:45):
they do make this in differentsizes. So they come with a
Bluetooth remote. They'll they,you wanna get a taller one so
that if you are standing anddoing a video that you're on eye
level.
So look at the sizes, make sureyou get a tall enough one. If
it's something that you like, Iwill put, again, links in the
show notes for these. These arenot affiliate links. I'm just
gonna give you the links whereyou can buy them. Okay.
(04:07):
So that's it for my unsponsoredbuy because I love these two
items. I use them everyliterally every dice when I'm
filming content. There you haveit. Alright. Now let's get into
tips for going live.
I feel like I'm on a marathon,and I'm still going. This is so
funny. When you finally have theability to go live and you are
(04:29):
really excited about it, butthen you're panicked because
you're going, what am I gonnado? What am I gonna say? What if
nobody shows up?
All the things that spin aroundin your mind. And I think I've
talked about this before, but inthe studio, we did a live lesson
where I had some of the creatorswho were nervous about going
live join me in a live, and wedid a live lesson on how to go
live, which was really, reallyfun. They were so cute because
(04:51):
they were all talking about howmuch they love the studio, and
they were like, I said, this isnot I swear if people that are
with listening, this is not aninfomercial because they were so
effusive and happy about beingon the live and being in the
studio, and it was really kindacool to hear them kind of I I
guess, I won't even say promote,but speak so highly of their
(05:11):
experience working in the studiowith me. So that was a lot of
fun, and I think they learned alot about the comfort of going
live. So first off, let's talkabout what the idea that you're
worried about not having peoplethere is so it's a good idea to
think about posting about it andannouncing that you're gonna do
it and sharing it on yourplatforms, maybe sending it out
(05:32):
to your email list to alertpeople.
There is a brand, a skincarebrand that does this. It's
called In Your Face Skincare.And every time in the evening,
I'll get, like, one of thosesales emails, and it says, we're
live tonight at 7PM. And so it'sit does alert me. I mean, I know
that they're going live at thathour.
So you can use your email list.You can even just email friends
(05:53):
that you have in your life thatyou maybe you know are on the
platform and would might wannasupport your live if you're
comfortable having people youknow come to your live. So
that's one. Also, many platformslike Instagram and YouTube will
have will allow you to setreminders so that it will remind
your audience that you're goinglive. And if you have that
alert, you know, if you are likea creator, let's say you wanna
(06:16):
always make sure you don't missmy lives, you can go to my
profile, and at the top, you cantap the bell, and then you can
set the alert for what you wannahear about from me about if I'm
going live or if I post a videoso you can set alerts for
creators, which is really ahelpful thing.
Let's see what else. Askingfriends and family to join so
you have someone there thatkinda maybe will support you,
and at least you'll have someonecommenting so you don't feel
(06:36):
lonely. And also think aboutsetting a time, and this I don't
do. I don't even follow my ownadvice a lot of times, but go
live consistently around thesame time so that your people
know to expect it. I don't dothis because I like the opposite
situation.
I like to have new people comeinto my lives that don't always
get a chance to come because ofwhat time maybe the time isn't
(06:57):
always good for them in theevening. So I like to do a
surprise live on a weekend on alate morning or something like
that, and then get differentpeople in my lives. So depending
on your strategy, you can decideif you want it to be recurring
or have two different times inthe week to cover different time
zones or whatever. Okay. Nowlet's talk about preparing for
your live, which is key toeliminating the stress.
(07:21):
If you have a list of topicsthat you're gonna talk about,
this makes it so easy becauseyou can right away know when I
am in panic mode and I havenothing left to say, you can
look at the list. Also, you canask your viewers questions. And
this is so underrated even forme because I realize that if I
(07:42):
do that, I can rest my voice.Because a lot of times talking
for a straight hour on a live issiring. And I'm like drinking a
lot of water, and I'm trying tostay hydrated, and keep my
audience entertained in a way.
And so I do. I tend to go golike a marathon. So it's really
nice to stop and say, oh, sowhere's everybody joining from
tonight? And then maybe speakabout the cities that you see
(08:04):
come up. Or ask somebody, likestart a topic about your
favorite something.
Your favorite music, yourfavorite song, your favorite,
what did I do recently? Yourfavorite tea. What because I was
drinking a tea, I was like,let's everybody guess what kind
of tea that I'm drinking, andthat way I could take a minute,
take a sip, and read the readthe guesses. So you can have
things like that that you do. Ireally had a good live once when
(08:27):
I did TikTok trivia.
Made sure I had a list. I hadanswers, and I would do some
true and false so that was easyfor people to answer. I'd ask
some open ended questions, seewhat answers I got. Really a
good way to create engagement onyour live. That, I do find when
people land on lives wheresomething is going on, they tend
to stay a little bit longer, andthey'll ask, hey, what's going
(08:49):
on here?
So it's a good idea to havesomething like that in your back
pocket. It's also important toset a level of expectation for
yourself, like, kind ofespecially if it's the first
time, picture that you're gonnahave three people and get over
it. Picture that for a minute,you're gonna have no people. Get
over it. Just go.
(09:09):
Just start talking. If you starttalking, someone will join. And
especially if you startscrolling and you're showing up
on the FBP, if you're standingthere staring at your screen,
people are gonna scroll rightby. So be engaging. Be talking.
Be getting your audience warmedup. That's important. Oh, this
(09:32):
one's a big one. Post a videobefore you go live. It doesn't
have to be about being live.
Post any other video that youwant to try and give some boosts
to because when you go live,your videos get pushed out. This
is a fact. So I always, always,if I have a tutorial that I
really want to give some extralove to, like I really want
people to see this video,because I think it'll be a good
(09:54):
one, I make sure I go live afterit. And I don't do it every
time, but at least try I try andgo live once a week, and I try
and and I make sure I post avideo before I go live. So
that's very important.
It number one, it'll give yousomething to talk about on your
live too. You can say, oh, Ijust posted a video about that.
So if you're interested, go andlook at it because I posted a
video about how to do this typeof vlog. For me, that's
(10:16):
something I posted about oncerecently. And I was like, go in
and look at it, and then youcan, let me know if you think it
was helpful, and then thatpeople will go and watch and
come back to your live.
That kind of thing. So those aresome key things. And then in
general, just being confidentand not feeling scared. And if
you are nervous, listen to me.Tell your audience, oh, I'm so
(10:38):
nervous.
This is my first live. Oh, thesebuttons are intimidating. Trust
me. There are people out therewho know what the buttons are
because they are they go live.And so they'll say, oh, well,
the one on the right is whereyou can flip the screen.
The one on the left, like,they'll tell you things. The
people in the comments, so muchsmarter than me so many times.
Like, I'm like, oh my god. Ieven know that. And I'm pressing
(10:59):
the buttons and someone's givingme advice.
Literally, people are there.They want you to do well. They
don't want you to fail. You'regonna get very few people that
come in and they're like, blah,blah, blah, what are you doing?
It's mostly people who are gonnabe positive and be like, hey,
you know, don't be nervous.
This is fun, whatever, whatever.And if you do get a troll, and
(11:19):
this is important, veryimportant, press on their name,
press the three dots in theupper right corner, and then
mute or block. You need to knowhow to do that so that you don't
get stressed out. Because if youdon't have a moderator, if
you're new to live and you havenobody that's you're doing you
know, allowed to be a moderator,you're gonna be stressed out
(11:42):
when someone comes in and theystart trolling on your live. So
know that, number one, the threedots, the same process, pressing
on the person's name, pressingon the three dots in the upper
right, will then get you toallow them to be a moderator if
it's someone you know and trust.
Don't let anyone you don't knowbe your moderator. And it's a
good way to get rid of people ifthey're bugging you. Okay? So
(12:04):
keep that in mind and have thatin your back pocket. Okay.
Now you're done with your live.Now what? TikTok is really
helpful in that it allows you tosave clips from your lives. You
can go through it suggests someclips, or you can change what it
suggests. So you can scrollthrough and pick.
(12:25):
I don't know what the length is.Maybe it's a minute. Maybe it's
thirty second. I don't even knowhow long. But it will give you
clips that you can download.
So you don't have to downloadthe whole thing, but you can you
can download the whole thing anddo your own edits, or you can
download the clips that TikToksuggests. So you can do that
after you're live and use it forsome content. And this way, if
(12:45):
you're nervous about makingcontent and talking to the
camera, you can use your live asyour videos. And then once you
start doing that, I know I havea private client that I worked
with, and she was so comfortabledoing lives because she's got a
history of QVC, and she was sonervous to make videos because
she's used to being live. So Isaid, good.
Take your clips from your liveand post them as your videos.
(13:06):
Soon as she started doing that,she started being able to make
videos that emulated her beinglive. So she was able to channel
her live self into her videosonly after she used those videos
and post them, and could seewhat they looked like as pieces
of content. Okay? A littlecomplicated, but hopefully you
(13:27):
followed that.
And then the next thing isreally to reflect on it and
think how did it oh, I forgot tomention Instagram. Hold on. If
you have your settings set onyour Instagram lives to archive
and save after you go live, youwill also be able to download
download your live and edit offthe beginning, let's say, if
you're welcoming people in ortake something out. I don't I
(13:50):
didn't know this for the longesttime on Instagram. I thought you
had to immediately post yourlive.
And as is with all the, hey,everyone, at the beginning and
welcome in, everyone, you don't.You can archive it, you can save
it, and you can post it later,okay, with it being edited. So
those are the things. And nowlastly is when you're done,
(14:12):
maybe it helps to watch it for alittle bit, especially in the
beginning. Watch your own liveand see how you did.
Do you say a lot? Are youstaring a lot? Are you, like,
looking down the whole time? Areyou repeating every single
comment? Don't repeat thecomments out loud until you read
them in your head first.
But you don't have to say everycomment. You could pick a
couple. You could answer andmention a person. You could
(14:34):
welcome people in. You canengage with the comments and use
that as anyway, use that ascontent, but also look back and
your at yourself and do someself assessing because you wanna
get better.
That's the whole idea. You don'twanna just do okay, like,
improve. I listen to my videosand and I got rid of a lot of my
(14:55):
filler words. I used to say, youknow, a lot, and I still do. I'm
trying hard not to.
When I record tutorials, I don'tsay it as much. I say it more in
conversation or when I'm on thepodcast, I think. But I have
some words that I or littlephrases I repeat, and I try hard
not to do it. But listening toyourself, you hear the things.
They will trigger you when youare recording or speaking live,
(15:19):
and you'll hear yourself saying,there's nothing worse than being
on a meeting, on a Zoom meeting,when someone's presenting, and
every five words is, or at theend of every sentence.
You don't have to fill everyspace with a word. You don't
have to say Pause. Like that.Take a beat. Think for a second.
(15:45):
It's much better than havingyour audience listen to Okay.
That's it for today. I'm fried,and I have one more shoot day
before I head home. It has beenso much fun being here. I will
say that the people I work within the production industry in
(16:05):
general are so kind and fun, andwe every time I meet new people
on a shoot, I'm like, oh,they're so awesome.
And this particular agency thatI'm working with is excellent,
and they're just just reallynice to be around. They're very
respectful. They give me time toshoot my things. If anything,
they piled on so many, ideasthis time. Usually, they lean on
(16:29):
me, and they'll say, yeah.
Just just shoot what you can,and I can just kinda capture
stuff and I make it up on thefly. They came to the table with
a bunch of ideas and wanted meto shoot my other stuff on the
fly. And I was, like, runningaround like like a chicken
without my head trying to figureout, okay, when should I shoot
my stuff that I have scripted,and when should I shoot their
stuff that they want me to get?Mamma Mia. Live and learn.
(16:51):
We're getting better as we go.We are always improving and did
some really fun pieces ofcontent. I had the opportunity
to do an outfit change where Ihad the girl who was wearing
leggings, like, pull on herleggings, they magically come
off. Everybody loved it. So Idefinitely had some fun with the
content this week.
(17:12):
And I I can't wait to startsharing some of these things
from the shoots that you can seethe things I'm talking about. So
I'm gonna remember to do that.I'm gonna go back in the studio.
We're gonna have a littlesession of, like, some of the
thing like. Why am missing like?
We're gonna have a littlesession about the things that I
shoot for brands so you can seethe types of content I'm
shooting and understand how youcan create using very simple
(17:35):
concepts where you don't evenhave to be in your own videos.
And yeah. So I'll be sharingthat. Alright. That's it for
tonight.
Everybody have a wonderfulweekend. And if you want to
learn about podcasting in thestudio, we're doing that big
time. I thought I would be ableto shoot the last part of the
tutorial this week, but it'sbeen gangbusters every single
(17:56):
day. So that's gonna have tohappen this weekend. So next
week, I'll be releasing the lastpart of the podcast series so
you can see exactly how to edit,exactly how to post to YouTube,
exactly how to upload to yourpodcasting site so it goes to
all the platforms.
We are going to break it downand show you. I am, anyway. Have
(18:20):
a great weekend. I will see younext week. Bye.
Welcome to the Socialize Strategy. Happy Friday. We are
(00:02):
gonna talk today about tips forgoing live. As you can see, if
you're watching, I'mbroadcasting again from a hotel
room. I like how I saybroadcasting, like I'm live on
air.
Anyway, I'm recording in a hotelroom after a very long shoot
day. I'm gonna drop into bedafter this. I'm I'm not even
kidding that I came back from a100 degree heat shooting a
(00:25):
fourteen hour day or somethinglike that, and we've been going
day after day like this sinceMonday. And it is really I'm not
gonna say it's grueling because,you know, I love it. But the
heat today was about a 101degrees, I think, where we were.
We're in Toronto. I've theythink the production keeps
coming here again and again. Andthis trip, even more than any of
the other ones, it has beennonstop since I touched down.
(00:49):
Meetings, an evening workshop,another meeting, shoot day,
shoot day, shoot day, long days.Then come back to the hotel.
Fifteen minutes later, meetdownstairs for dinner with
clients. It's gone it's gonelike this night after night. And
then I just come back, do someTikTok comments, do some content
of my own, post whatever I haveto do on my for my own content,
(01:12):
and then drop into bed and do itall over again. So it has been
that kind of a week. But I havetwo unsponsored by products to
talk to you about this week, andthat is because I've been using
them every day on set to filmcontent.
So the first one is somethingI'm using right up here in the
scene to light the room, well,to light me in the room, is my
(01:35):
small LED light. And this isabout a two and a half by three
and a half inch light panel. Iknow that it was known on TikTok
for a while as the Alex Earlelight because it's this tiny
little thing that clips ontoyour phone, and you can use it
to light yourself. And the funnything about this light panel is
I rarely have to bring it out. Inever I'm always using natural
(01:56):
light.
But I was in a meeting for theshoot, and we were sitting
around at a table with terriblya terribly lit room, and the one
of the people in the meeting, aguy in the meeting, was like,
ugh, can't just seem to find anygetting light on my face. How
come you ladies look all lookgood on your video? And he was
on the Zoom meeting as well. Andwe were all around the table on
a Zoom meeting, and he couldn'tseem to get lighting on his
(02:16):
face. So I said, hold on.
I could fix that. And I go intomy bag, and I pull out the
light. And so he of all there'sall women in this meeting, and
this is the guy with the withthe Alex Earle light on his
laptop to try to make himselflook better. It was so funny.
But the funnier part part aboutit is that every day this week,
I've taken this light out to useit because sometimes I'm in a
section of the house where Ihave to film and the lights
(02:38):
aren't in the right place or thewindows aren't in the right
place, and I have to lightproducts sometimes to get some,
like, kick lights on products.
So whatever. This light has beensaving me this week, so that's
why I wanted to talk about it. Idon't even think I have the
brand called Neweer andsomething like n e w e e r. You
can find any small LED lightpanel as long as it has wrote
(03:00):
some different types of light,the warmer light and a dimmable
switch on it so that you canadjust it. That is the light you
want.
I will put the link in the shownotes. And the other thing that
I used every freaking day thisweek is my SmallRig tripod. I'm
not gonna stop and demonstrateit because I don't have I have
to hold on to my microphone. Butthis one what's funny about this
(03:22):
one is when you extend it I sayI'm not gonna demonstrate it,
and then right away I'mdemonstrating it. But I can
extend it, and then this is thefunny part of it.
You pop it you can pop it on theground. I'm gonna do it right on
this table, but and it opens uplike that. And people are so
impressed when I do that. Ijust, like, slam it on the
ground and the thing pops open.And they're like, wow.
Ultimate content creator gear.And that brand is SmallRig. And
(03:45):
they do make this in differentsizes. So they come with a
Bluetooth remote. They'll they,you wanna get a taller one so
that if you are standing anddoing a video that you're on eye
level.
So look at the sizes, make sureyou get a tall enough one. If
it's something that you like, Iwill put, again, links in the
show notes for these. These arenot affiliate links. I'm just
gonna give you the links whereyou can buy them. Okay.
(04:07):
So that's it for my unsponsoredbuy because I love these two
items. I use them everyliterally every dice when I'm
filming content. There you haveit. Alright. Now let's get into
tips for going live.
I feel like I'm on a marathon,and I'm still going. This is so
funny. When you finally have theability to go live and you are
(04:29):
really excited about it, butthen you're panicked because
you're going, what am I gonnado? What am I gonna say? What if
nobody shows up?
All the things that spin aroundin your mind. And I think I've
talked about this before, but inthe studio, we did a live lesson
where I had some of the creatorswho were nervous about going
live join me in a live, and wedid a live lesson on how to go
live, which was really, reallyfun. They were so cute because
(04:51):
they were all talking about howmuch they love the studio, and
they were like, I said, this isnot I swear if people that are
with listening, this is not aninfomercial because they were so
effusive and happy about beingon the live and being in the
studio, and it was really kindacool to hear them kind of I I
guess, I won't even say promote,but speak so highly of their
(05:11):
experience working in the studiowith me. So that was a lot of
fun, and I think they learned alot about the comfort of going
live. So first off, let's talkabout what the idea that you're
worried about not having peoplethere is so it's a good idea to
think about posting about it andannouncing that you're gonna do
it and sharing it on yourplatforms, maybe sending it out
(05:32):
to your email list to alertpeople.
There is a brand, a skincarebrand that does this. It's
called In Your Face Skincare.And every time in the evening,
I'll get, like, one of thosesales emails, and it says, we're
live tonight at 7PM. And so it'sit does alert me. I mean, I know
that they're going live at thathour.
So you can use your email list.You can even just email friends
(05:53):
that you have in your life thatyou maybe you know are on the
platform and would might wannasupport your live if you're
comfortable having people youknow come to your live. So
that's one. Also, many platformslike Instagram and YouTube will
have will allow you to setreminders so that it will remind
your audience that you're goinglive. And if you have that
alert, you know, if you are likea creator, let's say you wanna
(06:16):
always make sure you don't missmy lives, you can go to my
profile, and at the top, you cantap the bell, and then you can
set the alert for what you wannahear about from me about if I'm
going live or if I post a videoso you can set alerts for
creators, which is really ahelpful thing.
Let's see what else. Askingfriends and family to join so
you have someone there thatkinda maybe will support you,
and at least you'll have someonecommenting so you don't feel
(06:36):
lonely. And also think aboutsetting a time, and this I don't
do. I don't even follow my ownadvice a lot of times, but go
live consistently around thesame time so that your people
know to expect it. I don't dothis because I like the opposite
situation.
I like to have new people comeinto my lives that don't always
get a chance to come because ofwhat time maybe the time isn't
(06:57):
always good for them in theevening. So I like to do a
surprise live on a weekend on alate morning or something like
that, and then get differentpeople in my lives. So depending
on your strategy, you can decideif you want it to be recurring
or have two different times inthe week to cover different time
zones or whatever. Okay. Nowlet's talk about preparing for
your live, which is key toeliminating the stress.
(07:21):
If you have a list of topicsthat you're gonna talk about,
this makes it so easy becauseyou can right away know when I
am in panic mode and I havenothing left to say, you can
look at the list. Also, you canask your viewers questions. And
this is so underrated even forme because I realize that if I
(07:42):
do that, I can rest my voice.Because a lot of times talking
for a straight hour on a live issiring. And I'm like drinking a
lot of water, and I'm trying tostay hydrated, and keep my
audience entertained in a way.
And so I do. I tend to go golike a marathon. So it's really
nice to stop and say, oh, sowhere's everybody joining from
tonight? And then maybe speakabout the cities that you see
(08:04):
come up. Or ask somebody, likestart a topic about your
favorite something.
Your favorite music, yourfavorite song, your favorite,
what did I do recently? Yourfavorite tea. What because I was
drinking a tea, I was like,let's everybody guess what kind
of tea that I'm drinking, andthat way I could take a minute,
take a sip, and read the readthe guesses. So you can have
things like that that you do. Ireally had a good live once when
(08:27):
I did TikTok trivia.
Made sure I had a list. I hadanswers, and I would do some
true and false so that was easyfor people to answer. I'd ask
some open ended questions, seewhat answers I got. Really a
good way to create engagement onyour live. That, I do find when
people land on lives wheresomething is going on, they tend
to stay a little bit longer, andthey'll ask, hey, what's going
(08:49):
on here?
So it's a good idea to havesomething like that in your back
pocket. It's also important toset a level of expectation for
yourself, like, kind ofespecially if it's the first
time, picture that you're gonnahave three people and get over
it. Picture that for a minute,you're gonna have no people. Get
over it. Just go.
(09:09):
Just start talking. If you starttalking, someone will join. And
especially if you startscrolling and you're showing up
on the FBP, if you're standingthere staring at your screen,
people are gonna scroll rightby. So be engaging. Be talking.
Be getting your audience warmedup. That's important. Oh, this
(09:32):
one's a big one. Post a videobefore you go live. It doesn't
have to be about being live.
Post any other video that youwant to try and give some boosts
to because when you go live,your videos get pushed out. This
is a fact. So I always, always,if I have a tutorial that I
really want to give some extralove to, like I really want
people to see this video,because I think it'll be a good
(09:54):
one, I make sure I go live afterit. And I don't do it every
time, but at least try I try andgo live once a week, and I try
and and I make sure I post avideo before I go live. So
that's very important.
It number one, it'll give yousomething to talk about on your
live too. You can say, oh, Ijust posted a video about that.
So if you're interested, go andlook at it because I posted a
video about how to do this typeof vlog. For me, that's
(10:16):
something I posted about oncerecently. And I was like, go in
and look at it, and then youcan, let me know if you think it
was helpful, and then thatpeople will go and watch and
come back to your live.
That kind of thing. So those aresome key things. And then in
general, just being confidentand not feeling scared. And if
you are nervous, listen to me.Tell your audience, oh, I'm so
(10:38):
nervous.
This is my first live. Oh, thesebuttons are intimidating. Trust
me. There are people out therewho know what the buttons are
because they are they go live.And so they'll say, oh, well,
the one on the right is whereyou can flip the screen.
The one on the left, like,they'll tell you things. The
people in the comments, so muchsmarter than me so many times.
Like, I'm like, oh my god. Ieven know that. And I'm pressing
(10:59):
the buttons and someone's givingme advice.
Literally, people are there.They want you to do well. They
don't want you to fail. You'regonna get very few people that
come in and they're like, blah,blah, blah, what are you doing?
It's mostly people who are gonnabe positive and be like, hey,
you know, don't be nervous.
This is fun, whatever, whatever.And if you do get a troll, and
(11:19):
this is important, veryimportant, press on their name,
press the three dots in theupper right corner, and then
mute or block. You need to knowhow to do that so that you don't
get stressed out. Because if youdon't have a moderator, if
you're new to live and you havenobody that's you're doing you
know, allowed to be a moderator,you're gonna be stressed out
(11:42):
when someone comes in and theystart trolling on your live. So
know that, number one, the threedots, the same process, pressing
on the person's name, pressingon the three dots in the upper
right, will then get you toallow them to be a moderator if
it's someone you know and trust.
Don't let anyone you don't knowbe your moderator. And it's a
good way to get rid of people ifthey're bugging you. Okay? So
(12:04):
keep that in mind and have thatin your back pocket. Okay.
Now you're done with your live.Now what? TikTok is really
helpful in that it allows you tosave clips from your lives. You
can go through it suggests someclips, or you can change what it
suggests. So you can scrollthrough and pick.
(12:25):
I don't know what the length is.Maybe it's a minute. Maybe it's
thirty second. I don't even knowhow long. But it will give you
clips that you can download.
So you don't have to downloadthe whole thing, but you can you
can download the whole thing anddo your own edits, or you can
download the clips that TikToksuggests. So you can do that
after you're live and use it forsome content. And this way, if
(12:45):
you're nervous about makingcontent and talking to the
camera, you can use your live asyour videos. And then once you
start doing that, I know I havea private client that I worked
with, and she was so comfortabledoing lives because she's got a
history of QVC, and she was sonervous to make videos because
she's used to being live. So Isaid, good.
Take your clips from your liveand post them as your videos.
(13:06):
Soon as she started doing that,she started being able to make
videos that emulated her beinglive. So she was able to channel
her live self into her videosonly after she used those videos
and post them, and could seewhat they looked like as pieces
of content. Okay? A littlecomplicated, but hopefully you
(13:27):
followed that.
And then the next thing isreally to reflect on it and
think how did it oh, I forgot tomention Instagram. Hold on. If
you have your settings set onyour Instagram lives to archive
and save after you go live, youwill also be able to download
download your live and edit offthe beginning, let's say, if
you're welcoming people in ortake something out. I don't I
(13:50):
didn't know this for the longesttime on Instagram. I thought you
had to immediately post yourlive.
And as is with all the, hey,everyone, at the beginning and
welcome in, everyone, you don't.You can archive it, you can save
it, and you can post it later,okay, with it being edited. So
those are the things. And nowlastly is when you're done,
(14:12):
maybe it helps to watch it for alittle bit, especially in the
beginning. Watch your own liveand see how you did.
Do you say a lot? Are youstaring a lot? Are you, like,
looking down the whole time? Areyou repeating every single
comment? Don't repeat thecomments out loud until you read
them in your head first.
But you don't have to say everycomment. You could pick a
couple. You could answer andmention a person. You could
(14:34):
welcome people in. You canengage with the comments and use
that as anyway, use that ascontent, but also look back and
your at yourself and do someself assessing because you wanna
get better.
That's the whole idea. You don'twanna just do okay, like,
improve. I listen to my videosand and I got rid of a lot of my
(14:55):
filler words. I used to say, youknow, a lot, and I still do. I'm
trying hard not to.
When I record tutorials, I don'tsay it as much. I say it more in
conversation or when I'm on thepodcast, I think. But I have
some words that I or littlephrases I repeat, and I try hard
not to do it. But listening toyourself, you hear the things.
They will trigger you when youare recording or speaking live,
(15:19):
and you'll hear yourself saying,there's nothing worse than being
on a meeting, on a Zoom meeting,when someone's presenting, and
every five words is, or at theend of every sentence.
You don't have to fill everyspace with a word. You don't
have to say Pause. Like that.Take a beat. Think for a second.
(15:45):
It's much better than havingyour audience listen to Okay.
That's it for today. I'm fried,and I have one more shoot day
before I head home. It has beenso much fun being here. I will
say that the people I work within the production industry in
(16:05):
general are so kind and fun, andwe every time I meet new people
on a shoot, I'm like, oh,they're so awesome.
And this particular agency thatI'm working with is excellent,
and they're just just reallynice to be around. They're very
respectful. They give me time toshoot my things. If anything,
they piled on so many, ideasthis time. Usually, they lean on
(16:29):
me, and they'll say, yeah.
Just just shoot what you can,and I can just kinda capture
stuff and I make it up on thefly. They came to the table with
a bunch of ideas and wanted meto shoot my other stuff on the
fly. And I was, like, runningaround like like a chicken
without my head trying to figureout, okay, when should I shoot
my stuff that I have scripted,and when should I shoot their
stuff that they want me to get?Mamma Mia. Live and learn.
(16:51):
We're getting better as we go.We are always improving and did
some really fun pieces ofcontent. I had the opportunity
to do an outfit change where Ihad the girl who was wearing
leggings, like, pull on herleggings, they magically come
off. Everybody loved it. So Idefinitely had some fun with the
content this week.
(17:12):
And I I can't wait to startsharing some of these things
from the shoots that you can seethe things I'm talking about. So
I'm gonna remember to do that.I'm gonna go back in the studio.
We're gonna have a littlesession of, like, some of the
thing like. Why am missing like?
We're gonna have a littlesession about the things that I
shoot for brands so you can seethe types of content I'm
shooting and understand how youcan create using very simple
(17:35):
concepts where you don't evenhave to be in your own videos.
And yeah. So I'll be sharingthat. Alright. That's it for
tonight.
Everybody have a wonderfulweekend. And if you want to
learn about podcasting in thestudio, we're doing that big
time. I thought I would be ableto shoot the last part of the
tutorial this week, but it'sbeen gangbusters every single
(17:56):
day. So that's gonna have tohappen this weekend. So next
week, I'll be releasing the lastpart of the podcast series so
you can see exactly how to edit,exactly how to post to YouTube,
exactly how to upload to yourpodcasting site so it goes to
all the platforms.
We are going to break it downand show you. I am, anyway. Have
(18:20):
a great weekend. I will see younext week. Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!