On today’s show, we discuss how you are doing social media wrong and ways to be more effective.

Katie Brinkley is the creative owner of a successful boutique social media marketing agency with a focus on trending social media platforms and how to leverage them to grow your business. A trained media professional, Katie quickly found her passion for social media with the advent of MySpace and is now the leading Clubhouse coach in the fast-paced, everchanging space of digital marketing. Next Step Social Communications provides a variety of services from training and coaching entrepreneurs on their finer points of social media, to a full-blown, done-for-you social media management. Her expertise is highly regarded and sought-after. 

Especially after the pandemic, we are realizing how important it is to have a presence online. How do you determine how to show up on social media?

• Which social media platforms are most of your customers on?
• What are the different ways you can engage with them on those platforms?
• See which ways make the most sense for your business and show up in the right way for your customers.
  • Different customers will have different preferences on their individual feeds – single images, carousel posts, reels, etc. Make sure you are putting out content in the different formats so that your customers will see it.

When you don’t have a product that is visual, how do you “make a splash” on social media?
Make it personal. Do some live video content. People want to do business with people. Your customers want to get to know you.

How personal should you be when posting for your business?
Make sure you are being personal with a purpose. Post with intention. When someone sees your post and clicks on it to learn more about you, will they still find you relevant? Think about what’s in it for the people seeing it. It should be clear:

• what you do 
• who you serve 
• why you

Is it bad to reuse content on multiple platforms?
Yes. There are ways to be efficient, but you should be careful with it. Don’t leave the watermark from one platform on another. The audio needs to be the platform’s native audio. Not all content will translate to other platforms well.

What about TikTok for businesses?
TikTok has expanded demographically, so it can be valuable to post there if you are comfortable on video. Talking head videos giving short tips work well. TikTok is casual, so your content doesn’t need to be overproduced.

What are some of the benefits of Social Audio? 

• It can help you figure out what kind of tagline you should have. Join some of those stages. You’ll learn how to quickly share what you do and how can you contribute to the conversation. 
• It can help you learn about what is important to your customer base. You’ll have opportunities to engage with people you may never have crossed paths with. You can go in and listen as well. Find out what some of the struggles/trends are for your customer base and then tailor your content for that.

Top tips for executing a social media strategy:

• Have a solid strategy that is intentional.
• Post consistently, not constantly. 
• Pay attention to your bio. This is the first impression of you.
• Make sure your content is in alignment with what you do.
• Pay attention to and prepare for the coming trends in the world of NFT, metaverse, AR. Find people to learn from. These things may be the future of the business world.

Connect with Katie Brinkley
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/katiebrinkley
Instagram: @iamkatiebrinkley
Podcast: Rocky Mountain Marketing Podcast