45. Unraveling Social Media with Katie Brinkley: How to Make it Work for Your Podcast

Katie Brinkley 00:00:00

Going viral is not a business strategy. It's not.

Deirdre Tshien 00:00:03

Did you just hear those words and sigh with belief like, yes, you're saying I don't have to chase the hundreds of thousands or even millions of views and likes to succeed on social media? Or maybe you heard those words and your brow wrinkled a little bit with confusion, because all anyone who talks about social social media tells you is that it's all about going viral. If you're in either of these camps, then this is going to be a bumper episode for you. I'm joined by Katie Brinkley, who is a social media strategist doing a lot of work with businesses who use social media to grow their podcasts and their brands. She's going to help us untangle this whole social media thing. What does she mean when she says going viral is not a business? And if it's not about going viral, what is it about instead? And importantly, what are the steps that we can take to ensure that we can find success for our own podcasts and businesses using social media? If you want to know the answers to these questions as much as I do, then you are in the right place. My name is Deirdre Tshien, the CEO and cofounder of Capsho the Fastest Way to Market and Grow Your Podcast. And this is the Grow my podcast show.

Katie Brinkley 00:01:32

My name is Katie Brinkley, and I am a social media strategist. I've been doing this for about 19 years now. I started by helping bands with their MySpace pages.

Deirdre Tshien 00:01:43

How does someone go from helping bands on MySpace 19 years ago to being a social media strategist today with all of the changes that have happened in the meantime? Because let me tell you a little bit about my story with social media, shall I? Ten years ago, my husband and I, we started our first business. You've probably heard me talk about it before. It's a dessert bar called the Choc Pot, and it's located in Sydney. What you may not know is that when we were really struggling to grow it, we were put onto this new social media platform that was really starting to gain traction by one of our much younger and much hippo staff members. It was a platform called Instagram. And we were so fortunate because, honestly, our business grew off the back of Instagram's growth. When we talk about going viral, man, we had multiple posts going viral, and that happened for a few reasons. One, we had an incredibly marketable product. I mean, oozing, chocolate. You really can't get more marketable than that. Okay, come on, now. And two, we were in the right place at the right time, and I didn't realize this second one until I tried to grow my second, my third, my fourth, all my businesses after that one trying to use Instagram, nothing worked again, and I very quickly became disillusioned and exhausted. Anyone else kind of know this feeling and since then, I've been trying to find a sustainable way to use social media to grab my podcast and my business. And once I started talking to Katie, I knew she had the answers that we need to do exactly this. How exactly do we do this? But first I wanted to know, how exactly did she get into even becoming.

Katie Brinkley 00:03:25

A social media strategist nearly two decades ago? It was something that I started because I worked at the college radio station. I wanted to be a DJ. I wanted to be a sports reporter. And one of the jobs at the college radio station was to get bands to send you their music for free. We were using pen and paper and sending handwritten letters in the mail asking these different bands and these different producers to send us, their musicians, music to us to play at our college radio station for free. And this was right at the emergence of social media. AOL, or it was AOL Instant Messenger. That was like a big thing. It's actually how me and my husband reconnected AOL Instant Messenger. But, I mean, we weren't at the phase that we are today with social media and MySpace. If you remember, you had your top eight friends. Tom was everybody's first social media friend, but you had your top eight, and you could have your little wall, and you could choose different music that you wanted to play whenever people would come on, basically your personal website. And I was like, well, there's a lot of really good bands on MySpace. I wonder if I could just reach out to them on MySpace. So I started connecting with all these bands on MySpace. They were getting a ton of punk music into the radio station. I was really into punk music when I first started or back in my college days. And I reached out to them and the station manager said, well, are you getting all this merch and you're doing, like, interviews with these bands and you're getting all this music, and how are you doing that? I said, well, it's reaching out to them on MySpace. And so while I really quickly saw what an incredible tool it could be, social media could be, when you went in with a game plan and you were trying to utilize it effectively. And so I just started helping these different bands with getting off of my space and onto the radio. I then landed a radio job in Denver. So I was the postgame reporter for the Denver Broncos and the Colorado Rockies and the Colorado Avalanche. I'm so fortunate that I landed my dream job right out of but I was at the radio station, so I was still connecting with these bands on MySpace and saying, like, yeah, well, I know who to get in touch with here at this station. And my payment at the time was free tickets to their show, backstage passes, free merch. It was everything a girl in her 20s could dream of that was into music. So that's how I got started in my space and in radio. And things have just kind of continued to evolve very naturally along the past 19 years as to what I do today with social media and podcasting.

Deirdre Tshien 00:06:11

So even though I may have started on Instagram way back, Katie's been doing this for a lot longer. She's dropping names like MySpace and AOL, names I haven't heard in a long, long time. So, yeah, we're talking to an OG here. And I know, having tried figuring social media out for the last decade, that it is incredibly overwhelming trying to keep up with all the different changes in any given platform, let alone all the new ones that keep popping up. It's hard, right? And so I was excited about asking Katie for her advice. As someone who does this full time for her own business, what advice does she have for the rest of us? People who have our own businesses to run, people who have podcasts to run and who cannot spend 24/7 trying to figure social media out, and then on top of that, being told that we need to be on the next big new thing. What advice does she have for us?

Katie Brinkley 00:07:07

So this is the thing with social media. I definitely feel like it's become a necessary evil. But the way that a lot of people consider utilizing it and showing up on it is like, oh God, I got to be on Instagram again today. Or great, now I got to start dancing and on TikTok or whatever it is. But this is where you don't need to be on every single social media platform known to mankind. All of these platforms exist for different audiences, for different type of content and different ways of showing up. So if you aren't willing to do a lot of video, TikTok is not going to be your platform. I mean, YouTube is not going to be a spot for you to hang out. So, I mean, look at how you're willing to show up and produce content for your audience. And it's going to help eliminate a lot of platforms that you might think that you need to be posting on. I know that a lot of people come to me and they're like, well, if I'm not on every single social media platform, aren't I missing out on a potential listener, on a potential audience? I mean, shouldn't I be on all of them? And if you think about it, this is where you need to take that step back. So let's just say Instagram, instagram is your jam. You're like, okay, I'm going to show up for my audience on Instagram. Well, if you want to do it, there's five different ways that you can post on Instagram. You know, there's the feed, like the single image, the way that Instagram used to be with those single pictures. There's carousel posts that show up in the feed. So that's the swipeable images that you have up to ten videos and pictures. There's real, the short form content, video content. There's instagram live. So going live and talking with your audience or with, you know, one or one to three other people. And then there's Instagram stories. So that's five different ways that you should be showing up on this one platform in order to really grow your audience and your reach. Now you might say, okay, well, hearing you say that Katie, it sounds terrible and I don't want to post on Instagram now. Well, okay, LinkedIn is the same way. I mean, there's a LinkedIn article. So look at the platforms that you're ready to dive into and utilize all the different ways of showing up and what your audience demographic is. It's not to say that, oh, okay, well, I mostly am talking with people in their forty s and up, so I should only be on Facebook. No, think about the other people that could potentially see you over on LinkedIn. So, I mean, all these platforms have a different way of producing content. They have different audiences there. And if you show up and post content the way that these platforms want you to, you utilize, you check the boxes of OK, I posted a story, I posted a reel. And you're showing up three, maybe four times a week with that intention in mind. You're going to grow your audience, you're going to grow your followers, and you're going to grow your leads for your business by showing up effectively. And you're not going to have to worry about posting every single day and doing a whole bunch of reels and doing a whole bunch of this and posting over on Facebook. I mean, it's going to eliminate a lot of the overwhelm that comes with social media. Because every time you show up, you're showing up effectively for that specific audience. And I can't stress it enough with these different social media platforms, you don't need to be on all of them. And it's fine to say, oh yeah, I'm not on LinkedIn, I'm not on Facebook, I'm not on TikTok. But if you want to connect with me and really follow me and really grow or learn from me, Instagram is where it's at because I'm all in over there.

Deirdre Tshien 00:10:54

Now, I don't know about you, but everywhere I turn these days I have someone telling me that I need to get onto TikTok, that now is the time to get onto it, that everyone's able to blow up on there. Have you been told that too? So I wanted to know from Katie, what does she say to this, given that and again, we already have very full time lives, what advice does she have for us about learning something new? That can be super overwhelming?

Katie Brinkley 00:11:20

Well, you're talking to somebody right now that's not on TikTok. I mean, because for me, video is hard. There's a reason that I went into radio. There's a reason that I have a podcast and I didn't create some sort of a YouTube channel teaching people. I mean, the reason for me is I have a hard time with video. And so you have to be willing to yes, sure. You have the opportunity of going viral on TikTok. You have the opportunity of growing your audience. However, going viral is not a business strategy. It's not. And so you have to make sure that every time that you're showing up, every time that you're producing a video, it is so on brand and ready for those new clients and customers that could potentially follow you, that you have to be very intentional with everything that you do. And if you're like me and you're like man, the thought of having to do like, six videos a week is extremely overwhelming and a little intimidating. You don't need to be on TikTok. There's a lot of new platforms that have evolved and come out. I mean clubhouse was one. As far as, like, the social audio side of things, post is a new social media platform that recently has come out for Web three, for Web three people. There's another social media platform where it's completely decentralized. So, I mean, there are more social media platforms coming out every single day. If you get in early, absolutely, you have the opportunity to be an early adopter. But again, how much time and effort are you willing to give these social media channels? Because if you want to grow the right way, you have to be showing up effectively for the way that platform wants you to produce content. I think it really and it probably sounds crazy hearing this because I work in social media, but it just shows the importance of having a building on rented land, building out your audience on rented land. If you have a podcast, if you do, if you have an email list, those are ways for you to directly talk to your biggest followers, your biggest fans, and to show up in front of them on a regular basis. My email list, for example, you know, I might out of all of my social platforms, my email list is the smallest. However, I get 41% open rates. So if I got 41% of my 106,000 Clubhouse followers coming to every single one of my room, man, that'd be amazing. However, I'm having like maybe 30 to 40 people in there, which is still 30 to 40 people. But at the same time, my email list is the best spot for me to really nurture and grow my audience. So I think that think about how you're showing up on social media and how can you take those people into a space that you can control, not control the narrative, but control how often you're showing up in front of them and the ways that you can talk to them and give value to them.

Deirdre Tshien 00:14:15

Does that feel like it's some weight off your shoulders? I definitely feel a little bit lighter hearing that. See what I mean when I said that Katie was going to help us untangle this whole social media thing for us? So what we're going to do now is we're going to take a really quick ad break, and when we get back, we're going to delve into Katie's three steps to making social media work for you and your podcast. Because I don't know about you, but I'm done feeling like I'm the one working for these social media platforms. Anyone else also feel like this? So stick with us because we'll be right back.

Katie Brinkley 00:14:49

So if you're ready to go all in on social media and have a strategy behind it, the very first thing I'd recommend to do is to take a step back, stop posting on all the channels, and pick two. Now, when you're picking your two, be strategic with it. Keep in mind, Mark Zuckerberg owns Instagram and Facebook. So if you put all your eggs in Zuck's basket and there's some weird outage, or let's say he's like, I'm going 100% into the Metaverse now, folks, and you're not ready to join him on that ride, you have nowhere to take that audience that you've been building. So if you maybe choose Instagram and LinkedIn or Facebook and TikTok, choose two platforms that you can show up effectively for that audience on each platform. The next step that I'd recommend is, after you've decided these are my two platforms, is you sit down and look at what you want to have go out for your posts, for your post for the rest of the month. So I use a scheduler called Bloomly. I'm not affiliated with them. It's a great tool, though, because you actually are able to see what you have coming up in calendar view. So you can look at the whole month and be like, all right, well, I know that I am going to post three days a week on each social platform, and this week I'm going to be talking about this podcast episode. This week, I'm going to be talking about this. This week I'm going to be doing that. And so it allows you to look at everything in calendar form. I think that one of the biggest things that many brands, businesses, podcast creators is they get overwhelmed about what to say. So if you're thinking like, I don't know, George, just post about, like, this episode just came out, this just happened. If you take that step back and really think about what are your frequently asked questions, what are people asking you about on a regular basis? And if you can choose four questions that people ask you on a regular basis, that's the way to build out the framework for what you're going to be talking about throughout the month. So let's say on Monday the third or whatever you want to be talking about, everyone always asks me, why is my Instagram Reach down? So that's going to be the first question that I answer. Well, actually, I have a podcast that I also talked about, Instagram Reach, so I'm going to talk about that on the following day. I will include a clip from the podcast on that day. And then on Friday, I'm going to go live talking about the way that Instagram Reach has been affected by the latest update of scheduling your reels. So I've created three posts about this one topic based on a frequently asked question. If you're saying, okay, well, I don't I don't really know what questions I get asked all the time. There's a whole bunch. There's a whole Google. My friends is your friend as well. And if you type a question into the Google search bar, it will start to give you the questions that are being most searched. So if I just open up my Google browser and I say, why is instagram? And then just stop, google will give you a whole list of 20 plus search terms that have happened. So use Google as your friend if you're having a hard time thinking about different topics for your frequently asked questions. So when you're building out your content for the month, start with that. I like to call it the skeleton that hi high level view of, this is what I'm going to talk about this day. This is what I'm going to talk about this day, and I'm going to do this on this day. And that way, when you go to create your content and actually sit down and do it, it's going to go a lot faster because you already have that starting point. This framework can be done with you spending as little as 1 hour a week on social media because you've built out, okay, these are the questions. Now all I have to do is just go in and fill in the blanks. I know what I'm going to be talking about every week, and I promise you it's actually probably going to take you less than an hour a week once you get into this routine, establishing the routine of, okay, I know it's Friday at noon. Every Friday at noon, I eat my lunch and I work on my next week's content. And if you get really good at it, you could do the next two weeks, next three weeks. Okay, I'm going to use a trending Audio to talk about this topic. So when on that Wednesday that the trending Audio comes up, look for something that's trending and then answer that topic that you've already set in stone for that week. I think that that's one of the biggest things with so many content creators and business owners is that they think, okay, I got to be doing something every single day. And if you have that high level view of what it is you want to talk about, what the most common questions are, it makes creating the content that much easier because, you know, all right, I'm going to be answering this question on this day. And you don't need to show up five times a week, six times a week. If you want to, you can, because you can have all sorts of creative juices flowing, but you can still have a very successful social media strategy, posting only three, maybe four times a week because every time you show up, you're answering someone's problem.

Deirdre Tshien 00:20:00

That is great advice. And the best thing is that as podcasters, we actually have a head start on this because chances are that you're already answering questions or solving problems that your audience has. So you actually already have your content, really, it's there waiting for you. And if you don't believe me, give Capsho a go upload your episode and see the social media captions that it creates for you. Not just captions to promote your podcast episode, but engagement and educational posts too, based on what you've actually shared in your episode, content you've already created that help your audience solve a problem. So when Katie walked through how to do this, it made total sense to me, especially as someone who does quite a few non interview based episodes. But what about those of us who do a lot of interview based episodes, episodes where our guest is the expert in that specific topic.

Katie Brinkley 00:20:56

So, I mean, for me, I try and find when I'm googling different topics or I'm seeing what these frequently asked questions are, these are what people are talking about all the time. I go out and I try and find a guest that can answer that specific question. So about a year ago, LinkedIn announced this newsletter feature. And I was like, this is interesting. I don't really know a ton about it. Who does? And so I went out and I found somebody that I could bring on my show that would just talk only about the LinkedIn newsletter feature, that could talk only about whatever this topic was, and then I kind of bump them up in the recording schedule. Now, as far as creating the content for that, again, if you're sitting down once a week for an hour thinking about what your content is going to be for the month or for that week, it makes it a lot easier because you just finished recording the episode. Like, okay, I know we talked about this. So this is where I'm going to create again, I'm just going to talk about Instagram. On Instagram. I'm going to create a carousel post on the three reasons why you need to have a LinkedIn newsletter. And the very first one could be in this week's episode of the podcast. I sit down with so and so, and she told us about this new, this brand new feature on LinkedIn. Then the next slide, it's called the LinkedIn newsletter, and you can take people through that high level this, this, and this of the podcast. Click the link in my bio to listen for that post. The next post can be a real where you sit down and say like, okay, so talk to me about this new feature that is on LinkedIn. And then you include the clip of them briefly answering it. And then one of the things that I like to do with whenever I have guest episodes is I turn them into a reel, and I put the reel as the video of them answering the question as the green screen. So I'll be in there kind of over the front of it, and I'll be like, I talked with so and so this week. This is what she said. And then I'll have it play in the background so that way my audience will still see my face on the reel. But that other person is answering that high level question again, reiterating the fact that it is my show, and I brought on this amazing guest to answer this question for you. And then again, the last post can be something about a single image. It could be you're going live. I mean, the options are really endless. But if you're sitting down again just once a week for that hour, if you've batched your content, you can really take it and get okay, so I know that this episode is about this, and this is the way I'm going to repurpose it. This is the way I'm going to show up to share it. And I think that if you can find a way to position as I brought this guest to answer this question that we all have had. I found them for you. I found them. This was my guest on my show. Here's what you can learn. So that's one of the biggest things is to emphasize the fact that it was you that brought in this expert to help your audience.

Deirdre Tshien 00:24:03

Wow, this dove is gold. Is your mind working through all the possibilities about what you can do on social media now to not only promote your podcast, but to actually leverage it to create even more content for you. Now, let's quickly recap on the two steps that Katie's already shared with us and then get into her last one.

Katie Brinkley 00:24:21

Step one, sit down, have that scheduler. Step two, look at the high level of what it is that you want to post. And then step three is actually crafting the posts. There is an anatomy to a solid social media post. And I'm not saying that every single post needs to be a blog. It doesn't need to be a 500 word blog. It needs to have three key elements. It needs to have a hook. It needs to have a body, which is all about it's, filled with SEO of who you're talking to and why they need to read this post or read your caption. And then it needs to have a call to action. Every single post needs to have those three key elements. So whether it's the hook is just going off the LinkedIn thing, like, want to grow your LinkedIn audience even more or wish you had a strong email list, LinkedIn can help. So that's where you want to have that hook to get people to read. The second part is SEO filled caption body. I think that not very many people realize that Instagram, even TikTok, LinkedIn, those captions that you're writing are SEO. So, I mean, sometimes you'll find that Instagram or Facebook is suggesting a post to you. Well, the reason why is because you've probably interacted with a post similar to this from one of your people you're following previously, and they had similar verbiage in their caption. So I'm not saying just to be like, okay, well, here's a bunch of random SEO search terms. But for me, again, crafting out this LinkedIn newsletter post. Do you wish there was a way for you to grow your email list using LinkedIn then in the second caption, or like the body of the caption? As an entrepreneur, that's who I mostly work with. As an entrepreneur, you know that utilizing LinkedIn, LinkedIn is an important tool to grow your business. Business grows. So, I mean, like, you're taking all these terms that people are constantly seeing and engaging with and adding it into the caption. Now, I know that as I first started my business journey. And that's where you can have three, four sentences about what it is that the post the picture is about. And then at the very end, like I said before, you want to have that call to action. Always tell people what you want them to do. Do you want them a comment? Do you want them to save it? Do you want them to share it? Have they felt this before? Tell me below. I mean, anything like that. So you can engage. Tell people what it is that you want them to do. They will then do it. If you want them to go to the link in your Bio, tell them why they want to click the link in your bio. You absolutely need to have a call to action in every single post. Whether it's like this post, if you agree, drop the thumbs up emoji or the hand raising emoji if you've ever experienced this. So tell people what it is that you want them to do, and they will do it. I mean, even if it's a quote from your podcast, if it's a great quote, and it's very relatable that someone shared, turn that quote into a graphic and say, share this post with someone else that's felt this way, and you'd be surprised at the amount of people that will then share your post to their stories. They'll share. It with a friend. They will do what you want, what you ask them to do that they're not going to do anything unless you tell them to.

Deirdre Tshien 00:27:40

Okay? My mind is blown from all this awesome value Katie is sharing with us. Seriously, this podcast alone is worth way more than what you're paying for it. Get it? Okay, so no more jokes. No more jokes. On a more serious note, you may recall just a couple of episodes ago, episode 44 of this podcast, I spoke to Dan Misener from Bumper and he busted some of the common myths that we hear about growing a podcast. One of those myths was the effectiveness of social media. Do you remember that? In short, his view was that it is incredibly ineffective in getting podcasters more listens. Trying to get someone from a short form medium like social media to listen to a long form medium like a podcast is very, very hard. Not impossible, but pretty improbable. I asked Katie for her answer to this. I wanted to give her, as a social media strategist, an opportunity to respond to this and her answer was so good. OMG, it was good. And you can hear it all too because what I've done is I've actually created a bonus clip with her answer. So if you want to hear Katie's take on the effectiveness of social media to get you more listens, head over to the show notes right now and get that bonus clip.

Katie Brinkley 00:28:53

It's completely free.

Deirdre Tshien 00:28:54

Of course. Now I'm actually collaborating with Katie on something really, really cool. I'm going to let her tell you all about it.

Katie Brinkley 00:29:01

Well. So I am putting together social profit lab. It's a four day event with 40 speakers and the event was really an extension of my podcast because with my show, I try to bring in different experts to talk about one high level strategy that could have massive results for business owners. Whether it's, hey, maybe you built this business, but are you actually delegating effectively? Or yeah, you've built this business but you're still not showing up in any of the photos or the videos. Why is that? Why do you need to so the four days that take you through, the four reasons why you might not be getting the sales and making the amount of money for your business that you feel like you should be at this point of your business journey. Day one is all about leadership skills, the fundamentals. Day two is about building out your audience and finding that audience. So we're going to talk about using podcast guesting to grow your business. Should your business have a podcast? The answer is yes. But why and how to show up effectively on LinkedIn. So all different speakers talking about building your audience. Day three is about creating content. That's when you'll be speaking about why your podcast is a content generating machine, how to utilize video for your show or to grow your business. Get that camera confidence. Different ways to utilize LinkedIn newsletters, man, we're talking a lot about LinkedIn on this episode. So all different ways of creating the content. And then day four is selling. As you're showing up, you have the audience, but you're still not making sales from your social media efforts. Well, I've collected ten speakers that I'm going to talk to you all about how to sell from all your efforts that you're doing, building out your audience on social media through your podcast, your email list. How are you going to sell to them? And that's what we're talking about on day four. And it's free. The event is free. It's going to be amazing. The speakers that I've brought in are truly awesome. I was originally going to have 30 speakers, and so many amazing people raised their hand to come speak. I expanded it to 40. And I know it's really going to be that one thing that you might have just missed. It's going to be that one thing that LinkedIn doesn't work for my business. Well, here's why it's not working for your business. Make these small changes, and I promise you, you'll see some results. So, yeah, that's the event. Social profit lab, February 21 through 24th.

Deirdre Tshien 00:31:39

Okay, mark that in your calendar. I know some of the speakers that Katie has on her summit, and so I know it is going to be insanely good. In fact, yours truly is going to be speaking and I'll be speaking on the topic of how you can use your podcast to create a content generation machine. It's a presentation that I am particularly proud of, so I hope to see you guys there to sign up for the summit, which is completely free. Head on over to the show notes, and we'll have the link there. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Okay, that's all we have for you today. My name is Deirdre Tshien, and as always, stay awesome.