Katie Brinkley, Next Step Social. Tell me about
your vision. Yeah, well, I started my business
and I didn't know how passionate I was about
social media with the strategy. I think that
with social media, we've all gotten wrapped up
in this rat race of posting a ton. How much content
can you create? man, honestly, like I'm a business
owner. I don't have time to be like dancing and
doing all the things. How can I get in and actually
create a strategy on social media so that it's
working for me to get more business so I can
get out and do the thing I care about most? And
once I realized that I wanted to create a social
media agency that grew people's business strategically
so that they could. be on social media less,
that's when I found my vision of creating a social
media agency that was about posting less. I love
it. I love it a lot. It's a concept that is so
important for business owners, in my opinion.
And there are so many people that are offering
that as a solution. Yeah. Let's dive into that
pain and hit it hard. Right. And let's reassure
and woo people. Can I, can I hit hard on that?
Can I ask you deep questions to help us get centered
all of the visionaries that are out there? Yeah.
And I think that with, with social media, it's
we're, we're caught up in seeing like that we're
playing the comparison game, right? Yeah. So
I, so I'm like, you know what, if you got, you
got a four -step process, right? Yeah. So it's,
yeah, yeah. It's called the awareness to action
strategy and it's for post strategy. So you only
need to post four times a week or, you know,
if you're crazy, you could do it four times a
day or, you know, you could do it four times
a month, whatever floats your boat. For me, I
use this strategy and I post three times a week,
but I still use the same strategy and, you know,
kind of rotate through it on a monthly cadence,
but it's designed so that you are. You have an
end goal in mind. What do you want? And it's
going to be different depending on the time of
year. Like if you're a product -based business
or a service -based business, maybe you have
a big retreat coming up and you want to get a
bunch of people to sign up for your retreat.
Or maybe you have a big sale coming up. Maybe
it's the holidays and you want to get a bunch
of people to sign up for your product or whatever.
You always are going to have a different end
goal. You work with the end goal in mind of I
either want or maybe you want more podcast listeners.
I want more podcast downloads. So you work with
the end goal in mind and then you reverse engineer
it. OK, I want more podcast downloads. So how
am I going to get people there? And it's by reverse
engineering and getting people problem aware,
elaborating on their problem and showcasing your
thought leadership, community driven posts. putting
yourself in their shoes and putting a little
bit of the storytelling into it. I don't know
if you're familiar with Donald Miller story brand.
So it's like a story brand kind of post. And
then the fourth post is the action post. asking
people to leave social media to go one step further
with you whether again it's listen to a podcast
buy from you sign up your retreat sign up your
email list whatever it is so number one was i
didn't quite catch the order very well but i'm
i want to catch them really well so the four
-step process do you say problem aware is that
number one Yep. Yep. So making people problem
aware. So it's the awareness. Number two, let's
get the brief version first. I'm excited about
getting that clarity because I love what you
said. Like as entrepreneurs, as visionaries,
as podcasters, it's so easy to get lost. It is.
Yeah. Let's break down the brief part first and
then let's go from there. When you think about
it too, like no one's going to Instagram to listen
to your podcast. Right. They're going to Apple
or Spotify or, you know, whatever to listen to
the podcast. They're not going to Instagram.
But if you pique their interest and say, you
know, like, hey, are you struggling with this
problem and making them problem aware? That's
going to then get them wanting to engage with
the rest of your content. for the rest of the
week. And so that very first post, it has to
be piquing their interest and making the right
person problem aware. Your content for all of
your posts shouldn't be for everybody. I mean,
I have a lot of different services at Next Step
Social. You know, we offer done for you social
media. We offer podcast production. We offer
strategy sessions. I mean, we offer a lot of
different things. And, you know, you might not
need. all of what we do, but you might need one
thing that we do, or you might, Hey, you know,
maybe you only want to sign up for one of my
lead magnets. Maybe you only want to listen to
my podcast, whatever it is. So you have to, there's
going to be different people that want different
things from you. So getting the right people
to raise their hand for that post, for that content
for the week is extremely important. So you said
something super important that a lot of us forget.
as visionaries and entrepreneurs like this is
going to have an immediate impact on our social
media strategy so i'm grateful for that because
what you said is something again that we forget
and that's people don't go to instagram for your
podcast right that that thought process of okay
wait a second why do they go there um right if
we're not thinking that way when we're considering
our social media strategies of why are they on
there what might that be then that can get us
uh gets pretty lost so we understand number one
It's problem aware. Can you rattle off real fast?
What is number two, three and four? Number two
is elaboration. So this is where people come
to you. Just a theory of it. We'll keep theory
and then we'll go into the details if we have
the time. But we get two, three and four. That
way, people who are list driven like myself,
if you can't tell, I am. I'm writing notes. Yeah.
So did you say elaboration? Yes. So the four
posts are awareness, elaboration. community and
action. Community and action. Okay. I like it.
You're high action. I'm high like knowledge,
but I need a little bit of time to get that.
Okay. So problem, elaboration, community and
action. Go ahead. So elaboration is, this is
going to be the post that takes the most time
every week. And this is where you showcase, hey.
Remember that thing I made you problem aware
of yesterday or a couple of days ago, whenever
you last posted? Here's a longer answer to that
problem. And this is where you can showcase your
thought leadership. You have these, you know,
a listicle blog or a carousel post, you know,
maybe it's whatever, a LinkedIn newsletter. This
is the longer post, but this is where you showcase
your thought leadership and answer their question.
People say, oh, man, I I'm so glad that I raised
my hand and just click the like button, you know,
because now I know so much more. Thanks, Katie.
You answered the question that I didn't even
know I had, you know, before two days ago. That's
really smart. I like that. It feels good. It's
not just cerebral. Like it's holistic. I love
that. It's a community. Community is that like
Donald Miller story brand. So the hero's journey.
So this is where you can put yourself in your
audience's shoes. Like this is how I overcame
this problem. So this is how or how you help
the client overcome this problem. Or if you have
a podcast interview, how your podcast guests
solve this problem. This is, again, the hero's
journey so that people say like, oh, man, Katie
did that. If Katie could do it. I can trust her.
She's been where I've been, you know, like she
knows how it feels to struggle with feeling like
you got to be on social media every day and how
sucky it is, you know? So with that, this is
because you get to talk about, I said, this should
be the fun post because you get to showcase a
little personality. Yeah. So this is how I overcome
overcame the problem is one of those means of
community. But it's not you're not like saying
this post is about like, hey, come join our LinkedIn
group or hey, come join our community. That's
an action post where everybody gets stuck. So
it's not that sense of community. Let's elaborate
a little bit further on that, because I think
a lot of us get lost in that. It's like, oh,
that means go build a Facebook group. No, no,
no. That's I mean, that's an action post because
you're asking people to take action. So like
community hosts, just your build. The community
post is building community is is. Oh, man. Like,
I feel like I know the author more. I feel like
I know them more. I feel like I know more about
their their personal side. Like if you went and
spoke at an event, how did this event help shape?
your business? How did it shape your journey?
Like I said before, this is the storytelling
post. Maybe think of it that way. If community
is like a little confusing for you, think of
it as storytelling. Well, I like it. It's helpful
for all of us to think through that reality of
like, okay, if we're not connecting with people,
right? If we're not diving into the relationship
that exists, then people won't feel like they
belong. And if they don't feel like they belong.
then you really don't have a community. Even
if you've got a box to put people in, it's like
having a town nobody wants to move to. You've
got to have that essence of relationships. So
combining community and storytelling, that's
really neat. And then you said four is action.
Yeah. Asking people to take action. So listen,
remember how I was talking about like how much
you hate posting on social media. I actually
have a whole podcast episode where I teach you.
How to post less on social media where you get
more engagement, you get more, you know, downloads,
you get more everything while posting less. Do
you want to listen to it? So this is where you
are asking people to take action and leave social
media. You're getting the right because you've
been talking about it all week. The right people
are going to say, heck, yeah, I want to hear
about this. No way. You have an entire podcast
episode about it. No way. You have an entire
book that. that teaches me how to do this, sign
me up. Yeah. Where do I go? And you're not worried
about getting, you know, thousands of people
to see this post. All you're worried about is
getting the right people to say, yeah, I'll leave
social media because you've been talking about
it all week. And I, I'd love to sign up. I'd
love to buy from you. I'd love to listen to that.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy
that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking
forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward. This is going to get
more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We invite people to participate in the
show. And thank you for giving us your time and
attention. Have an excellent time building out
your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.