Audience Growth for Entrepreneurs: Katie Brinkley's Social Media Strategy in Just an Hour a Week

Jennie Wright [00:00:00]: You. Hi there. This is the Acquire podcast from the Odd Phonic podcast network. And I’m Jenny Wright. In today’s episode, we have a guest who has truly mastered the social media game. She has leveraged this in all different ways. She’s amazing and it is all for business growth. With a remarkable 19 years of experience, she’s worked with everybody from corporate giants like at and T to DirecTV and Solopreneurs and local businesses, helping them craft strategies that attract the right followers and generate consistent leads. And you know, I’m all about that. So her platform agnostic approach and her four post strategy drives bottom line results and her background in radio journalism and social media savvy gives her a unique perspective in sharing her clients’stories super effectively. And within just an hour a week, she empowers entrepreneurs to grow their audiences and their income. So I really cannot wait to introduce you all to the amazing Katie Brinkley. Katie Brinkley [00:00:59]: Thanks for that nice intro, Jenny. I love joining you on this Acquire podcast. This is what’s come on every week. If it’s an intro like that, I’ll. Jennie Wright [00:01:08]: Write a new one every single week for you. Katie Brinkley [00:01:10]: How’s that? Jennie Wright [00:01:12]: So you’re one of the people that when I first started getting into using social media for my business, for the growth of my clients events, and just for generally just trying to get the word out there about what? I do. You were the first person that I really found was doing all the good things and wasn’t coming at it from some of the perspectives that I felt. Just really spammy and things like that. And I loved that about you. And it’s one of the reasons why I have sort of stayed in your sphere and wanted to continue to get to know what you do. And this four post strategy that you’ve been recently developing and putting out there, although you’ve been practicing it for a while, I think is key and I think it’s something that we can use for leveraging our online launches and our summits and things like that. And I really wanted to draw attention that you have this strategy that I think is really good. So to that end, I kind of want to dive in a little bit deeper and we’ll get back to the four post strategy in a bit, but I want to dive in a little bit deeper about the statistics and the highlights and the impact of leveraging social media for lead generation in your business personally. How has that sort of impacted things? Katie Brinkley [00:02:18]: Yeah, I think that one of the biggest misconceptions out there is that you need to post more if you want more business. And you said 19 years. Goodness gracious. I’ve been doing this social media thing for a long time, and over those 19 years, I really love to not be on social media all the time. Jennie Wright [00:02:44]: You take break. Katie Brinkley [00:02:44]: And I know that this probably sounds yeah, I know that this probably sounds crazy coming from somebody that has a social media agency, but I really do believe that if you post on social media with a strategy and with intention, you can be on these platforms less and build relationships outside of this little app that we have on these little brilliant computers we carry around in our back pocket. So this is where I think that you can have that strategy. You can have success on social media. You can grow your business without having to be on it all the time. You just have to be intentional with all of your posts. And that’s definitely what I’ve spent the past nearly two decades trying to find, tweak, and tune. I mean, whether it was when MySpace first came out, yes, I was on MySpace helping bands to Facebook, then Twitter, then Instagram, Clubhouse. I grew an audience to over 100,000 followers on Clubhouse in less than a year. Jennie Wright [00:03:51]: Spectacularly. Katie Brinkley [00:03:52]: Well, finding out the ways that I could get in. And at the beginning, yes, I did spend an exorbitant amount of time on it, but towards the end, I was able to get in and maximize my time on it because I had built out the strategy in place. So that every time I went onto the app, all these other different pieces to bring people into my sphere, into my funnels was happening. So I was only on there maybe 1 hour a week, but it was still working for me the way that it was when I was on there for like 10 hours a week. Jennie Wright [00:04:26]: Yeah, clubhouse was a lot. I remember that was the one to do. Katie Brinkley [00:04:32]: We were under lockdown. Jennie Wright [00:04:34]: I know. And that was one of the apps, because normally I’m not an early adopter. You know this about me. And that was one of the apps where you said early adopt or I’m coming for you. And I said, fine, I’m going to get on there. And I did. And I followed a lot of the strategies that you were implementing to try and grow my audience. And it did work. I actually closed clients from Clubhouse. I closed some Summit clients. They heard me speaking, and lo and behold, they got in touch, which was great in terms of just some raw data. And we don’t need to go numbers because sometimes it’s hard to think of the numbers. But if you could correlate or look at what your business was like pre four, post strategy and post forepost strategy, we use the word post too many times. But if you could look at that, would you say that this is having a positive impact, not necessarily on the mental aspect of not having to post all the time, but are you still getting the same, if not more, engagement followers, people clicking on the links and BIOS and things like that? Katie Brinkley [00:05:36]: Absolutely. And I think that with this, studies have shown that posting three to four times a week can be just as effective as posting daily. And that’s where it comes into posting on fewer platforms with more intention. So for me, up until 2023, I was not using Facebook for business. I was only using LinkedIn and Instagram. I was getting enough leads from It, I was getting a lot of clients from it. I was building connections and building my everything was fine. But I was only on those two platforms. And once 2023 happened, I had the capacity that I could add another platform in. And then again, my business grew. But I didn’t have the time to create all this different type of content. And I think that’s where, yes, it is just a little tab you can click to share it across all the platforms or there’s schedulers galore out there, but all of these platforms have a different way of posting. And so you have to make sure you’re maximizing all the different ways of postings for that platform. And I didn’t have that capacity. So you have to make sure that wherever you are like I said, I was LinkedIn and Instagram. I was only doing LinkedIn once a week. Instagram was my main focus. And then once I decided to again amp up, I was consistent. Even if it was less, I was consistent. So that’s one of the biggest things, I think so many people again, if you’re like, I’m going to post daily. You can only post daily for so long before you get burnt out. And this is where I think the four post strategy is really a breath of fresh air for many business owners. But it’s also consistent. You’re able to stick with it. It’s only one more post I have to do this week. Or it’s easy to build out four posts using this method. So it’s a way for you to remain consistent so that your audience knows exactly when you’re going to show up. It’s just like an email. You’re going to have an email newsletter. You want to make sure you send it every day of the week around the same time, because people could become reliant on when that’s going to show up in their inbox. Jennie Wright [00:07:49]: Oh, yeah, they absolutely do. And they love the consistency of it. Let’s slightly shift for a second. I want to talk about the different ways that you’ve implemented lead generation and list building into your business and how it’s kind of impacted things. So what motivated you? You just talked about Facebook, but I want to talk about things like lead magnet and podcasting and things. What motivated you to try different methods of lead generation, like these things like a summit. You had a summit not too long ago. What was the motivation for you to actually do those kinds of bigger, stylist building? Katie Brinkley [00:08:30]: I’ve been a speaker on numerous virtual events and I’d always kind of wanted to see the inner workings of having my own. And I had a vision of bringing all of the people that I truly admire in the space into one room. What would it be like if we all got in one room together and just were able to share what we’re experts in? And that’s where I decided to do the event and social profit lab. And I made the very smart decision of hiring Miss Jenny Wright because there was no way I could have done it by myself. I know that this is not the goal of the podcast right here, but there’s no way I could have done it by myself. And many people told me how organized and what a great event it was, and it 100% was just because I was the puppet and you were the puppet master telling me what to do. But that’s why I think it was a success. No, I mean, here’s Jenny in the background just kind of guiding me along. Okay, katie do this now. Jennie Wright [00:09:30]: Do this now. Do this. Katie Brinkley [00:09:32]: But no, I think that I’d wanted to get people in a room. I wanted to have the opportunity to network. I honestly just wanted to get the opportunity to talk with some of these speakers even more. And some of the speakers that came to my event were people that I’d seen speak on stage that I paid hundreds of dollars to see. I got to sit down and talk with them one on one. How cool is that? Now we have a relationship and a friendship that never would have happened if it hadn’t been for the summit. Jennie Wright [00:10:02]: Yeah. Katie Brinkley [00:10:02]: And then, of course, I was able to grow my email list, which was amazing. I think that now I have people in that I never would have possibly had. I have amazing relationships, and the leads that have come from it have been both for speaking opportunities and for clients that want to work with me. I now have a Facebook group of over 600 members, and it’s all because of the event. Jennie Wright [00:10:26]: Yeah, there’s a lot that can come out of it. And when we have conversations about lead generation and that can be podcasting as well as lead magnets and summits and things like that, there’s so much more that comes out of it than just the thing that you’re building. You get all of the leads, you create tons of networking. You have all these different opportunities. And I think people need to be aware that there’s so much that can come from really just putting time and effort into consistent lead generation because it has all these different compounding effects in different places. In your business, did you hit any challenges when you were trying to build out? Like, I know you’ve got several lead magnets, I know you have a podcast. At one point, I think you had three. I don’t even know if you still have three. Katie Brinkley [00:11:11]: I know it’s a little crazy. For a while there. Jennie Wright [00:11:14]: Well, it was locked down. Katie Brinkley [00:11:15]: I just have the one now. Jennie Wright [00:11:16]: Okay. Yeah. Because, I mean, honestly, pandemic times, we did a lot of things right and we built a lot of things. But you have a bunch of lead magnets. You have the podcast, you did The Summit, and you’re still doing a lot of global speaking on Summits and other people’s podcasts and then also the stage speaking. What were the challenges that you faced while you were trying to get this lead generation machine up and running? What did that do for you? How was that a challenge for you? Katie Brinkley [00:11:46]: The biggest challenge for me was the trial and error of what lead magnet was going to work. What lead magnet was the opportunity for people to sign up for my list. And I finally have one that’s doing great. So I have my 31 day content calendar. Like I said, we did the summit. I had over, I think, 1100 people sign up for the Summit, which was phenomenal for me. I don’t have a huge email list audience, so I doubled my email list by doing The Summit, and I think that that was huge. My 31 day content calendar is doing great. I have two new ones that are in the works that it’s going to be like a content. So, I mean, it’s constantly kind of listening to your audience on social media is how I do it, and seeing where are their struggles. You can ask them. Instagram stories is a great place to say, what is your biggest struggle with social media right now? What would you love Instagram to do? And if they say something like, oh, I would just love a how to of blah, blah, blah, blah. I know the answer to that. I just simply make that and I could give that to them. So, I mean, listening to your audience asking those questions, for me, The Summit was huge, and then this content calendar has been great, but I had a lot of lead magnets that flopped. And then sometimes you think it’s something that people actually want, but what you think people want and what people actually your target audience actually wants most often are two different things. Jennie Wright [00:13:28]: Big, big time. I remember those lead magnets that were not hitting well. One of your lead magnets for Clubhouse did amazingly well. I mean, there was hundreds and hundreds of people just downloading that thing. And then we tried to do that one for I think it was Instagram. Katie Brinkley [00:13:46]: I think we did. Jennie Wright [00:13:47]: And it didn’t hit the same. Katie Brinkley [00:13:50]: No, didn’t hit the same. Jennie Wright [00:13:52]: We thought it was a no brainer, hey, if we just clone this thing, change it to this, it’s going to work. But it didn’t. And I think that’s a huge red flag for you just can’t take the same material and have it hit the same way. So, yeah, that was a challenge, but you overcame it pretty well. I mean, figuring out what your audience needs is the biggest thing, and I. Katie Brinkley [00:14:18]: Think that that’s where a lot of people don’t optimize talking to their audience enough. Unlike this podcast, you and I are having a conversation and the listener is listening in on it. They’re the fly on the wall here. I got my dog in the office. They’re my dog sitting back over here. They can’t answer or ask their question. Social media isn’t like that. If you ask the question to your audience, they’re going to tell you the answer. And this is where you just have to know what platform is your audience on. I recently did like you said, I have my podcast, and I do two episodes a week for my podcast, Rocky Mountain Marketing. The first episode is an interview. You’ve been a guest on my show twice now. And the second episode of the week is a solo episode where I talk about a social media trend, social media tip or tactic. And it’s just me for like maybe ten minutes, but I didn’t know what I was going to talk about one week. And so I went to my LinkedIn audience and I posed the question to them, is Threads dead? And it got I mean, this was back at the first week of August, and Threads had only been out for three A. The whole reason I posed it that way was because I knew there’d be a lot of people who say, katie, come on, it just came out. And other people would say like, no, you’re right, it is dead. So it was a hot topic and people had a lot of opinions. I was able to use that poll to say, okay, people are curious in this topic. A lot of people commented. I was able to use their comments as proof in the episode, and I was able to provide statistics around this and then what my point of view was on it. So ask these questions to your audience. Polls are a great way to really hear what they have to say. And it’s so easy to do a poll it’s so easy to do a poll that it’s not going to be hard for people to say no and not vote. So whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, polls are there. Use them. Jennie Wright [00:16:33]: I think they’re a really great tool. I need to use them more, for sure. You made me laugh earlier because you’re like, I did this thing and I asked people if Threads was dead. And I remember having this conversation with you. And I’m like threads. I did not adopt to that one. I wanted to see what would happen. I definitely stayed out of the race on that one and watched closely because I didn’t know if it was going to go the same way as Clubhouse did. But the factors now are so different. Had Threads come out during the pandemic? I think it would be wildly successful and probably still it had high numbers, and then those dropped really quickly, but it didn’t. It came out now when things are busy and I’m not sure people have the time to spend on it because it is a time suck to get into some of these platforms. So I decided not to do it. That was my choice. But to each their own on their way of communicating with their audiences. I still think there’s value, but I’ve decided to focus on the certain platforms that I own. And I actually want to come back to the question about podcasts for a second. In your opinion, because you’ve had so many podcasts and you have a really successful one with Rocky Mountain marketing. What sets a really successful podcast apart as a lead generation tool that might be different than other podcasts? Katie Brinkley [00:17:53]: Yeah, I think that using podcasts is whether you’re a guest or you’re a host, man, it’s a content generating machine. You have so much content that you can share on social media in your email, turning it into a blog. I mean, all the things podcasting is huge. And I also think that if you’re saying, okay, well, how could you use it for lead gen? Whether you’re going on these podcasts as a guest, the host could be lead gen. If the host is an ideal client for you, this is where you should know what podcasts you’re pitching to go on podcast, guessing that the audience are ideal clients for was jenny, you and I were talking earlier. This is my third podcast today. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the podcasting circuit, but this is where the other two podcasts, they were both for realtors because a lot of my clients are in the home industry. I wanted to go on and talk about social media strategies for that audience. I’ve been on the bigger pockets podcast. I still have people that will send me emails or will come by my office here because I’ve been here for a while and say, I saw you on or I heard you on Pay Group Pockets and I watched the episode and I just wanted to see what your office really looked like, stuff like that. It’s crazy to me. You never know who’s listening. So that’s a huge thing, is know your target demographic. And then if you want to have a podcast, obviously I’m very biased. I had three at one time. I have a background in radio, but there’s something powerful about hearing somebody speak. If you can hear somebody speak, you have a whole different way of connecting with them. And there’s really something intimate. You can hear if somebody’s reading a script. You can hear if somebody actually cares about what they’re talking about with the way that their voice speeds up or rises when they get excited. Jennie Wright [00:19:54]: Exactly. Katie Brinkley [00:19:54]: And it’s just something really powerful about it. So I think that podcasting is a great way to really connect with people in a whole different way from all over the world. Jennie Wright [00:20:10]: That’s what I loved about the first podcast that I co hosted allowed. It allowed me to meet a whole bunch of new people. A lot of people become friends and some people became clients and just networking partners and referral partners, which I think is great. Every time you do something that leverages some sort of a lead generation method that expands your reach, you’re going to benefit in a multitude of different ways. And I think that’s so important. And it reminds me about when I met you and we’ve never met in person, we’ve only met virtually and we’re going to change that at some point, I hope. When I met you, I had a bug in my bonnet about social media. I really did. Or be in my bonnet, I was like, yeah, I post, but I don’t really post that often, or I do this or I do that. And it really wasn’t doing much for me at the time and I wasn’t really putting a lot of effort into it and so on and so forth. And one of the conversations that I remember was listening to some of your podcasts and then a conversation I had with you afterwards where you’re like, Jenny, there’s literally nothing for you to lose. It is a low effort, high yield thing. The key is just consistency so you can do low effort and get high yield from something that you just did consistently. Don’t put a lot of time into it, don’t overthink it, and so on and so forth. And that appealed to me. I like low effort, high yield. I think most people would. I think that was like something that kind of struck a chord with me at the time. I want to talk about list building and lead generation from the perspective of people who are listening to this and wondering what they should be doing. So if you could give a 92nd master class on yeah, I know. Katie Brinkley [00:22:08]: Ready? Jennie Wright [00:22:10]: Yeah. Stretched out everything. Get ready. If you could give a 92nd master class on people who are considering adding different types of lead generation into their business, what advice would you give them based on your own journey and your own success? Katie Brinkley [00:22:25]: Actually, I can make it faster than 90 seconds. The biggest tip I can give is listen to your audience and try multiple things. Because if you listen to your audience and you know what they want, it’s huge for you. Try multiple things because again, not everything is going to be what they want, what they’re asking for. And then lastly, I think that doing events is great for building out your thought leadership in your space. When you’re able to bring other experts together for your target audience, not only are you going to be considered a thought leader for your target audience, but the other experts that are in the room. My event I’ve thought about like, man, should I should I try and do an in person event sometime? It was so impactful. I know Jenny’s face, for those of you watching on YouTube, pause it and go back and see her face when I say that again, because she knows all the work that goes into a virtual event. So I mean, real but I mean, it was so much fun, too funny that’s the funnest lead gen I’ve ever had in my entire life was that virtual event. It was the funnest lead gen out of all the lead gen sort of practices that I do. Jennie Wright [00:23:45]: It really is. Lead magnets, they are so much fun to do. They’re hard work, but they are so much fun to do, and you get so much out of it. I love them for that. So thank you for that. Plug on that. And my face when you said you were going to do an in person event, I was like, Girl, we’re gonna have good okay. That is awesome. I would love to see you buy I would personally buy tickets to a Katie Brinkley in person event, even if I was yeah, totally would. Totally would. Doesn’t matter where you had it. I’d be you know, I just think. Katie Brinkley [00:24:15]: That lead gen is networking and word of mouth took me so far with my business, and it wasn’t until I really sat down and had different lead magnets, I had a social media strategy I could stick with. Right now, I’m on podcast, going on podcasts for lead gen, but I really can’t see the tangible measurements of who’s coming in from what like, I can with my lead magnet, my content calendar, or from a virtual event. I can’t see those tangible results the way I can with those. Jennie Wright [00:24:47]: Yeah, and you’re so big about those results. You’re like, where are my numbers? Who’s coming in, and where are they coming from? Katie Brinkley [00:24:52]: Data person. Jennie Wright [00:24:53]: Yeah. You love to know where the source is. You love to know where the traffic source is coming from. I’ve learned that about you, and I think that’s awesome. Okay, of all of the different types of lead gen that you’ve tried, so you’ve tried lives, you’ve tried webinars, podcasts. What else have you tried? You’ve hosted an online summit. What other Legion activities or types have you done? Panels. You’ve been a guest on people’s podcasts. Katie Brinkley [00:25:29]: Done panels. I do a lot of live speaking or in person, like, in person events. I have a number of events throughout the rest of 2023, and I’m already booking a lot of events in 2024. The in person events I think are great as well. Again, I can’t necessarily correlate this is where this person came from, because I could see maybe they followed me on social media. They signed up for my email list, but I don’t remember, like, oh, yeah, well, this person saw me speak at this stage unless they came up and talked to me. Jennie Wright [00:26:06]: Yeah, well, maybe that’s something where we look at the back end systems and see if we can make some cool codes on stuff. But you just get my technical mind going when you think about that. Okay, I can’t go down that road right now because I will. So rabbit hole down that road. Where can people find out more about you, get to know you and see what you’re up to? Katie Brinkley [00:26:30]: Yeah, well, first of all, you should listen to the Rocky Mountain Marketing podcast and listen to the episode where Jenny is a guest on Rocky Mountain Marketing. Or you can go to Brinkley.com and we can stay connected there and scroll. Jennie Wright [00:26:44]: Back for that episode. It has been a hot minute since I’ve been on your podcast, but it’s back there. Katie Brinkley [00:26:49]: We should scroll again. Jennie Wright [00:26:50]: Absolutely. We absolutely love that. And Katie, Brinkley has some really great stuff that people can grab. So if you go on our social media under the links there’s like, I think it’s a 300 what is it? 31 day social media calendar. Katie Brinkley [00:27:05]: Yes, if you go to Brinkley.com waitlist, you can get my 31 day content calendar absolutely free. I also have a 365 calendar. I have some workbooks, I have courses. Go check it out. And yeah, like I said, I’d love to help you make social media work for you and I think that again, it comes down to how you can make these platforms be a tool, not something that’s just going to take you down. These are a very affordable marketing tool. You just need to have a strategy in place that you can implement consistently. Jennie Wright [00:27:46]: Organic marketing, you know, I love it and I think what you’re doing is fabulous and you know I’m a big fan, so I really do appreciate you taking the time to be on this one of the early episodes of the Acquire podcast. So I’m really excited that you did that. Yeah, it was really fun to have you on. I really appreciate it. And for everybody listening, please make sure that you share your thoughts on what this podcast was like. Feel free to go and leave a review as well as make sure you’re checking everything out on the Odd Phonic podcast network. The show notes will be there, including anything that we talked about that I think is a relevant link for you to go and check out, like Katie’s link. So I’ll be there for you as well. So go and do that as well. Thanks so much, Katie. We’ll see you all soon.