The Socialize Strategy - Why Do Trends?

🎯 Main Topic: Why You Should Do Trends (Yes, Even You)

Helen breaks down the why behind occasionally participating in social media trends — even if you're hesitant:

✅ Reasons to Embrace Trends:

• Staying current: Shows you're tuned into the platform's culture.
• Algorithm boost: Trends get pushed further — they work.
• Community building: Viewers relate more when they see familiar content done your way.
• Creative nudge: Trends help you out of ruts and spark new content ideas.
• Visibility: Trends expand your reach — even imperfect ones can go viral.

🧪 Real Examples:

• Helen’s own “Don’t Cha” trend videos crushed it in public spaces (airport, beach, set).
• Studio members like Vicky and Harley Girl gained thousands to millions of views using the trend — even if they didn’t do it “perfectly.”

🔁 Helen's Advice:

• Don’t overdo trends — but aim for once a week if possible.
• Keep a folder of easy-to-do trends on hand for when time or energy is low.
• Let trends reflect your niche — not dilute it.

🧪 Unsponsored Items of the Week:

1. NAD Supplement – Inspired by TikTok, Helen shares how this has possibly improved her skin and overall wellness.
2. Creatine Gummies – Watermelon & orange flavors; supports brain health, memory, and neuroprotection, especially helpful for those 60+.
3. IZIPIZI Readers – Stylish, comfy readers that fit over contacts and offer a stylish, practical alternative to drugstore glasses.

 

🔍 Studio Update:

• NEW: Studio Free Preview Space!
  Access the full beginner TikTok course + all free tutorials.
  ✨ Searchable by keyword (e.g., “green screen,” “stop motion”)
  🔗 [Link in show notes]

Wrap-Up:
Trends aren’t about looking young — they’re about knowing the social media language. Be playful, be visible, be current. You’re the main character.

🎧 See you next week!

 

Episode Transcript

Helen (00:00):
Welcome to The Socialize Strategy. Happy Friday. It's
always a good day when I'm herechatting with you. And I have
two unsponsored by products asusual. And I always like to say
it's something I use in myeveryday life.
And again, that rings true. Sosomething that I have just
started using every day andaside from another supplement

(00:22):
I've started doing every day. SoI am going to talk about both of
them. I only have one of themhere in front of me, But the
first one is NAD, which Ilearned about on TikTok. And I
started looking into it, Ifigured, well, it can't hurt.
And funny enough, every time Isee one of my doctors now, they
say, what's different about you?Your skin looks so good. And I
don't notice a difference, butsupposedly that does help your

(00:46):
skin health. And so maybe it'sworking and I just don't notice
it because I see myself everyday in the camera. So that's the
first thing that I've beentaking.
But recently, I started takingcreatine. So I'm going to hold
it up, show it to you. I boughtit in gummy form. This happens
to be watermelon flavor. Let meshow you how big they are.
If you like a gummy, you'regonna love this. Looks like

(01:07):
that. You just take three a day.What this is good for is, brain
health. And especially forpeople 60, it's supposed to help
your short term memory.
And what are the benefits?Reasoning and neuroprotection.
The other people that do take itare bodybuilders and athletes,
and I do weight training, so Ilike to try and follow some kind

(01:29):
of a good, regimen when it comesto health in terms of what I put
in my body for that. So Idecided that I'm gonna dive in.
And I've been taking this forabout three weeks now.
I don't really know if I'm gonnanotice a difference, but having
done the research, having spokento my doctor about it just
recently, she was like, yeah, gofor it. I think it's I think

(01:49):
it's a good addition. I don't doa lot of supplements, so it's
weird to me to be having thesethings as a routine, but I will
report back. I also got theorange flavor. So I have two
flavors.
They taste yummy. So if you're agummy lover, they're gonna
satisfy a little sweet craving,and they're supposedly gonna
help my short term memory and mybrain and my brain function. I

(02:09):
can always use help in thatdepartment because I'm going 80
miles an hour, and sometimes Ifeel like I'm losing my mind. So
this maybe will help me get mymind back. That's the first one.
The other one is for our folkswho are now needing readers. I
wear contact lenses so I don'tneed readers all day long. And I
can read my computer. I can lookat my phone. I don't have to be

(02:30):
constantly pulling out readers.
But I noticed that in themorning and in the evenings,
when my eyes are a little tired,it does help to put on top of my
contacts a low a low reader,number just to give it to ease
the stress on my eyes. And I dothat just simply to help my
eyes. I obviously take mycontacts out at night, so then I

(02:51):
have them next to my bed if mycontacts are out and I need to
look at my phone. But here's mybrand. Are you ready?
EZPIZI, I Z I P I Z I. I thinkit's actually a palindrome. It
is. Oh, I love that. Justfigured that out.
So it comes with this really,these nice felt cases, which I

(03:11):
love. I have tons of them. Iget, my husband uses EZ Pizzi's.
He's the one that turned me ontothe brand. And it's funny
because they're comfortable.
Hold on. Let me let medemonstrate them for you.
They're comfy. They look kindacool. They come in all different
types of frame solids, clear,etcetera.
And they are just my go to. Ialways have a pair around for

(03:34):
the evenings. I have them byboth by my bed on both both my
residences. I make sure I havethem near me. And the other day,
a couple of days ago, I waswalking behind someone in in the
city, and they dropped theireasy peasies.
And I ran and picked them up andwent chasing after him because I
was like, you don't want to losethese because I know this brand.
And I'm not saying it's a priceybrand, but it's I think they run

(03:54):
from like 4 like around $40each. So it's like a little more
than a drugstore, but it's alsocooler looking than the
drugstore ones. Now I know somepeople love to do stylish
readers because it gives them alook if they're gonna pop
readers on. I know my friendAlicia Lenkin, who's a stylist,
is very, very into she resistedreaders for the longest time.
I used to make fun of herbecause the font on her phone

(04:16):
was gigantic. I'm like, Alicia,get yourself a pair of readers
or something. But she hadstruggled with it from a fashion
point of view because she'sreally into what her look is. So
she always has really funkylooking readers. Now, I don't
know if this brand would do itfor her.
So if you're looking for that,this is not where to go. But
these have some really, I think,some stylish looking frames.

(04:38):
Okay. That is it for my littleunsponsored buy segment for
today. And if you don't needreaders, lucky you.
But it's funny because I reallyvery rarely do it, but when my
kids will see me at night, whenI'm on the couch at night and
it's low light in the livingroom because everyone's watching
TV, even though I put mybrightness up on my phone,
sometimes I just like thatlittle ease of pressure on my

(04:59):
eyes. Okey dokey. Here we go.What should you do sorry. Let's
back it up.
Why should you do a trend oncein a while? Why should you do
trends? I really want to talkabout this because I think a lot
of creators are resistant to itand they think, ugh, I'm just
like conforming if I do trends.No. You're not conforming.

(05:23):
You are showing that you knowwhat social media is about. You
are reflecting that you are upand current, and it's not
something that you should beavoiding because it's like
everyone else does it. I don'twant to do it. It's almost the
exact opposite. What you want todo is embrace the trends, show
that you get it, and show how touse it that reflects back to

(05:47):
what your purpose is on socialmedia.
I can't emphasize how importantthis is because the algorithms,
they favor the trends. It's afact. This has been proven again
and again and again. And it justwas proven to me yet again this
past week, weekend, because lastweek I posted three times the
same type of trend. And it wasthat don't you trend where you

(06:09):
hold up your phone and you whipit around and you do the moves.
I did it once at the beach. Idid it once in an airport.
People love when I do the publicones because they're like, oh my
god, you're so brave. How do youdo that? How do I do it?
I'm the main character. I reallydon't care what people think. If
they want to be worried aboutwhat I'm doing, they should be
worried about their own life.Like, I I don't know. So I don't
really get bothered.

(06:30):
I'm very, very unbothered bypeople looking at me. It doesn't
faze me in the in the least. SoI did that one, and they both
got a lot of views because itwas a trend. And if I just
walked around holding my phoneand doing it to any other song,
no question, this would not getviews. So I'm here to tell you,
I then did it a third time withmy producer on the set, and it

(06:52):
did well again.
So your your your resistance totrends is not your friend. It's
just gonna hurt you in the longrun. And I'm not saying you have
to do a trend every week, atrend twice a day week. No. No.
You can do a trend once a month.But once in a while, do it. I
recommend more than once amonth, to be honest. I'd say, if

(07:14):
I was giving hard cold advice, Iwould say you should do a trend
a week. That's what you shouldjust rotate it into your content
and and put it out there.
Pick one that relates. We sendout the trends in the
newsletter. You know, if you'relistening to this podcast,
you're you've received thenewsletter. You just wanna pick
one. You just wanna get to be atone with it and say, alright.
This is the one for me. Thiswill work for me, and then go

(07:35):
for it. You will you will thankme because one of them will hit.
Now there was a creator rightnow who followed looked at the
tutorial, posted it, didn't evendo it right because she didn't
wanna zoom out her back camera,so she didn't zoom out. And she
still has something like8,000,000 views by now, I'm
sure, on this on this video.
It's crazy when it when thealgorithm picks it up and

(07:56):
somebody likes it, even if it'snot done perfectly, sometimes
that's even better. When you'renot perfect, then people will
come and support you and go, youdid great. Even though you, you
know, didn't do it perfectly,you did great. So people
support, the community supportis there. So let's talk about
some of the things about doingtrends and why it's not just
about the trend itself.
And of course, it's aboutshowing how current you are. But

(08:18):
that was my point. It shows thatyou're current, but you're not
trying to be 20. It doesn't meanyou're pretending to be younger.
It means that you're aware ofwhat's happening.
You are in the know with thelingo of social media and that
you can play along. So if you'reworried about fitting in, you're
worried about like, Ugh, this isgoing to be embarrassing, or
whatever, this shows youraudience that you know the lay

(08:41):
of the land, that you get it.Okay? So that's important. The
other thing to know is that itwill expand your reach because
it does get pushed out and itwill get you out further.
That is just a fact. Most of thetime if you use a trending
sound, a trending or trendspecifically with a trending
sound, It does it. Now I'm goingto use some examples because we

(09:02):
have people in the studio thatdid it this week. Vicky, one of
our studio members did the trendin again, she didn't do it right
in Australia. She couldn'tfigure it out.
She posts she was she was, like,really frustrated, she's like, I
don't know. I I know this wasn'tright, but I posted anyway
because I didn't have much time.That has more views than
anything she has posted in thelast couple of weeks. She she
said she's never even shedoesn't even think she's had a

(09:23):
video that hit that many views.It was like 5,000 views for her,
And she was really, reallyexcited about it.
So it will help you expand yourreach. The other thing it does
is it will bring out some kindof community relatability thing
because it shows you're trying.It shows you're interested in
having some fun. You're notafraid to have some fun. Oh my

(09:44):
god.
I have to show you somethingfunny. I have to digress. One
second. So I put these shoes onfor a TikTok just now. And now
in my room, there's feathersflying around.
These are some old kitten Frenchkitty heels that I bought at one
of those vintage shops justbecause I got a kick out of them
and I needed them for a costumeyears ago and I've stuck them in
my closet. So I was making aTikTok and I needed to put on a

(10:06):
cute pair of shoes, I was like,I'll throw these on because
maybe somebody will comment onit. It'll increase engagement.
But now, because they'revintage, the feathers are flying
all around the room. This is sofunny.
Alright. Let me put them backon. Anyway, just a side note.
When you come to the podcast,you never know what I'm gonna
talk about. And now I'm talkingabout my kitten heels.
I hope that it does well on thevideo, by the way. That that'll

(10:28):
be fun. Again, putting somethingin your video that could spark
spark a conversation is astrategy, not even on purpose.
But when I took them out, said,oh, someone will comment on
these heels because they're so Iknow that they're such a they're
like a Zsa Zsa Gabor thing, ifanybody knows that reference.
Really dating myself on thisone.
All right, but so back to it.When a viewer sees you

(10:50):
participate in a trend thatthey've seen 10 times that day
and they go, Oh my God, she'sdoing it too. Trust me, this is
a win. I've had it so many timeswhere I do one of these crazy
ass trends from like sometransition thing and someone
sees someone my age doing it andthey're stopping on it, even if
they're young. Well, couple oftimes they'll stop and they'll
be like, Granny knows what's up.

(11:11):
I don't like that necessarily,but hey, you know, I'll take it.
So whenever you do a trend, itshows that you know what's going
on. It will show up on people'sFor You page. And if they know
you, they might be more likelyto engage and give you
encouragement. So it buildsconnection.
I don't know. And you'll getpeople that will say, Oh wow,

(11:32):
she did this? I can do this. Andthen you start like picking up
momentum from people using thesounds from your video or saving
your video for reference later,adding it to favorites because
they might want to try it. Soall the things, you get it?
All the things. My biggest thingand my last favorite thing is
that it brings you out of yournormal content and inspires you

(11:53):
to think outside the box. Itinspires you to be a little more
creative. Maybe you're in a rutand you're like, can't think of
what to do. Okay.
Pick a trend. I'm telling you,it snap you out of your rut. I
do it often when I'm in thatlike lull and I'm I don't I know
I have to post a tutorial, butI'm not the mood to make one
right now, or I don't haveanything that I'm inspired to
teach at the moment, I just pullout a trend. And the trend could

(12:15):
be about me teaching TikTok orabout so I use it to spin it
about to what my account isabout, but I also get myself out
of that rut. So use it to getyourself inspired.
Use it to give yourself a reasonto do something different. Like,
don't be afraid. Okay? Don't beshy. You're the main character.

(12:38):
Don't forget that. And so, my mywrap up in the newsletter was
really like, should you do everytrend? No. But what should you
do once in a while? Because youshould do them once in a while.
So the goal is to pick one thatfeels fun and relevant and gives
you a creative way to highlightyour niche. That's mainly. Keep
it simple because as I toldMarilyn in the studio today, I

(13:00):
was like, listen, what you needto do when you're busy and
you're traveling, she does a lotof travel and she doesn't have
time to make long winded piecesof content when she has a group
with her that she's travelingwith. So I said, keep the easy,
quick, fun lip sync ones whereyou can just lip sync and push
the camera towards someone or dosomething simple where you have
a group behind you and you'relip syncing. Keep the simple
ones in your arsenal.

(13:21):
Put them in a little folder inyour phone, wherever you can
easily access them and pull themout on the fly. So they're not
meant to be perfect, they're notmeant to be elaborate, they're
meant to be quick, And imperfectcan almost be your friend in
this kind of thing. Like, makeit playful. And the last thing
is to use it as a chance to testyour reach because sometimes

(13:42):
just your your just for funvideo is the one that brings you
a lot of followers. It justhappened to that creator that I
was talking about.
Her name is Harley Girl. And sheposted this thing. She has
7,000,000 plus views on it, Ithink probably 8,000,000 now.
She got a lot of followers fromit because she showed that she
was trying something cool. Shedidn't do it perfectly, And so
she got people rallying aroundher.

(14:04):
So trends can help you get arally going. All right. That's
it for today. If you didn'tknow, the studio now has a free
access section where if you cango get just the TikTok tutorials
that I post on all my channelsand they are now housed in one
place and the free TikTokbeginner course. If you go into

(14:25):
that space, instead of scrollingmy page and looking for, oh,
when I know she taught greenscreen, where is it?
You don't have to do thatanymore. If you go to the free
space, you can type the keywordgreen screen tutorial and it
will show you every green screentutorial I've posted. So it
limits if you wanna know stopmotion, you type it in, it shows
you the tutorial. So you canfinally search my tutorials in

(14:46):
the new Studio FreeSpace, andit's called the Studio Preview.
So if you're not interested injoining the studio yet, if you
haven't, like, taken that leapinto the fun zone, you're
missing out.
But in the meantime, you can dothe free space. Okay? I'm
putting the link here in theshow notes, and I hope that you
will consider that and thenmaybe at some point jump into
the studio and join us for thefun times. Alright. Take care.

(15:09):
Have a good weekend, and I'llsee you next week.