Creating a Sustainable Social Media Strategy

Sasha: 0:00

{Ad} Are you ready to go from a struggling solopreneur, who's winging it to a savvy CEO with a solid business structure and focused strategic action to grow to consistent 5k months? Then you want to check out The Strategic CEO group program. With this program, you'll start thinking like a CEO and creating big picture goals with the action plans to make them a reality. You'll start generating consistent 5k months, create brand messaging that showcases everything you offer, and have systems and workflows and automation that allow your business to run smoothly, so you're less stressed with more time. You'll be able to do it all without struggling to manage all the things feeling unorganized with processes that are all over the place, and hating content creation and marketing. Check out The Strategic CEO group program at by-sasha.com/the-strategic-CEO.{Ad}{Ad} One thing that I talk a lot about on this podcast is the balance between self-care and business. And that's because if we don't take care of ourselves, we won't be able to effectively run our businesses. We can't ignore the conversations that happen around being a business owner, and how that affects our stress levels and mental health. I've seen firsthand how running a business can put a strain on our mental health. And what happens if there's no one to talk to that can help. If you've reached a point where you might be feeling stressed, anxious, depressed or overwhelmed, then my sponsor BetterHelp is here to help you. BetterHelp offers licensed therapists who are trained to listen and help you. You can talk to your therapist in a private online environment at your own convenience and with a broad range of expertise and better helps 20,000+ therapists’ network, you can find access to help that may not otherwise be available in your area, and request a new therapist at no additional charge anytime. Simply fill out a questionnaire to help assess your specific needs, and get matched with a therapist and under 48 hours, schedule secure video and phone sessions. Plus, you can exchange unlimited messages and everything you share is completely confidential. Join the 2 million plus people who have taken charge of their mental health with an experienced BetterHelp therapist. Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/strategy. That's betterhelp.com/strategy. {Ad} Welcome to Strategy for Creatives: Business Minus the Bullshit. Whether you're new in business or find yourself in a season of change, get ready to build a strategy, create an action plan and crush those goals. I'm Sasha, host a strategy for creatives. And I help female led businesses grow their brands in authentic, measurable and meaningful ways, without the stress. There's no sugar coated here, I'm serving up real tips and actionable steps you can take to help get you organized, get off the path to burnout and grow your brand like a boss. So go ahead, pull up a chair, grab a notepad, and let's talk business. Welcome to Strategy for Creatives: Business Minus the Bullshi.t I of course am your host Sasha and today we are talking about social media. Because I know that if you're like me, and I know so many of you listeners are, you have a love hate relationship with everything that is social media. And it can be hard to stay consistent with what to post, figuring out how to post, what our strategies should be. And so to join me in that conversation today I have Katie Brinkley, who has been leveraging social media to grow audiences and income for over 18 years. She started all the way back in the time of MySpace, which I hope most of you guys remember it because I remember MySpace. But I know some of the listeners out there might not even know what MySpace is. But she's helped her clients build a strategy that attracts the right followers and generates consistent inbound leads in as little as an hour week. She's helped both big companies like AT&T and DIRECTV as well as smaller solopreneurs and local businesses. So Katie, thank you so much for being on the show today. I'm really excited to have you here.

Katie: 4:08

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And you know what, like, as you were saying that I was thinking, man, I need to figure out a different way of saying that I'm old. Because you're like, some of you might not know what MySpace is. And like, oh, gosh,

Sasha: 4:23

I remember. Well, you don't make me feel old. Because I remember MySpace vividly. I used to actually I way back. It was probably one of my first quote unquote businesses where I like, helped friends like design their MySpace pages and like, change colors and things like that.

Katie: 4:44

No, I mean, like, and that's what I mean. So I went, I got started in MySpace during college. It was my senior year of college and I worked at the college radio station. I wanted to be a sports reporter for the radio and one of the, one of the jobs working at the radio station was to get bands to send you their music for free. And if I can for those old timers here MySpace was really kind of the it plays for bands and musicians. Yeah. Napster was also really big around this time.

Sasha: 5:26

I remember Napster very well.

Katie: 5:30

We normally did, like listening online was kind of, you know, against the rules. With with MySpace, I saw it. And I was like, well, all these bands are on here. They're playing their music for free as it is. What if I reach out to them and see if they'd be willing to have their music played on the radio for free. And that's what really kind of opened my eyes to the power of social media, because I was connecting with bands from all over, not just the country, but the world. And building relationships with them. I was bringing them on to my show and doing live interviews with them. And I remember the station manager said to me, like, oh, how are you getting all this like free merch? How are you getting all this punk music in here, because punk was really big at the time. And yours truly was really into punk music. During that time, I was I was like, well, I'm just utilizing MySpace. And, and I was making these connections. And I was like, well, hey, if, if you want, I know some people radio station in Denver, I'd be happy to put your music in front of them there and see, maybe if we can get you on like the after hours show. But that way, you're getting more stuff, your music out there in front of a larger audience. Just next time you come to Denver, maybe you could give yours truly some free backstage passes. And that was my payment. But I mean, like it, I really quickly saw how powerful of a tool social media can be when you use it the right way.

Sasha: 7:03

I think that's amazing that you even have that story. Because so many people don't even ever even thought of MySpace as like, that kind of platform really were like there was a strategy behind it, and that you could use it in such a way like, for those who don't know, and I hope, I hope most of our listeners do know. But MySpace, of course was, it was one of the original social media platforms. And it was very, very basic. It was, I guess, almost like a Twitter meets Facebook, I guess.

Katie: 7:35

Everybody's own personal webpage. We got Yeah, they're like top eight friends. And my Tom was typically your very first social media friend, you got to choose your music. But it was also the introduction of like HTML. So like, yeah, I wanted to change out some of the the base colors for your MySpace page, you had to go in and do HTML code.

Sasha: 7:57

I used charge friends of mine in high school, like 20 bucks to do their MySpace pages and add like the music and but yeah. So you've clearly been doing social media for a while, I don't want to make you feel old. But you've been at it since the early stages of social media. And it's changed so much like social media is completely different than what it was when you and I were younger. And as a business owner, it can be a challenge to show up on social media show up in a way that's still giving value to your audience and figuring out kind of what to post on social media. And I just recently have gone through this myself. I kind of take a social media slump, right at the end of the year. January comes along, and I'm like, okay, I gotta get back into it. Like, what is my strategy going to be? So how do we kind of put ourselves in, I guess, the right mindset or to even think about developing a strategy that's sustainable for social media? Because I think too often, we can get very burnt out with the trying to show up consistently.

Katie: 9:14

in that's a really good point of consistency. I mean, I also took some time off, I actually, you know, you and I were talking before we hit record, I got sick in December, and I took some time off, and I'm still trying to get back on the horse. But as we continue our I mean, you have to be on social media. It is that love hate relationship you need to show up on there. But being on social media, as a business owner is very different than being on social media as a content creator. And it can get very confusing and overwhelming. When you see someone show up in your feed and they're like, Yeah, you want to grow your following. All you have to do is post 17 reels a day and 42 stories and I mean, like, I don't even know like how am I supposed To be growing my business, because I'm just gonna be posting on social all day,

Sasha: 10:02

I'm gonna see if I can find it while you're talking. I literally I sent it to my friend who's a social media manager. And I was like, this is absolutely ridiculous. And it was about the what to post for, like your ideal posts of what you should do. And it says for aggressive growth, which I just all of this, I think is completely unsustainable. It was five to 10 reels a week, two to three carousel posts or static post, stories six days a week, and then half an hour of outbound engagement five days a week, which

Katie: 10:34

it's not sustainable, that isn't okay, so this is the thing, you know, if you want to grow on social media, and just get a ton of followers sure, go ahead, do those trending audios. Do 10 reels a week. But followers don't always necessarily equal sales. It doesn't necessarily equal leads. So how can you create a consistent strategy where you're getting the right people following you, you're growing your account your account the correct way. And you're building out the best people that all of a sudden, they show up in your DMS and say, How do I work with you? Hi, I want to sign up for that offer. Oh, you're doing this masterclass or, Hey, I've been I love how your candle shop has grown over the past two years. And I see you're doing shipping now, you know, anything like that. There's people that are watching you all the time, they might not necessarily be liking or commenting. But people are watching. And if you show up the right way, you can have a very successful social media presence, posting, not 10 times a week, but posting three or four times a week.

Sasha: 11:47

And that's what I do. So I do about three to four times a week, I figured that, I've learned very quickly that that is what's sustainable for my lifestyle. I've learned how to post content in a way that resonates with people I'm getting. What I use as a metric as opposed to like my number of followers is like how many people are saving my posts? How many people are sharing my posts? I mean, not even the likes, it's I have one real that's literally like how seven tools that I use in my business. And it's just a static post, but it has like 80 something saves on it. And like that's more important to me than having like the, you know, 1000s of followers, because those are people like you mentioned that turn into clients.

Katie: 12:34

Exactly. In such I mean as much. I mean, you're obviously very savvy in the world of social media. But I mean, I hate saying this, but there's a lot of people that buy likes, they buy followers, they buy video views. And you know what, it's not that expensive. I mean, it's not, it's not that expensive. And it's so frustrating because some people are like, Oh, well, I have you know, I have 20,000 followers and my last Social Media Manager bought just bought them for us to get us started. And I'm like, why?

Sasha: 13:06

It's vanity. It's all vanity metrics.

Katie: 13:10

10,000 13 year old boys in Brazil that are following your, you know, your women's fitness account. I mean, like, you have to I know, it's, I know, it's hard to start at zero. But I mean, I'm in Denver, and I'm my window looks right out at the mountains. If you want to climb a mountain, you can't do it in one step.

Sasha: 13:33

Yeah

Katie: 13:34

It takes a whole lot of steps to get there. And then when you get to the top, it was worth every step. You don't learn anything along the way. If you if you could climb a mountain in one leap, then oh, no, like just get dropped off at the top of my by a helicopter or drive up there and then look at it, you know, but you didn't learn anything.

Sasha: 13:54

Yeah. And I've seen like articles and things like that about, you know, social media influencers who have, you know, these millions of followers, but then they launched something and they get like, you know, 100 sales out of their millions of followers, which is nothing compared to, to the number of people who are following them. And that's just because

Katie: 14:15

I know exactly what posts you're talking about.

Sasha: 14:20

But it's it's that and I think people kind of equate the two together, like you mentioned, like the number of followers that you have, really has no bearing on how successful you can be in social media and how to use it in a way to get clients because if you have 100 followers who are like go hard, really into you followers versus 10,000, who could care less about your business, the those 100 people are going to do way more for your business than those 10,000 people are.

Katie: 14:52

Yeah, exactly. And I think that it's yeah vanity metrics. All you know followers likes you It's hard not to get caught up in them. But I think that one of the things that like I do with a lot of my clients is temper the expectations like, okay, we can track your followers, we can track your likes, we can track which posts do the best for comments. But that's honestly, that's just all for me so that I can see okay, going forward, people really like these personal posts where you share a story and share what you learned about it. So we're going to post that post at the most opportune time that added a, what I want you to focus in on is how many people are showing up in your DMS and how many people are going to your profile. Because if people are going to your profile, that means who is this person? I want to learn more about them. They're deciding whether or not they want to follow you, they might be clicking on your website to go and learn more about you, they're opting into your email list. The profile views I think, is one of the most important metrics to track month over month, because you want people to be going to that profile page to learn more about you. I mean, your profile page and that about section, especially, I think we kind of both just focused right on into into Instagram here. But if people are going there, that's basically your mini website, you can see who you serve, what you do, how to connect with you further, and they can look at all the posts you've ever done. So the profile views, I think, is a really telling metric as to what's working each month.

Sasha: 16:31

You're the first person I've heard say that and so I think it's also clearly something that's overlooked, because people don't really think about, you know, okay, they liked my posts, they saved my posts, they shared my posts, that means there's I'm still on, like their feed. But if I, if I've intrigued them enough to where they clicked on my profile, and now they're looking specifically at my content, now, that's where I can kind of, you know, send them to my website, or the very least get a follow out of them. So now I'm consistently showing up on their feed, and, you know, they can see more of my content. So I think that's something that's often overlooked. I don't think a lot of people even measure that metric.

Katie: 17:12

It's hard not to, because like, no one sees that interesting to you. I mean, all of your audience, all of the followers see the likes the comments how many followers you currently have, like how many videos views you had, if your reel went viral, that's public, for everyone to see. The only thing that you can see is the profile views. And that's where, I think is a really telling sign like, hey, our profile views went through the roof. What day? Did we have a reel that did really well? Did we have a carousel post that did really well? Was it like was promoting this, offer this product? And it you can really go back in and look at the data and the insights so that you know, when you're pushing that next piece of content out, all right, this did well in the past. Now, I'm not just you know, doing the spaghetti at the wall method.

Sasha: 18:03

I think that's most people's approach to social media. So I guess, how do we to kind of just bring it a little bit more back to like, making it sustainable. So how do you you said at the very beginning, and I kind of want to touch on it, there's a difference between like the way a business owner approaches social media and a content creator, right? And they're not necessarily interchangeable? I'm by far not a content creator. And so like, how do we, I guess get out of the mind frame that as business owners, we don't necessarily have to be content creators, but still have a strategy in place that is sustainable, like posting three to four times a week or figuring out what that looks like for our business and growing our social media.

Katie: 18:51

It's very easy now using different third party tools to post on every single platform known to mankind. I mean, you want to post to Tumblr and Reddit and Snapchat and Twitter and Facebook I mean, like the list goes on. And if you want to show up on all these platforms, you can but this is where again, I think that a lot of people think like oh, why wouldn't I want to post on all of them? I mean, more eyes on me and my product, the better right now. But really, if you again take that step back and really think about who your ideal client is, what posts what platform Do you like being on the most? what ways are you willing to show up? Yes, if you want to if you want to have a Twitter and a TikTok that's great but if you're not actually create if you don't want to create video, why have a TikTok icon on your website? Why even have it there because it with TikTok, you gotta be posting a whole ton of video. I mean, and there's no way around it. Where you know, if you like, and I'm still getting used to the video saying, I'd be fine doing like a couple, Wwell then Instagram would be a great fit for you because you can still post video or carousel posts and single images. And so I think that think about the content you enjoy creating where your audience currently is. Now for yours truly, I you know, I have a social media agency. My two main platforms are Instagram and LinkedIn. Do I post on Twitter? Yes, I love doing the little one liners here and there. But I'm not going there expecting inbound leads, I'm not going there like, okay, this is where my people aren't, I'm just gonna give them a wealth of value and knowledge. So I mean, think about what platforms your audience wants to engage with you on. And it's probably going to be two, I do recommend not putting all of the your eggs in Mark Zuckerberg basket. We saw what happened in I think it was July of 202 1when Facebook went down for a day.

Sasha: 20:56

Oh, and people lost their minds.

Katie: 21:00

I had never seen more people commenting and posting on LinkedIn. Back then, and like the clubhouse rooms are off the charts. So I mean, think about okay, well, I like Facebook, maybe I'll do LinkedIn as well. Or maybe you know, TikTok, whatever. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. So that's kind of a long winded way of saying, what, what how do you kind of take that step back? If you if you're posting on, let's just say Instagram, it's one of the ones that says we've been talking about it on this episode so far. Let's say Instagram is your platform of choice that you decide I'm gonna go all in on it. You need there's five different ways to post on Instagram.

Sasha: 21:44

Yep.

Katie: 21:45

And you can't just be posting only reels. You can't be posting only, you know, single images or only carousels. Everybody consumes content differently. And since I have access to so many different Instagram accounts, it's really interesting for me to see what my feed looks like, versus Kim's feed versus Rachel's feed. And it's all because of the way that they're consuming content. My client Kim, all she sees in her feed is real. So she's, you know, asked me she's like, shouldn't I just be doing reels? Like all I see your reel? And I'm like, it's because those are what you watch the most.

Sasha: 22:24

Yeah

Katie: 22:24

You engage with the most So Instagram. Your algorithm on Instagram has been built to be like, give her more reels. This girl loves the reels, just keep feeding them to her.

Sasha: 22:34

Mine is a lot of carousel posts. Because I like a good carousel post

Katie: 22:37

I love a good carousel post and a long caption.

Sasha: 22:40

Yeah, me too. And I'm the one who will click you know, see more, so I could read the whole caption.

Katie: 22:47

Me too. And so I think that that's one things where everyone consumes that your content differently. And so if you want to do one reel a week, okay, that makes it way more sustainable.

Sasha: 22:59

That's what I do

Katie: 23:01

As opposed to what did you say earlier? 10 reels a week?

Sasha: 23:04

A week. Yeah, I do one. I do one a week. And I post it on Mondays and Tuesday. They have the same time when I post it. And it's it's me sitting here it's nothing fancy. And what I've done to kind of make my strategy more sustainable for myself. I'll go through my posts, and now see ones that have done really well. And if it's a reel, I might turn it into a carousel post and kind of do it that way. Or if it's a you know, a carousel post that did really well, then I'll turn it into what I'm talking about on a reel. So I'm not recreating I literally just did this last week, I'm not having to think so hard about what I should be posting. I'm just repurposing my content even within the same platform.

Katie: 23:44

Exactly, exactly. And but that's the thing is you're looking at content, like you said, let's say you looked at the reel, and you're like, well, this one's really good. You know, maybe instead of being like, okay, now I have to create something similar to this and do another reel that's similar to that. You can take that reel that someone saw maybe two weeks ago, turn it into a carousel post, it's been put in front of a whole new audience. And as much as we like to think that everybody remembers everything we've ever posted, and they see everything we post, they probably forgot. And they might have missed the reel the first time around.The algorithm might not have shown your reel to them or, you know, they might have not just gotten on Instagram that day. So take that time to you know, repurpose what you've already done that's worked in the past, and it's kind of take a lot of the load off of your shoulders.

Sasha: 24:39

Yeah, it's so much easier if you just use your existing... I think people fail to realize they have so much content already that they don't even realize this content. I mean, you probably have people asking you the same kind of questions all the time. You probably are sharing the same type of knowledge in various places all of the time. So it's easy to take those and just break it out into different formats. And, make it consumable for different people. I'm glad that you mentioned that people's feeds are actually very different from one another. Because I think most people, the assumption is like, oh, everyone kind of sees what I see. And I can't imagine a feed that's all reel, because mine isn't like that at all.

Katie: 25:24

I know. Yeah, it's so true. I think that and, and even like going live on Instagram, that's a great way. And trust me, I, as I said earlier, I didn't grow up with a phone in my face, navigating what I was eating for every meal and where I was going, and what I was doing throughout the day on a daily basis. So it has taken me, somebody that works in social media, and I've done it for almost two decades, it's taken me a lot of effort to get used to showing up. It's hard to be vulnerable like that. And I have to tell you going live on Instagram, or Facebook or LinkedIn, or you can even do it on Twitter, you know, going live is a great way. And I'm not saying you have to do a 30 minute presentation. Just going live with, Hey, this is what I'm working on. Or this is the latest trend with this, or have you seen this issue, just going there and talking for five minutes. And you having the ah having the umms having the I can't figure out how to respond to this comment here but I see it down there. And I'm gonna try to you know, all of the awkward,

Sasha: 26:31

it makes you real.

Katie: 26:32

Exactly, it makes you real, it makes you relatable. And not everyone is perfect 100% of the time. So go live like twice a month, just pop in there go live say what you're working on, or one of the things that you've seen over the past two weeks. And people it gives you that extra notification at the top of stories I mean. And if you're not utilizing stories, start. I mean, 80% of people visit stories before they swipe into the feed. If you're in the very first box, they're going live, you have an opportunity be seen by more of your audience that might have just opened up the like, oh, look who's here. Here, Sasha, she's talking about something. What's she talking about?

Sasha: 27:19

That's such a good tip, too. I think yeah, I am one of those people I always go to my stories first and I'll swipe through a whole bunch before I actually then go on to the feed. I fall into that 80% of folks.

Katie: 27:34

And stories are a great place again to to be authentic, be you behind the scenes, because everyone in this watching your stories already follows you. So you don't have to worry about like trying to do anything trendy or bringing them in or anything like that. It's, it's a way for you to show the human side of you and your business. And if people don't like that, then guess what they can follow you they weren't your ideal client or customer anyways.

Sasha: 28:03

Yeah, I'm always a big advocate for authenticity in business and showing up even when we don't feel like we're perfect or like if we're nervous or anything like that it really does create a connection with people. Because they get to see like the real you. And so if that means, like you said that you're showing up and you don't know how to answer comments or anything like that, at the very least, like you'll get you get practice at showing up more often that way. And people get to experience you and feel like they're more connected to your business. And so and that's, that's really the ultimate goal, I think of social media is that connection. And I think we forget that. It's ultimately about building connections with people. Hopefully it turns into sales and leads and things like that. But that starts when people feel connected to you first.

Katie: 28:52

I'm 100% agree. And I know that we're wrapping up the episode here, but just going down a quick trip down memory lane. I'm not going to go back as much. Just think about Facebook when you first joined it. And when you joined Facebook, we all had a wall. And what would we do we show up on our friends pages and leave comments on their wall? That's what that's what Facebook was was a way for us to connect with other people. It was a way for us to you know, and that's actually one of the my favorite things about Facebook right now is the memories feature because I always like a memory pop up and it'll be like, Hey, Katie, I'm in Denver, visiting my parents this weekend wanting to get a coffee and I'm like, holy cow. I wonder how Shannon is doing now this was you know, back in 2006.

Sasha: 29:40

Yeah, it's always like 12 years ago on this day.

Katie: 29:43

Exactly. But we were showing up and we were connecting. Yeah, we're having that relationship. Now how do we show up on social media? We show up and we consume. It's no different than showing up and turning on the TV. So you have to be mindful of your time when you're Using the social media apps, and I think that when you open up Instagram, don't just open it up to waste time. Go in with intention. Okay? So if you're using it for business, okay, who can I connect with on Instagram, what's a hashtag, I can go into and find some new connections to make, I can leave some comments, be mindful with your time and go up and try to connect first. And I guarantee you, you'll, start enjoying social media, again, and forge better relationships, and you're not gonna have to worry about showing up and just creating so much content. Because when you show up and create a connection, those people aren't going to care if you post every day, they're going to show up on your feed and be like, oh, here she is, again. I like her stuff. I don't care that she only posts three times a week. You know, I like I feel like we have a connection, we have a relationship. And and that's really what social media is all about is, is forming connections, not consuming content or not creating content.

Sasha: 31:00

I think that's a perfect way to end the episode because I think we forget that that's really what it's for. And that even like, that's how Facebook started that people forget that it really was like, we go out and like hey, like I miss you. You know, you're off in this college. I'm off in this college or you know, my family's here. Like we forget that that's what it was started for. So I appreciate you coming on the show today. I think you've given some amazing tips to hopefully help people not feel so stressed out about social media and kind of create a strategy that'll work better for them. Katie, where can people find you at?

Katie: 31:33

Well, I'm on social media. As I said earlier, you know, connect with me on Instagram or on LinkedIn. Those are my two main platforms. Or you can always connect with me at Katiebrinkley.com.

Sasha: 31:45

I will make sure I will put all of that in the show notes so you can find where Katie is and thank you so much for being on the show today.

Katie: 31:52

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Sasha: 31:56

Are you ready to uplevel your business? Join the five day be your own CEO challenge. All the details are available on the website at www.by-sasha.com. If you liked what you heard, make sure you rate and review. It really helps other people find the show. And of course, following subscribe on your favorite podcast platforms. Want to follow me on social? I'm on Instagram and Facebook at Strategy By Sasha. Make sure you tune in next Tuesday for more business tips. Part of the Boundless Audio Podcast Network