182 | The 4-Step Social Media Growth Strategy, with Katie Brinkley

All right, so I know you've seen it. The online guru saying, you got to post more. You got to post more. You got to post more. And for those of us who are looking to grow our audience, so that ultimately we can get more clients at customers to our business. And yes, get new podcast listeners as well. They can be super overwhelming, because we've got other stuff to do. But what if you could grow your social media audience and your podcast audience by posting less, but with more intention? This is Grow the Show, the podcast that grows your podcast. My name is Kevin Chidlin. I am your podcast growth coach. And today on the show, we are diving into a crucial question. How can you effectively use social media to grow your podcast audience without posting 17 times a day and burning yourself out? What a help us answer that? We are joined by my friend, Katie Brinkley, who is the author of the social shift, a social media strategist, and the owner of a social media agency who has more than two decades of experience. Yes, two decades. She got her start on MySpace. In this episode, you're gonna learn three things from Katie. Number one, she's gonna teach you why posting less can actually benefit your engagement and your account. Number two, she's gonna map out the four post podcast promo strategy that's gonna maximize your social media impact without having to post too too much. And number three, she's gonna share how she's managed to grow her Instagram following by only posting one time in the last three months. You heard that right. So if you're ready to streamline your social media efforts, ignore the gurus and grow your podcast audience, then you are in the right place. And let's get started here on Grow the Show. Katie Brinkley, author of the social shift, welcome to Grow the Show. I would love if you could kick us off by cutting right to the chase. So when we talk about business owners who have podcasts, who want to get more listeners to their podcast from social media, out of the gate, what are some of the misconceptions that these business owners tend to have about how to do that? Man, there's so many misconceptions, but I think the biggest one is that they need to post a ton. And not all of us have teams like Gary Vita's where you can turn one three minute video of going to a garage sale into 20 different pieces of content, a YouTube video, blog and email, all the things. And it's hard being a business owner. There's so many things to do, but having a podcast is such an important part of brand awareness. So I think that show up a little bit less on social media, when you have intention behind each post and know what the goal is for getting people to engage with you. Yeah, so we initially met at Cap Show Beans live. No fun. And January, shout out to Deedra and the Cap Show team. Amazing. And I remember you gave a talk on this, and you were, I guess still are, the first social media agency owner that I've ever heard get up in front of a bunch of people and say, you need to post the less. So I'm so curious, that really flies in the face of what everybody says. Why do you think Gary Vita included? Why do you think they all say that? Why is what you found to be different? Well, and I get it. I think that during COVID, we had nothing better to do other than be on social media all the time. It was our escape to the world. It was the way that we could make new friends, make new leads, new networking opportunities. And now that the world is opened up again, we kind of have forgotten that you don't need to be on social media so much. It makes a difference when you know who it is that you're talking to and you're creating content for them. Because then it's not just like spewing a whole bunch of white noise out into the world about, hey, look at me, look at me. You post a few times a week. But by posting last year, it gives you that time to engage more with your audience and actually be social on these platforms. And honestly, that's what moves the needle. Yeah, it's actually participating, right? On social media, being social, on social media. Crazy concept. I know, right? Who knew? And I'm just as guilty as the last person of not everybody participating on social media. So even though I say it all the time, and what I found with the clients that I work with, the podcasters that I observe, the more you participate, the more results you get at a social media. So you said before that you need to have intention behind what you're posting. Can you break down for us? If we do want to get new podcast listeners from social media, what is the intention behind our posts? And what is it that we're posting? Well, Kevin, I think that one of the biggest struggles that so many business owners have is that they're under the impression that, okay, well, if I have a podcast, I'll talk about the podcast. I'll share links to the podcast. But it's knowing what the problem is, that your ideal customer, your listener, your ideal client, whomever, what is the problem that you have and then using the podcast as that content creation tool to help your follower, your viewer make that connection. Say this is the person that I want to learn more from. This is the person I want to do business with. This is the business that I want to follow and support. And using the podcast not as just a promotional tool, but as a content creation tool. And the most important thing is to look at who your audience is and making sure that the people that are following you on social media and that are following your podcast are in fact your ideal clients and customers. Because if they're not, well, then you have a messaging problem. And that's why you're not getting the leads and the conversions. So looking at the data is one of the most important things that I think so many people are missing. They're creating the content. But and they're getting frustrated saying like, oh, I'm creating all this content. Nobody likes it anyways. Social media doesn't work for me. Well, what if I told you that at the time of this recording, I've only done one Instagram post and I've grown by a hundred followers and I have. So short form videos are hard for me, but it's so important over there on Instagram. So I haven't had the capacity within my business to create the content for it consistently. I've been focusing my efforts over on Facebook and LinkedIn. However, even though I've only posted one since April at the time of this recording, I've gained over a hundred followers and they're real people, they're my ideal clients, they're my ideal power partners. And it's because of the content that I've created that's sitting on my profile, the way that my Instagram bios set up and the way that I'm engaging on the platform that's allowing me to continue to grow. God, so you're still engaging on Instagram. You've only posted one piece of new content since April. If you have the right content that your ideal client and customer identifies with and can learn from, it basically acts as a little website of this is what I do, this is who I serve, this is how I can help you. In 10 minutes a day, instead of me having to worry about making another piece of content, I can sit in my car at the carpool lane after school and engage with my target audience on Instagram that allows me to still show up in different algorithms and allows me to be in front of my ideal client and customer. And it's all just by being social. Yeah, incredible. So you mentioned the bio and having that right. What needs to go in the bio in order for us to really, really resonate with the people that we are actually trying to reach on social. And Kevin, I think that it's so important for people to not just on Instagram but Facebook linked all the places wherever you are. When was the last time you looked at your bio? Is it still current for what you want to do, the type of audience you want to attract? Are your links the right links? Do you have too many links? All of this is your first impression to a new person. Before they decide to hit follow, they're looking at your bio to see who is this I am Katie Brinkley person that just left a comment on my post. Oh, she's a social media strategist that's been doing this for two decades and specializes in helping people like me. Oh, and she has this really cool free, you know, Instagram bio builder for free. I'll just click that link, of course, no brainer. Now I have a follow and I have somebody that's signed up for my email list. So looking at your bio is your first impression to a new audience. So if you haven't looked at it lately, now that once we're done with this podcast recording, go ahead and check it out and give it a good look seeing and make sure it's still relevant. Yeah, yeah, I'm definitely gonna take a look and be like, oh, because I'm like, oh boy, what's in there? I don't even know. Okay, cool. So let's talk about, I've heard you talk about the four post strategy before, which again, when I saw you talk about the set cap show, I was like, whoa, I gotta get this in front of the Grilla Show audience. So can you walk us through what that looks like? Yeah, and I think it is a little different for a social media agency owner to tell people to get off a social media and not post so much. Because I have a business to run and my business just happens to be a social media agency, but I'm not an influencer. I'm not out there trying to get brand deals and going viral or anything like that. I would rather have like 40 people that are my ideal clients or customers engage with my post, then 4,000 for a random video of my cat dancing or something. You know, it just doesn't make sense. And so the four post strategy was designed behind me doing this for two decades now. I started by helping bands with their Myspace pages. And from the very get go, it was, my approach to social media is always bad. Okay, how can I get the most bang for my buck here? What's the goal of this? What's the strategy behind this? Because I don't have all day. And I really figured out that this was my sweet spot during the clubhouse days. I don't know, do you want a clubhouse? Briefly, there was a hot second for like a month where I was on there. Yeah, I was on there a lot. If you came a little much for me, it was a thing. It was a thing. Yeah, it seems like it was so long ago. It's crazy to think that, you know, just how many, you know, random conference calls we all decided to sit in on because that's what they were. But I clubhouse was the place where I grew the fastest and grew the biggest following I had before I took it off my phone. I had like 110,000 followers. But I was only doing one room a week. And it was for 30 minutes. And I remember I was getting a lot of like hate DMs because I was growing too fast. And people were like, you're never on this app. You're never hosting rooms. And I'm like, yeah, but when I'm hosting the rooms and when I'm sitting in rooms, that's when I'm networking and having conversations and off a LinkedIn or Instagram. That's how it was converting for me. So anytime I showed up, all these people that now I built this no like and trust factor with were showing up to come to my room. I had big rooms. And, you know, so I took that and was like, okay, this strategy allows me to be on this platform less and get maximum results. What if I did this, not the same strategy, but what if I did this kind of strategy on Instagram? Okay, and what if I did this on LinkedIn? And it's looking at the platforms, because all these platforms are different. All these platforms have a very different culture. They have a different voice, a different way of creating content and a different way of reaching more people. So you have to make sure that you're checking all the boxes when you're creating the content of a variety of ways with a different goal in mind. You're then using the algorithms in your favor to bring in the right people, get the most reach and get the most engagement and the most people deciding, hey, I'm ready to go leave social media and go one step further with you. That's what the four-post strategy is. Got it. So let's break it down. Post one, post two, post three. Yeah, let's map it out. Cool. All right, so the very first post isn't awareness post. And it's different for every platform. Like at the time of this recording, the best way to get the most reach on LinkedIn is through a poll. The best way to get reach on Facebook is through a Facebook like those one sentences with a different colored background on Instagram is through a real. So you're using the platform to make people problem aware of the greater thing, the greater action that you have at the end of the week. So let's say for this podcast, Kevin, you want to take people through the four-post strategy. So let's just say you could do a LinkedIn poll. What is your main platform? So I would say Instagram. Instagram, okay, so you could do an Instagram reel and you could find a trending audio or something like that. You don't even need to talk and you could just have the words on the screen of unpopular opinion. You only need to be on social media one hour a week. That's it. And then it's getting out in the algorithm. You're using the trending audio. It's an unpopular opinion. You've made people problem aware of, huh, you only be on social media one hour a week while you talk about Kevin. You know, whatever. We are talking the example of how I would promote this podcast episode only on Instagram, right? So we're saying. So Kevin's content team pay attention. No. Yeah, yeah, guys, no. So it's this episode of Grow the Show where we're talking about posting a less on social media. And so day one is just, like you said, it's a reel that kind of just throws out this unpopular opinion just to engage folks, right? Yep. So what's then day two? And you've made people problem aware using a reel because reels get the most reach right now on the Instagram platform. So day two would be an elaboration post. And these elaboration posts are where you take people a little bit further into what it was that you made people problem aware of with the reel. For an elaboration post on Instagram, it would be a carousel. And this is where you get to establish your thought leadership. Say, like, okay, remember how, like I said, you only be on social media so much yesterday? Well, this is why. This is why you can trust me. And you can say, maybe the very first one slide, I'm just going off the top of my head here. Maybe the very first slide is, I've stopped posting so much on social media and here's what happened, you know, here to the next one. You say, I saw a study that said, Adam Osary from Instagram came out and said, posting three to five times a week on Instagram had just as much impact as posting daily. And I decided to see what would happen by showing up less. And then you could swipe through and be like, on, you know, I saw an increase of 70% in engagement, blah, blah, blah, you could show your statistics of what you saw, or you could just say different stats or elaborate on, you know, Adam Osary saying that. And by the way, he did say that he don't need to post so much on Instagram. So, and just elaborate on that. Again, you're not asking people to come listen to this podcast episode. You're just making them problem aware that you don't need to post so much time on social media and you can actually post less. Yeah, so we still, we're two posts into the four post strategy and we still have not even mentioned that there's a podcast episode to be heard. Day one was engagement, day two was elaboration. I'm talking about the topics that I will cover in this week's podcast episode. What then is day three? Day three is the community post and this is the post that should be your favorite to do every week and it should be the easiest of one to do. So, Kevin, you and I met at Cap Show Beans. I think we took a selfie or two together when we went to Universal the next day. So, you can choose a picture of you and me together and that's your post. It's just a picture of us and say this social media agency owner is trying to get people off of social media and then tell the story of we were at Cap Show Beans. She talked about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I thought she was crazy, but then when she started saying I didn't need to be on there so much and there are different ways to build community. A lot of the things that she was saying really were an alignment with what I was already telling my audience about the secret being the engagement part engaging with your audience and as I had to bring her into to come in to talk to my audience and then the call to action on this post could be how often are you posting on social media or that's your final question. But again, it's just telling a story. It's letting people into your world. What do you think? What are you doing? Who do you know? What's a client success story? These community posts should be the easiest ones for you to do. Yeah, it's just telling a story that relates to what you're talking about in this week's podcast episode. Okay, so three posts in, we still have not said go listen to the podcast. So what then is post four? Well, it's about time you told people that you had a podcast episode about this, right? And so this is where you could take a great clip of us maybe turn it into a real and you could take a carousel, you could take another picture. Maybe it's, you know, we're here recording and maybe we just smile together and the recording image, whatever it is, it's free game. Well, however you want to hate the content, but you can tell people, hey, there's a podcast episode that can help you with this. Wouldn't you like to learn more? Comment podcast below. Got it. Ooh, and is there any automations there if we're commenting a certain word or? I use Stampede social. It's great AI automation. So I'll say like comment hashtag, you know, for post. And then it will automatically trigger it and send them the link in their DMs, which is great because wouldn't you like to know who's actually listening to your show? Like what if you do this and you have 15 people comment podcast, you have 15 people you can then follow up with in the DMs and say, hey, would you think Acadia? Is she Kuku or is she awesome? You know, or what was your biggest takeaway? Or do you like these type of episodes? Are they helpful? That's the biggest struggle with having a podcast is not knowing what your listener actually thinks of your show. Yeah, there's no comments section. Blessing in the curse. Yeah, that year. So, okay, cool. So in summary, can you just recap what the four posts are? Awareness, elaboration, community, action. And it's a different way of kind of creating the content based on your platform. That's why I asked you, Kevin, which platform you mostly use because it's still the same for structure posts, but just a different way of creating the content based on the platform that you're on. I know that these platforms make it super easy to cross post, but remember, there's a different culture, there's a different field, there's a different way of talking to people on each platform. My LinkedIn audience is very different than my Instagram audience. It's mostly women, ages 35 to 44, over on Instagram, over on LinkedIn, I have, it's mostly real estate, agents, and investors, and C-suite executives. So, I have a different way of creating the content and talking to them than I do my mom, manure, following over on Instagram. Right, right, cool. So in summary, it's number one, this is so cool because again, we hear all the time from gurus who are saying, post 15 times a day, all those types of things. It's just so refreshing to hear it this way. This is something that I think is doable. It's something that somebody can get in the cadence of doing four times a week is still a decent amount. Like, I would say most broadcasters are posting just once. Like, and it's just that, you know, here's a headshot of my cast to go listen to LinkedIn via that doesn't work at all, but this is something that breaks up. It actually is good social media content, right? It's getting engagement, it's telling a story, it's building relationships, and ultimately yes, it's also getting people to go listen to the show. Well, you're getting the right people to go listen to the show. You know, these people at this point, are I getting to the fourth pose? So I finally, wait, there's more? I'd love to learn more, and you're getting the right people to raise their hand instead of just uploading. I mean, like, and I know I love Opus Clips. I use them for my, for my podcast, Opus Clips are great. But at the same time, just uploading a clip from the podcast is however brilliant I might sound, cut myself on the back. Yeah, yeah. However smart I might sound in that clip, if people don't know why they should care, no one's gonna go and take action. You have to make people understand why they even should care about this, instead of just hoping like, oh, well, here's the content. Hopefully someone clicks on it and then decides to listen to my podcast. Yeah, totally. So we've covered a lot of ground. Is there any part of this that you feel like we haven't covered or any sort of parting thoughts as the entrepreneurs you hear us go and aim to implement this? You don't need to do it four times a week. I mean, if you're crazy, you could do it four times a day. You could do it four times a month. I think that you should have pushed a little bit more than that, but I mean, who am I to say that? I haven't posted on Instagram in over a month. So I mean, find the cadence that works for you. This strategy is designed to be evergreen so that if you do have a 2024, like I'm having right now on Instagram and we have a real bad love hate relationship, I still am gaining followers and bringing people in, but Instagram is where I sell the majority of my books. And so that's great. I can tell like, oh, this is the same handle, same name of somebody that recently followed me and now has purchased my book. So I mean, this is where you can just focus your efforts on creating content that resonates, that's evergreen, that makes people say, hey, I wanna follow them, even though they don't post a time, or here they are, here's Kevin again, that's amazing. What is he up to this week? So you're building a community of fans that want to see your next post, they want to continue learning from you. You've been super apologetic about the fact that you haven't posted a lot on Instagram this year, but what I want to resolve you of that, because I mean, we talk about this all the time, at Grow the Show, it's like, at very minimum commit to one platform. And you're talking about a third one. And so you do, you said LinkedIn and Facebook. So I don't know, like, it's fine that you're not posting on Instagram. If you've found that LinkedIn and Facebook are where you should be for your business right now, and I think it's a testament to, you know, your scale and social media that, even though you posted one since April, you still gain followers, which is awesome. So just wanna, like, point that out, to be like, we don't need to be on all platforms, right? It's true, you don't need to be on all of them. I had the capacity last year to be on more platforms, but we're going through a little bit of exciting for scaling, like we brought in an ops manager, we brought in another team, like, so I've had to do a lot more HR stuff this year. And it's like, oh, what do I have time? Where do I don't? Where do I not have time? And what we're doing, and I know you preach this a lot, Kevin, is the importance of engagement. That it really is where so much of the magic happens. If you know who your target audience is, then Instagram makes it so easy. I mean, if you know who, let's say your target audience is podcast host, you can do hashtag podcast host, spend 10 minutes in that hashtag, just engaging with the people that have posted using that hashtag, and guess what? You're commenting on the right people's posts and putting yourself, hey, who's this? Grow the show guy that wears black t-shirt all the time. Now they're going to come on over, check you out. You're like, oh, he has all this cool stuff. I want to follow him. You have the right person that, and it's not like you were salesy. You were just leaving a genuine comment. And I think that that's one of the secret sauces for so much when it comes to social media is the social aspect we've gotten into. I need to create more. Have what kind of content can you create? And then while that's important, knowing that someone's engaging, or you're engaging for you is so, so important. Excellent. Katie, if folks want to learn more from you about social media and about what you do, what can they do? Yeah, so you can connect with me at katiebrinkley.com. You can get my book there, The Social Ship. It's I'll open my head here if you're watching on YouTube. You can get that at katiebrinkley.com slash book. And then I do have that. If you want to make sure Instagram is up to date and getting all the maximizing the best it can, you can go to katiebrinkley.com slash Insta Guide. Excellent. Very cool. Katie, thank you so much for joining us today. This was great. Appreciate you so much. Yeah, thank you, Kevin. That is going to do it for this episode of Grow the Show. Now, I have a quick favorite to ask you. If you've ever gotten any value from this podcast, and you haven't already, please leave us a five-star rating. And if you're feeling generous, a review in the app that you're using to hear my voice right now. It just takes a couple seconds, but it really goes a long way in helping us to share even more valuable growth and monetization tactics here on the show because it helps us land bigger guests. And it helps show the world that what we're doing here is actually valuable. So once again, if you've ever gotten any value from the show and you haven't already, please just take a moment. Leave us a five-star rating. Maybe a brief review on what type of value you've gotten and I will be eternally grateful. This episode was produced by me with post-production by Podcast Boutique. And if you want your show to be post-produced with quality really freaking fast. And if you want to save yourself and your team tons of time working on your podcast, you should chat with Podcast Boutique. Just head to podcastboutique.com or click the link in the show notes and set up time with them because I spent no time editing this episode and neither should you. All right, that's going to do it for Grow the Show. My name is Kevin Schmittlin. I'll see you next time.