Dicembre, 2021

Google for Creators recently launched The Conversation, a new YouTube series spotlighting the experiences of women of color creators. This month, we’re featuring beauty and lifestyle creator Tyla-Lauren Gilmore, who shared how her natural hair journey led her to build an online community and become a full-time content creator. Learn more about Tyla-Lauren below and check out the full interview.

In 2014, Tyla-Lauren Gilmore graduated college and began to earn a living on her own. She was also trying to find herself, and started thinking about what kind of image she presented to the world. As she looked in the mirror, she wondered why, as a woman of color, she was straightening her natural curls — a process that, over many years, left her hair dry and damaged.

“A college friend told me, ‘Ty, people pay for your curly hair. You should embrace it,’” the native New Yorker says. “Not many of my friends had curly hair, so it was up to me. I was in search of community.”

Tyla-Lauren took to social media to find other women who looked like her. After following a few beauty bloggers on YouTube and Instagram, she began documenting her own natural hair journey. “I was figuring out what to do with my big afro,” she says. “I started posting my natural hair care tips and tricks onInstagram.” Almost immediately, other women took notice, and her online following grew.

Tyla-Lauren knew she’d tapped into something special when a widowed dad reached out for advice. “A father [messaged] me saying, ‘Hey, I just lost my wife, and I have no idea how to do my daughter’s hair,’” she recalls. “I gave him step-by-step processes of how to do his daughter’s hair. And he was so grateful. From then on, I knew this was something I wanted to do.”

She continued to grow her web presence over the next few years, including starting aYouTube channel. In 2018, she quit her 9-to-5 job at a beauty products company to become a full-time digital content creator.

Now, Tyla-Lauren has more than 150,000 followers across her social media channels, creating a supportive space for women to connect and share their experiences. She posts on beauty and fashion, lifestyle, cooking, parenting, travel and self-care. She aims to create authentic content that people can relate to. “I love helping people, especially younger girls looking for a role model,” she says. She has also developed business partnerships with major brands across different industries, with herTyLauren website serving as the home base for her growing portfolio.

For Tyla-Lauren, helping other women and girls on their own self-discovery journeys makes the hard work of being a full-time content creator well worth the effort. She offers two pieces of advice to other women considering becoming creators themselves.

Know your self-worth

Tyla-Lauren recalls the first $50 she received for creating original content. “At first, I viewed it as extra gas money for my commute into the city,” she remembers. But when she left her corporate job, Tyla-Lauren had to get savvy about how to survive and thrive as a solopreneur. She recommends researching the content creation space you’re in to learn more about what brands will pay for product reviews, content sponsorship and other types of business deals. “You may be super appreciative to [work with brands], but it’s not about working for free,” she notes. “Brands have money, and you are a contractor who is doing a job for them. I want all young creators to know this: Take pride in your work and know your self-worth. Be savage! Never sell yourself short!”

Be relatable… and vulnerable

So many social media influencers, including celebrities, curate seemingly flawless images online. Tyla-Lauren strives to create a welcoming community for all women and girls, inviting them to share their day-to-day life experiences. “I’m a creator, but I’m also a human being,” she says. “I want to erase that [ideal] that everything is perfect and all flowy dresses and vacations. That’s not what being a creator is about. I talk to people about normal stuff like laundry and grocery shopping and things that we all go through.” Her posts on mental health and self-care, including her own experiences in therapy, have been very popular with her followers. “These posts get a huge response,” she says. “People connect with you. Everyone’s story matters. We’re all human.”

Want to hear more? Check out the full video interview with Tyla-Lauren on The Conversation.

As a native Oregonian, I thought living in California would be an incredible break from the nine months of rain I’d endured growing up. What I didn’t realize was that 70-degree winters felt…wrong. Where were the mittens? The down jackets? The occasional snowy days? I’ve since moved back to the Pacific Northwest, and I’ve had a renewed appreciation for winter weather.

In fact, I enjoy the chilly months of the year so much, I’ve put together a few ways to make the most of the cold weather.

1. I love snowshoeing, and I always want to find new trails. I use Google Maps to look for mountain biking and hiking trails that are covered in snow in the winter. (Just look for the hiking icons, or the light dash lines that indicate trails.) If I come across a good one, I label it on Maps so I know how to get back.

2. I’m a year-round runner, but once the temperature dips below 50 Fahrenheit and the roads get wet or icy, I need new gear — all of which I can find in one place using Google Shopping. You can select the Sports & Outdoors tab to browse — and turn on the deals filter for discounts.

3. And when I’m returning from a chilly run, I can use the Google Home app to turn on my Nest Thermostat before I get home, so I know I’m not wasting energy while I’m out and the house will be toasty when I come in. I also use Home & Away Routines so that Nest knows when I’m out and can adjust my temperature automatically.

4. OK fine, there’s one downside of winter weather, and that’s how early it gets dark. I use Google Assistant to notify me an hour before sunset so I can get outside for some sunshine before the sun goes down.

5. We’ve started cutting down our own Christmas tree, which is actually pretty easy to do. A quick Google Search for cutting down a tree on federal land will help you find a map (and how you can purchase a permit). Then you can just use Google Maps to take you to the right area.

6. If I’m feeling really adventurous and ready to hit the slopes, I’ll check out the Explore tool on google.com/travel. I can set my home as the point of origin and then select “skiing” under the Interests filter and see what ski towns I can visit.

7. I love a good Google Alert to stay up to date on what’s going on locally. Once November rolls around, I set one for “Oregon winter festivals.”

8. Pixel cameras take incredible photos in dimly lit areas, so using Night Sight for shots of light displays or snowy nights is a no-brainer. And if you’ve already snagged a Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro, those photos will look even better: The new Pixel camera lets in 2.5 times as much light as the Pixel 5, and you can try out the new Motion Mode setting to capture an artsy falling snow pic.

9. Most winter nights, I make a real fire — but when I don’t feel like hauling in wood, there’s always a YouTube version, complete with crackle.

Navigating the U.S. healthcare system can be quite challenging, so it’s no wonder three in four people turn to the internet first in their search for health information. By providing timely and authoritative health information, plus relevant resources and tools on Google Search, we’re always exploring ways to help people make more informed choices about their health. Here are a few new ways we’re helping.

New ways to find insurance information on Google

In the U.S., finding a doctor who accepts your health insurance is often a top priority. When searching for a specific provider, people can check which insurance networks that they might accept. And if they’re searching for a new provider overall, on mobile, they’re now able to filter providers nearby who accept Medicare — a health plan predominantly for people over the age of 65.

How providers can keep patients up to date

To help people get connected to the care they need, we’re conducting checks to ensure details of local doctors are up to date, and giving all healthcare providers the ability to update their information by claiming and updating their Google Business Profile.

We continue to expand the features and tools that doctors can use to communicate about the services they offer. After claiming their profile, health professionals can edit and update information about their hours, services, and more.

Whether helping people find information to self-assess their symptoms for mental health conditions like depression or getting real time information of COVID-19 vaccine availability nearby, we continue to explore ways to connect people around the world to relevant and actionable information to better manage their health.

As the end-of-year holiday season is in full swing, our aim at Google is to help shoppers browse for inspiration, discover new products and ultimately find what they’re looking for. This is why we are building an open ecosystem that connects merchants and customers around the world.

To help merchants reach more customers online, we welcome PrestaShop merchants globally to more easily integrate their product inventory across Google. Starting today, “PrestaShop Marketing with Google,” a new add-on to the PrestaShop Essentials suite, is available in France and in countries where Shopping campaigns are available, allowing 300,000 PrestaShop merchants to feature their products across Google in just a few clicks. This collaboration with PrestaShop will enable their merchants to become discoverable by millions of people across Search, the Shopping tab, Image Search and YouTube.

This is the first partnership of this scale with a French and European e-commerce platform. We hope that this collaboration will give shoppers more choice online, and help merchants meet their customers more easily during the end of the year holiday season and beyond.