Stop Posting and Ghosting: Katie Brinkley’s Guide to Building Real Connections Online

Chris Stone [00:00:01]:
Alright, ladies and gentlemen. We're absolutely stoked to welcome social media strategist with almost 2 decades of experience. The founder of Next Step Social Communications and the host of the Rocky Mountain Marketing podcast. She's gonna share insights from her new book, The Social Shift, where she redefines social media's purpose, helping businesses move from broadcasting to building genuine connections. Please welcome to Dealcasters, the amazing Katie Brinkley. Katie, awesome. Thank you for coming on.

Katie Brinkley [00:00:34]:
So thank you so much for having me, guys.

Jim [00:00:36]:
I guess you'll have to

Chris Stone [00:00:37]:
sort it out. Did we meet at Podfest, or was it was it Myspace? Clubhouse? What was it?

Katie Brinkley [00:00:45]:
Was it Myspace? I love it. And no. So I think that well, Podfest was the first live event that I went to, I believe, after the pandemic. Like, after all the the things had lifted. So if we met IRL, it had to have been at Podfest. Hey. Look. There we are.

Katie Brinkley [00:01:07]:
But I I think that we actually met in Clubhouse. And whenever I can't remember exactly if we met in real life first, I I always actually go back to Clubhouse because it was it was a lifesaver during COVID, and I met so many great people that I'm still connected to today. So I I think I like to think that we met back in the clubhouse days and then formed a friendship in real life.

Chris Stone [00:01:34]:
I love it. I love it. And so you're you're obviously the social media queen, princess. Like, when everybody needs somebody that's an expert that says, I can't make sense of posting. I'm I've been putting all my stuff on Instagram. I'm putting all my stuff on Pinterest. I'm putting all my stuff on TikTok, all of these things. I'm doing all of this stuff, Katie, and nothing's working for me.

Chris Stone [00:01:59]:
What you know, you deal with those people every single day. How do you get them to get in the mindset and and figure out how to go about treating social media in general?

Katie Brinkley [00:02:12]:
I think that I'm the sigh of relief for them because, honestly, it's it's not their fault. It's not your fault that it's not working. There there's so many people and things out there saying, well, the reason you're not having success on social media is because you're not posting enough. You're not on this platform. You're not doing this. You're not doing that. And, honestly, if you're a business owner, showing up on social media is very different than showing up as a influencer. Now it's not to say that you you can't use some of those same tactics between, you know, strata you know, strategies here.

Katie Brinkley [00:02:53]:
But if you're a business owner, you should be showing up to have sales or to have sales calls, to have conversions, but your audience doesn't wanna be sold to. So how can you show up, build community, create content that they wanna see, and then when you decide you want to sell to them, you have a audience full of people that are ready to raise their hand.

Chris Stone [00:03:17]:
You know, it's it's so crazy to me how many times people look at social media and they say this is a way for me to kind of put out my content for free. And most of the time what their content looks like is ads. And Yeah. A lot of these platforms will treat content that looks and sounds like an ad like an ad. Like, you gotta pay to do that. Right? It's not this is not for you. Right? So how do you get someone who wants to promote their stuff, wants to have more prospects, more leads to create content that doesn't look like an ad?

Katie Brinkley [00:03:56]:
Yeah. And I think that you bring up a good point. People don't want to go on social media to be sold to. But if you're a business owner, I I literally just got done saying you should use social media to have conversions and sales. So you're probably saying, well, that doesn't help me at all, Katie. You just said that I can't do that. What should I be posting? And it's it's all about give giving it all away for free. I man, maybe we should just retitle this episode like clubhouse 2.0 because that's what we were doing in clubhouse, was just talking and giving it all away for free.

Katie Brinkley [00:04:31]:
True. But but that really is the secret sauce. If some people are afraid of sharing their knowledge, but the more you share, the more you're helping, and the more people are saying, that's my person. Man, they're giving this away for free. What is it like to work with them?

Jim [00:04:51]:
Yeah. You know, Katie, that that is a that is such a great point because I think right? How many times have we told and I remember this, you know, and Chris said you can't drink because we're we're live right now. But back in the Google plus days, I remember

Chris Stone [00:05:05]:
So drinking Katie.

Jim [00:05:06]:
A web a a web guy that said basically, like, I show you step by step everything I do to build a website. I put it on YouTube. It's all out there for you to consume at no cost to you. And what happens is, and I think this is, Katie, what you're probably seeing is, like, people say, wow, that's awesome. I don't wanna do this. You know what you're doing, so let me hire you because Yeah. We've only got so much time in the day and, you know, to try to save a few bucks and do it all yourself, I think that's when you really become a true business owner is when you make that step of saying I have to learn to delegate. I know, Chris, you've been doing a lot of that with Cast Ahead, and I definitely know you're seeing the growth because of that.

Jim [00:05:51]:
And and so, Katie, is that something that you're seeing as well, not only for the clients you work with, but with your own business?

Katie Brinkley [00:05:59]:
Yeah. Exact delegation. Man, that's that's the that's key. You know, and I don't I'm curious, Chris, what you've been doing for for delegation because I remember it was in 2021 that I hired my first person, Racy, and she's she's still with me today. She's done literally everything in the company, and she's she's incredible. But, I mean, it it's delegation is the key to success. And if you're if you're willing to again, if you're willing to give it all away for free, you know, just tell people your process. There's gonna be people that say, like, that's great, but I don't wanna do it.

Katie Brinkley [00:06:38]:
You do it. So and they will delegate it out to you, like Yep. Podcast production or social media production.

Chris Stone [00:06:47]:
Yeah. I think, you know, for me, what what got me past that hump of hiring someone because it is nerve racking. Because I, you know, Katie, I'd share this with you. I'm a recovering perfectionist. And I think a lot of times entrepreneurs, business owners, they can't let go of what they've created. And they can't let someone else work on what they've created. And for me, that was a lot of of what I had to do is is, like, but I'm I'm the one putting together the thumbnails. I'm the one editing all of the videos.

Chris Stone [00:07:18]:
I'm the one putting in the graphics and doing all the stuff. And it's like, you're gonna have to let somebody else do that or you're not gonna scale your business. There's just no way you're gonna be able to do that. And when I was having conversations with people, they said, listen, Chris, you can actually give someone else the talent and give someone else the ability to, you know, create their own business by allowing them to work for you. And I never really looked at it that way. I was always just like, well, I'm just gonna hire this person, I'm gonna pay this person, and they're gonna do stuff. I didn't look at it like I'm actually helping them. I'm actually helping them in their career and they could do it.

Chris Stone [00:07:57]:
And when that happened, because that's what we do, Katie, is we're giving the stuff away. We're helping as many people as we can. Why not help the people that also work on our team? Like, in your case, Racy, who's killing it, by the way? I mean, I was just I asked her one question on email today, and it was like she sent me, like, all of the stuff, and I'm like, oh my gosh. This is great.

Katie Brinkley [00:08:19]:
Yeah. And and I think too, it's I mean, I I wasn't planning on talking about delegation, but, I mean, it's it really is something whether or not you are a perfectionist, it can be the hardest thing to do when you're a not a solopreneur that's getting ready to scale because nobody can do your job as good as you. Right? Nobody. Yeah. Nobody can do your job as good as you can. And just letting go of something, man, it's so hard. I get it. And it for me, the very first thing that I let go of was my podcast.

Katie Brinkley [00:08:55]:
I had no idea how much time it was taking me. Mhmm. It it it was I thought it was just taking me an hour a week, but I wasn't because that's how long it was taking me to record. That's how long I was blocking out of my calendar.

Chris Stone [00:09:08]:
Yeah.

Katie Brinkley [00:09:09]:
I wasn't going in and adding in the editing, the uploading, creating the social media posts, creating the email and the shareable assets for the guests. Like, I wasn't including any of that. Yeah. And so it once I've realized, I was like, man, this is an extra sick what would I do with 6 hours back every single week? And it it was amazing. And then once once you find those those little things that you can delegate out, I mean, Bracey loves it. You know? She she loves podcasting. I've sent her to a couple. I sent her to Podfest Asia.

Katie Brinkley [00:09:43]:
So I mean, it it's when you find somebody that's like you said before, Chris, you're you're giving somebody else the opportunity to do something that they're really passionate about.

Chris Stone [00:09:52]:
That's great. And I and I yeah. We will we will move off of delegation because I could talk about this for for a very, very long time. But I mean, this is it's great points because it's like the mindset is not just let me let me assign stuff that I don't want to do in my business. It's really just I need to find more things that I'm, that I'm passionate about and and be able to give that back to someone who can help build that.

Jim [00:10:19]:
So let's talk about why we're here, Katie.

Katie Brinkley [00:10:22]:
Yes.

Chris Stone [00:10:23]:
You wrote this amazing quote.

Katie Brinkley [00:10:24]:
Segue. I do think it's a great segue of delegation. And then why?

Jim [00:10:28]:
Why am I here? But go ahead.

Chris Stone [00:10:30]:
Well, as I understand it,

Jim [00:10:33]:
in you know, and this

Chris Stone [00:10:34]:
is what I think is incredibly difficult to do is for businesses, entrepreneurs and people to to move away from broadcasting, trumpeting their content on social media, just throwing everything over the fence, and really building yes. And really building a community. Can you talk about some of the tactical things that are in this book that would help our viewers and listeners kind of with that with that social shift of of really building people that you can surround in, you know, in your content as opposed to just like, firing out and trumpeting content.

Katie Brinkley [00:11:19]:
What just happened? Do you see me?

Chris Stone [00:11:21]:
I we hear you.

Jim [00:11:23]:
Yes. We get yeah.

Chris Stone [00:11:24]:
Things got a little blurry on on the camera.

Katie Brinkley [00:11:26]:
No live video. I'm gonna keep on going here.

Chris Stone [00:11:29]:
Okay. Alright.

Katie Brinkley [00:11:30]:
And then yeah. So, maybe we

Jim [00:11:34]:
reboot the

Chris Stone [00:11:35]:
camera. I'm not sure.

Katie Brinkley [00:11:36]:
I'll that's never happened before. I'll answer, and then you guys can, you can ask the next question. But one of the things that I've noticed, with with having the book and and delegation is that, well, man, now it's real real distracting here, guys. This is our video.

Jim [00:11:56]:
We can pause.

Chris Stone [00:11:57]:
We can pause. Yeah. That's, Do you

Katie Brinkley [00:12:00]:
want me to go ahead and pause it and try and fix it real

Jim [00:12:02]:
fast here?

Chris Stone [00:12:03]:
Yeah. That would be great. Yeah. Otherwise, it looks like we're talking to somebody in the witness protection program.

Jim [00:12:07]:
Well, it it kinda fits into the title of the show of ghosting, though.

Chris Stone [00:12:11]:
Right. It does.

Jim [00:12:12]:
Absolutely. Talking to Katie the ghost as she's somewhere in the Colorado mountains, and she was telling us about, social media. But that that's just crazy. Oh.

Chris Stone [00:12:24]:
Oh, here we go.

Katie Brinkley [00:12:25]:
To this camera.

Jim [00:12:26]:
There we

Katie Brinkley [00:12:26]:
go. This camera. You are.

Chris Stone [00:12:27]:
Yes. She's back. Awesome.

Jim [00:12:30]:
Okay. Cool. Now that was

Katie Brinkley [00:12:31]:
the other camera. So one of the things that, I talk about in the book is is actually all about building the community. And if you go back to what your how social media started, it it started as a way to connect with people that you don't see every day. You know? The the Facebook is is what we first saw, and how we were connecting with people that we went to school with. And it was all about connection. And now it's it's really there's no different than turning on Netflix. You know, with with what we have in our pockets now, it's really no different than what than turning on the television. And how can we go back to making our content resonate so much that people say, I wanna be a part of their community.

Katie Brinkley [00:13:27]:
I want to go one step further with them because, believe it or not and I know, like, this is kinda fallen off the radar, but I am gonna go I am gonna go down the, web 3 rabbit hole here for just a minute because it is still coming, guys. I know the NFTs really gave things a a bad name. A lot of people, got burned on the whole NFT thing, but it's still going to happen. Web 3 is still coming. The dark social, you know, having, like, discords and those communities where it is 100% built around what you wanna be a part of and you're not relying on algorithms, that is coming. The metaverse is gonna come. It's it's just kind of taken a back seat these past few years. What are you going to do when that is the way that we connect with people, when that is how you are going to have to sell to people? And it's all about building community, building content that people say, I want to go and continue learning from them.

Katie Brinkley [00:14:35]:
That's my person. I want to anytime they post or anytime they say something, I want to see it, and I don't wanna rely on an algorithm to show it to me. Mhmm. So that's what that is what the social the social shift is about. It's about creating the content now so that you are ready for the next phase of the Internet whenever it does come. And by doing this strategy, you're gonna be posting more effectively. You're gonna be posting less. You're gonna get better reach.

Katie Brinkley [00:15:04]:
You're gonna get better impressions. You're gonna get better engagement, and you're gonna build a community of people that when you go out in real life, they're going to feel like they're some of your best

Jim [00:15:15]:
friends. Yeah. And, you know, Katie, and and Chris and I run into this a lot. It was some folks we've worked at in the past as well, even in the present where, you know, you talk about engagement, and they're like, well, I'm posting all this stuff and nobody's commenting on it, but then you kind of and I know Chris is good at doing this too. He'll flip it around. It's like, well, are you commenting on other people's stuff? Well, I don't have time for that. Well, if you don't have time for them, why should they have time for you and you're not building relationships? What what what's your thoughts on that?

Katie Brinkley [00:15:47]:
It's amazing to me on how many people just post something and then say there. You're welcome, everyone. I did a happy Thanksgiving post.

Jim [00:15:59]:
Come and comment on it. There it is.

Chris Stone [00:16:02]:
You know? Post and they will come. Right? Isn't it?

Katie Brinkley [00:16:04]:
There it is. There is your stock image, you know, your Canva graphic. Happy thanksgiving. You're welcome. You know? Like, that is not like, nobody needs that anymore. So if you if if that is what you want, but but you're like, okay. I need to post on social media for my check check it off, save save your time, save your effort. Don't even post it.

Katie Brinkley [00:16:25]:
Don't do it. Just stop don't even post it. Spend that time that you're gonna create that post engaging with your audience. Talking to people on social media and especially ideal clients and customers, that's how the magic happens. So, for example, the month of March in, 2022, I was burnt out on social media. Real tough position to be in when you own a social media agency, and you are only relying on social media, organic social media, to bring in clients. Well, I did 2 posts that month, and it was one of our best sales months ever. The reason why is because I didn't feel like creating at all.

Katie Brinkley [00:17:12]:
I I just was uninspired. But I was spending the time that I typically would have been creating engaging. So knowing exactly who your target audience is and engaging with their posts I'm not saying I was showing up and saying, hey. You need some social media services? And so I I work with a lot of realtors, so I spend a lot of time in hashtag Denver realtor. Oh, I love the Wash Park area. Such a cool backsplash. That's the type of comments I would do. And because they'd be like, oh, who's this Katie Brinkley person? Come on over.

Katie Brinkley [00:17:50]:
And, oh, wow. I have I have all this great content that is answering their questions. You know? It's it's now you have to follow her. So I'm bringing the right people in to my ecosystem because I have the right content on my platform that answers their question, and they're ready to go one step further with me and be a part of my community. So if you're not feeling like if you're just posting to post, this is your your get out of jail free card. Here you go. You don't need to post so much. You can stop and spend that time engaging with others on the platform.

Katie Brinkley [00:18:33]:
That's that's really where the magic happens.

Jim [00:18:35]:
Yeah. And and I remember Judy Fox even. I I think, Katie, you've probably talked to her. As much as people think of Judy Fox on LinkedIn, if you really go look, Judy rarely post, but she does a lot of engagement. Yeah. Lots of engagement.

Katie Brinkley [00:18:51]:
I knew you were gonna put that up there, Chris. Really?

Chris Stone [00:18:55]:
What? Is this bad?

Jim [00:18:58]:
Oh, okay.

Chris Stone [00:18:59]:
This is a hockey thing.

Jim [00:19:00]:
It's a hockey thing. Yes. Yes. Okay. Don't put

Katie Brinkley [00:19:04]:
it under my name.

Chris Stone [00:19:05]:
Okay. Okay. There we go. I'll put it I'll put it in front of Jim.

Jim [00:19:08]:
The crackers.

Chris Stone [00:19:10]:
She says boo, Chad. For those of you who are listening, Chad Peterson, is is saying go Kraken, which I guess is is that the Texas hockey team?

Katie Brinkley [00:19:20]:
No. It's Seattle. And

Jim [00:19:23]:
Seattle?

Katie Brinkley [00:19:23]:
He likes Yeah. Yeah.

Jim [00:19:24]:
They got they got a team, I guess. You know, they were bored and being a team.

Katie Brinkley [00:19:30]:
No. It's a really big hockey fan, big avalanche fan, so he loves to tease me about the Kraken. So

Chris Stone [00:19:36]:
Are you, at all all Denver sports? Like, the Broncos? Yeah. Except for the Rockies.

Jim [00:19:44]:
Well, if

Katie Brinkley [00:19:45]:
you do you guys and this is gonna derail the conversation, but if you really want me to go on my soapbox here, I will. Sure. Okay. So, as as you know, I used to be the marketing manager for the Rockies TV Okay. And then the year after I left, they they traded Nolan Arnott to the Saint Louis Cardinals. They paid the Saint Louis Cardinals to take the best third baseman in baseball off of our team. They paid them. They they they paid them, and they gave and they gave him.

Katie Brinkley [00:20:30]:
They gave them Nolan Arnott. And they said, here you go. We got literally nothing out of it. And so at that point, I was like, nope. This team does not wanna win. They don't want they have zero interest in winning. They're paying other teams that wanna win to have great play they're paying other teams to have great players. I refuse to cheer for this team until they invest back into their players.

Katie Brinkley [00:20:54]:
So I do not cheer for the Rockies. I am a San Diego Padres fan. So that is my soapbox. I'm very passionate about it. I went to my first I

Chris Stone [00:21:02]:
can tell.

Katie Brinkley [00:21:03]:
Yeah. I went to my first Rockies game, in about 6 years. This year, actually, when Chad was in town, And I've posted a picture on Instagram there, and I had about 8 friends reach out asking if I was okay because I was at a Rockies game. And I said, don't worry. They were free tickets that came with the $20 voucher. They didn't the the rockies got none of my money. So Wow.

Chris Stone [00:21:29]:
That is more than holding a grudge. Boy, if I held a grudge like that against Detroit Lions, boy, that would be that would be some serious hatred.

Katie Brinkley [00:21:36]:
Paid it's not like they paid the Broncos to take Barry Sanders off the team. Yeah. That

Chris Stone [00:21:41]:
Yeah. They paid a they paid a GM named Matt Millen for years, you know, probably for 8 years longer than they should have, which basically set us back for 30. But, you know, you know alright. So welcome to sports night on Dealcasters.

Jim [00:21:57]:
You

Chris Stone [00:21:57]:
know, it it's interesting. I think a lot of people look at social media as what I'm going to create to post. And you're and I love I love the mindset that you had. It's like, listen, everyone, these were created for connections. This is this is for you to connect with grandma, your best friends. However, these were all created to to do connections. So treat social media like social media. Don't treat it like it's just a way an avenue for you to just spit out a bunch of stuff to promote yourself because nobody is gonna resonate with that stuff.

Chris Stone [00:22:35]:
Nobody can't It sounds to me like it's a real mix. Right? Like, you just are

Katie Brinkley [00:22:40]:
the thing. There's over 95,000,000 photos and videos shared on Instagram every day.

Chris Stone [00:22:51]:
Oh, god.

Katie Brinkley [00:22:53]:
That is a lot

Chris Stone [00:22:53]:
of content.

Jim [00:22:54]:
Of them today.

Katie Brinkley [00:22:55]:
Do do do I mean, do you but, I mean, no. Like, do you really if you're just post and this is why I keep going back to that generic, like, Canvas stock, happy Thanksgiving or whatever post. If that's what you're posting, nobody cares. No one cares. How are you going to stand out in a sea of competition? Because that is not it. And the time that you spent grabbing that that image or creating it, even if it only took you 5 minutes, what would 5 minutes of engaging with your target audience or with a power partner have done for you and your business? You have it's it's switching from that hoping I go viral mindset into how is this helping my business mindset.

Chris Stone [00:23:42]:
Yeah. So how so how does this work with the whole 4 post strategy? Like, let's break break the 4 post strategy down. And for those of you who are are, watching on Amazon, it's more than just Chad Peterson. For those of you who are watching on Amazon, Katie's book is in the carousel, the social shift. Make sure you check that out. Her podcast, Rocky Mountain Marketing, which is, believe it or not, she decided to have, some knucklehead named Chris Stone on the show. That is also in, the carousel as well, so make sure you pick that up on Amazon or anywhere you in enjoy your podcast. So the social shift, Katie, talks about the 4 post strategy.

Katie Brinkley [00:24:26]:
Mhmm.

Chris Stone [00:24:27]:
Can you break that down?

Katie Brinkley [00:24:28]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the 4 post strategy is designed so that you can post on social media with intention, and you can get your life back. Every single post will be done, with an end goal in mind. So, really, it's it's reverse engineering what you want people to do and how it is that you're going to get them there. So let let's say it's to, listen to my podcast, with Chris Stone. I want everyone to listen to the podcast. Yeah.

Katie Brinkley [00:25:00]:
Yeah. Everyone everyone should listen to this podcast.

Jim [00:25:02]:
Perfect example.

Katie Brinkley [00:25:03]:
You know what? The thing is, no one really goes to Instagram to listen to a podcast. Like, new episode alert. Who cares? You know? So how are we going to get people to wanna say, I wanna hear that new episode. Me. Thanks for telling me about this new episode alert. And it's and it's take it's getting the right people to raise their hands, and I call it the the awareness to action strategy. So the first post that you do is unawareness post. You don't need to be on every single platform because every platform has its own culture, its own feel, its own community, and its own way of promoting you within its algorithm.

Katie Brinkley [00:25:43]:
So for example, right now, at the time of this Dealcasters episode, on Instagram, it is a reel. Reels do the best for getting you in front of strangers on the Internet. On LinkedIn, it is a poll. It's very easy for your audience to engage with the poll. The more people that engage with it, the more feeds it goes out to. It's you know, the feed on LinkedIn is, like, 2014 Facebook. On Facebook, it is the, like, single sentence with a different color background. That's the the the white no.

Katie Brinkley [00:26:18]:
I don't the the widest shared, content that gets the most reach. All of those are very, very easy to make. The longest one would probably be the reel over on Instagram. But out of all of it, you need to think of this as your wide net. You're creating this content to bring in as many people as possible. So for example, I could say, I could I could create a post, that would share a surprising podcast statistic. Or I could say, on, like, LinkedIn. Does your business have a podcast? Yes? No? I wanna start 1? Other, comment below.

Katie Brinkley [00:26:58]:
I mean, it is that simple. It might take me 15 seconds to type it out. On Facebook, I could be sharing the statistic, or I could even say, like, in 2025, do you plan on launching a podcast? Just ask my audience, asking them. People engage with it. So it's a very, very easy post that you're just making people aware of the topic for the week. So that's the awareness post.

Jim [00:27:26]:
Got it.

Katie Brinkley [00:27:28]:
The next post is the elaboration post. And this is where you get to really step into the spotlight and showcase yourself as the expert that your audience can trust. Now that you brought the right people in and you brought a few strangers in, how why should they trust you? And this is where, again, on LinkedIn, it would be a LinkedIn article or a LinkedIn newsletter. You can elaborate on the problem that you made people aware of, how podcasting can help your business grow, the 6 ways that, having a podcast can be a content generating machine, and you can list them out as an LinkedIn article. On Instagram, it could be a carousel post, the 6 ways that podcasting is a content generating machine. And then on on Facebook, it could be, you know, like, there's not articles anymore. You could go live. You could go live on Facebook and talk about, hey.

Katie Brinkley [00:28:21]:
You know, if you haven't considered doing a podcast for your business, there's six reasons why you should consider it in 2025 and just talk about it with your audience. So this is a way that you can showcase your thought leadership, and this is probably gonna be the post that takes the most effort for the entire week. For me, I'm all about working smarter, so, and not harder. So my LinkedIn newsletter, I actually then take from, LinkedIn, and I microcontent it out into my email newsletter, which I send out on Thursdays to my audience. And then the next post is going to be your community post. This should be your favorite post every week. It's the one that you get to, you know, showcase why how you're different. How did you overcome this? What was it like when you first launched your podcast? Have you helped a client? Start sharing a client testimonial or, when what a client success story.

Katie Brinkley [00:29:23]:
Or maybe you had a guest on a podcast, and they shared a really relatable story that you would like to share with your audience. And you have a really cool picture of you 2 or 4 together at an event that you could showcase with the story. That right there, people will be like, oh, I'm used to seeing a picture of people on social media. There's Katie in my feed. Oh, and she posted a long caption. I wanna read this. What does she have to say? This looks normal. It doesn't look like an ad.

Katie Brinkley [00:29:54]:
And then the last post is the action post, asking people to go one step further with you and leave social media. In this post, I can say in, you know, I'm thinking on my on my feet here about the podcast. I'm obviously, I haven't planned out the rest of this week yet, Chris. But, so for if if you're planning on really growing your business in 2025 and you don't have podcasts at the top of the list, you're missing out. In this week's episode of Rocky Mountain Marketing, I sit down with Chris Stone, and we talk about all the ways that podcasting has helped not just, his business, but my business and our clients' business explode over the past 4 years. We talked about Amazon Live, da da da da, and all these different ways. Did you know that that was even even possible? If you're interested in hearing more, go ahead and comment podcast below, and I can include maybe a a reel from Sure. From the episode of you saying something really smart.

Katie Brinkley [00:30:58]:
And there it

Jim [00:30:59]:
is. That's gonna be

Chris Stone [00:31:00]:
a real short reel if it's if it's gotta be something I said that was smart. But, you know, speaking of smart, this I mean, I I'm gonna be honest with you, Katie. We record everything. And it's I I really in in my mind, sometimes I'm just like, you know what? I don't need to write this stuff down. You know, it's gonna be recorded. I just filled up 3 pages, here on on on this notebook, because I think I think we got to repeat this, because there was so much meat in there for people to chew on. And I feel like, first of all, I can't read my, my own writing. Second of all, number 1 is awareness.

Chris Stone [00:31:43]:
So your first thing you're you're right out of the gate. You're not selling anything. You're not, you know, you're you're not coming across, you know, as, you know, used car salesperson. You're just putting out something, a poll, like you said, on LinkedIn, something that is, you know, somebody's gonna, you know, be into. 2nd, the toughest thing is elaboration. So the elaboration thing and I love I love this because when you talk about LinkedIn, you were talking about newsletter and sharing an article and adding your own special sauce. Right? Adding your value to this, like, hey, and I'm giving you something. I'm going to elaborate on on this.

Katie Brinkley [00:32:23]:
You're giving it all away for free.

Chris Stone [00:32:25]:
Exactly. I loved that. The carousel, concept, and and doing that on Facebook and and creating a a video on Facebook, it's something that not a lot of people are doing, you know, and so it's you can zig when you, when others are zagging. The community post, I thought, you know, which is 3rd, which is huge because this is I'm gonna be honest with you. This is where this is my shortcoming. Okay. So I wanted to spend a little time here because I know you've dealt with businesses that have the same issues that I do. And this is sharing something somewhat vulnerable, right? Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:33:02]:
Or, you know, maybe maybe, hey, I made a mistake doing this. And here's how I overcame it. Or, you know, really kind of like sharing something. And that and and to me, when when people see that, that's that's the you know, they they seem to engage more. Right? There's that. Is that where community is that where the heart of that comes from?

Katie Brinkley [00:33:22]:
It really is. I mean, and, you know, I have 2 got 2 daughters. Mhmm. Sports are I'm very passionate about sports. 650 couldn't tell. But I mean so that's I try to work those in on my community posts through like, if I go to an avalanche game, I'll include, like, a picture of me at an Avs game with my daughter or, I did a post. So I I used the tool CapShow, for a lot of my content creation, and I wanted to I did an entire post, weeks worth of post about how great Capt Show was. And the community post was about how Capt Show allowed me to become my daughter's softball coach, and it was a picture of me and my daughter.

Katie Brinkley [00:34:06]:
And, really, you know, I could have been my daughter's softball coach at any time, Chris, but the CapShow gave me 5 hours of my week back because it was taking my my podcast content and repurposing it for me and taking and giving me this and this and this and this. So it gave me this much time back so that I could leave the office early. That was the story that I shared. So, I mean, you never know what, like, what is it in your life that's like, you know I know that sharing whenever I share we in Facebook stories or Instagram stories, like, people like it when I post about my kids and what we're up to. But that's not my entire feed because I'm I'm the spokesperson for my company on my feed. So I can't have it be entirely, you know, a kid's album. So how can I bring in something that's a little bit of the Katie, you know, and the personal the personal side of me and relate it back to business? And the community posts, like I said, it should be the most fun because this is where you can showcase the you side, some of your some of your family, some of your passions, some of your interests, and, like, how how you've overcome some of the things that your ideal client is is experiencing.

Chris Stone [00:35:23]:
Yeah. And the and the 4th one of of action is is obviously the key, but it's like, do people stumble on those calls to action? Because I mean, if you follow these steps, and you get to the point where you're here, now it's time to ask for something, right? You know, it's it's a struggle for some people to ask for what they want, right? And it could be listen to something, watch something, get to know me, join my join my community, you know, my mastermind, you know, whatever you eventually wanna wanna get to, it's really hard for people to, number 1, even ask for it in the 1st place, and number 2, ask for it in the right way from their community even if they've done these steps and sort of garnered the trust from their audience. So how do you work with someone on that 4th step to really develop that action?

Katie Brinkley [00:36:16]:
Well, I mean, if if this is where I think that the the action posts you're you're asking the the bright people to raise their hand. And especially too, if you if you're trying to get people to listen to your podcast, how cool is it to have a one on one conversation with your your listener? I mean, like, we're able to see Chad, you know, giving me all these praises right here on on screen. But for the most part, we don't get to hear all of what what our podcast listeners think of our show. We don't get to hear that and and get their feedback. So if you could have a two way conversation with your podcast listener or with your your ideal client, wouldn't that be great? Even if even if only 5 people raise their hand, you can have a two way conversation with them. And I think that just asking people to to comment, and if nobody comments, the people that like it, you can go in and say, hey. Thanks for liking my post. You know, blah blah blah blah.

Katie Brinkley [00:37:16]:
You know, where are you at with this? Do you need help with that? Is this something that you're interested in right now? I mean, it it allows you to really get an insight into, okay. Well, actually, maybe this isn't the right offer for my for my community right now. You know, this they're not interested in this. I'm never having Chris on again. You know?

Chris Stone [00:37:35]:
Well, and do you think sometimes it's not just about responding to that person on the feed, but others see that you're responding to others on that feed. Right? They're like, wow, Katie's really engaging with these people. She's answering questions, so I'm gonna ask. I because because now, kinda broken the walls down and and said, I'm not this person who's sitting on 100 of thousands of of followers on my whatever social media platform. I I'm actually jumping in and talking to people.

Jim [00:38:06]:
Yep. Yeah. And, you know, and Katie and Chris, I like that you bring that up. I think part of the challenge too, you know, we're talking about building community. And so it's really hard for you as an individual, say, to build a community of a 100000 people. Right? Because you're not gonna connect with them. So I think sometimes people get too focused on the big numbers as opposed to having a close knit community that's gonna support you. I mean, it it kinda goes back to Pat Flynn and, you know, you have these super fans that work with you and and, sure, you may end up with a a ton of followers, but don't you really want that inner circle? And Yeah.

Jim [00:38:44]:
Something else, Katie, that you talked about, and I'm I'm just I think I know the answer, but, what are your thoughts on people using AI avatars as their way to communicate with people as opposed to being themselves?

Katie Brinkley [00:38:59]:
Like, you mean, like, responding?

Jim [00:39:02]:
Well, they're, like, using their video they're creating video that's not really them and putting it out on social.

Katie Brinkley [00:39:09]:
You know, I actually you guys know Molly Mahoney. Right?

Jim [00:39:12]:
Mhmm.

Katie Brinkley [00:39:13]:
Yeah. Molly is awesome. And she she was on my podcast, man, maybe about 6 months ago. It was great having her on because she's she's who I think of when I think of live video is is Molly Mahoney, but she really stepped into this whole AI thought leadership space. And, it makes sense. She she's been doing AI since it was, I think it was Jasper or or, whatever that name was from the

Jim [00:39:43]:
Yeah.

Katie Brinkley [00:39:44]:
Iron Man or whatever. But I had her come on, and we talked all about how being human is more important than ever now in a world of AI because we yeah. Sure. I can go ahead and create a digital clone of myself like that, you know, and I can clone my voice. I can go ahead and have chat GPT write a whole bunch of posts for me. But you know what? I think that, it's it if we're just a bunch of robots talking to robots, what's happened? Like, what's the point? It's it's it's even worse than white noise, you know. And and I think that, we can't let that happen. Like, it social media is an incredible tool.

Katie Brinkley [00:40:31]:
It really is an incredible tool. And and I think that I don't, I mean, part of the reason why I created the 4 post strategy was because I didn't wanna be on social media all the time. I wanted to get in and get out and be effective. And 2, I didn't want my kids to be on social media all the time. Yeah.

Jim [00:40:50]:
You know,

Katie Brinkley [00:40:51]:
I mean, I didn't want them growing up where, like, being like this is like a regular way of life. And I think that, you know, if we can just start changing our habits now of this is my community, this is how I show up, this is how I connect, and then getting off and making those real connections, that is everything. And and if you're just having robots do everything, then really there what is the point? You you know, you can set up some AI tool to make and do all the things and create your graphics and but then, really, what is the point of of any of it? So

Jim [00:41:28]:
Amen. I don't know.

Katie Brinkley [00:41:28]:
I I

Jim [00:41:29]:
know. I I love that answer because I think that's how I feel because I think it's you know, and even our friend Jeff See talks about you know, and you talk about live streaming. The this is, you know, this is the real Chris, the real Jim, the real Katie. If if this was some sort of, you know, video bot and you were to ask a question about something that only we would know because it was an in real life person, that's where the things start to fall apart, you know, and I think, you know, that's where the connection, that's where the the know, like, and trust comes in, and and I you know, Peter Lisosky, who I work with, with Relatable, that's one of the things we talk about. It's like if I watched a video of you, Katie, and and then I find out later that that wasn't really you, and then I get to talk to you, it I'm not gonna feel the same way as if I knew that video was genuinely you.

Katie Brinkley [00:42:22]:
Yeah.

Jim [00:42:22]:
I'm gonna feel like, you know, hey, I I was trusting you and you just lost a little bit of my trust. I mean, that's that's my my feeling on it right now. But,

Katie Brinkley [00:42:31]:
I mean, AI is is an incredible tool. AI is an incredible tool. It is changing our lives every single day. It has helped me scale and do a lot of things with my business. But if we use AI to replace us, that that is gonna be our biggest downfall. We need to use it to be our assistance, not our replacements.

Jim [00:42:56]:
Right.

Chris Stone [00:42:57]:
Yeah. I love it. I'm I I think, you know, it's just whenever you see something, especially AI video, you could just tell. It's just a little weird. And and so it's only gonna get better, and I I totally get it. But of you know, they're already doing all this deep fake checking.

Jim [00:43:17]:
Oh, yeah. You know?

Chris Stone [00:43:18]:
And so it's only a matter of time just like the social media platforms are doing right now where they're squashing these things that look like ads. Do you think content that you're just typing into a prompt and generating is going to get anybody interested in you? The right way to do it is to utilize it properly to, like you said, create better processes for yourself, scale help scale your businesses, and do those kinds of things. So I love the fact that social shift is about treating these platforms the right way. The 4 post strategy helping you save the time to do things like be with your family and your friends and, you know, become a better, you know, sort of whole person, as opposed to always being on the phone. So when you're you work with a lot of businesses, a lot of, you know, like you said, real estate, people, businesses of varying degrees and sizes. How do you work with someone to decide what platform or platforms that they should really focus on based on their business? Is it related to, how much you know, how what what their key, client is, more so or like, hey, be everywhere and, like, you know, kind of see where you should go?

Katie Brinkley [00:44:31]:
Gonna be really different than what you guys want me to say.

Chris Stone [00:44:35]:
No. I want you to say what you want, what you believe in.

Katie Brinkley [00:44:40]:
Well so I think that my my so, Chris, if you were to come to me and say, Katie, what what platform should I'm ready to, like, I'm ready to to live the 4 post strategy lifestyle here. You know, what platform should I be on? If you were to come to me and say that, I my response to you would be, okay. Well, what platform do you enjoy being on?

Chris Stone [00:45:06]:
And not not

Jim [00:45:09]:
focus on the platform

Katie Brinkley [00:45:10]:
about that. Because there's your clients are everywhere. There's mom there's, you know, grandmas on TikTok. You know? There's there's CEOs over on TikTok. There's, you know, there there's people everywhere looking to do business. There's people everywhere on every platform that need your product or service. It's how you can show up and show them the content. And the best way of you creating the content is how you feel comfortable.

Katie Brinkley [00:45:41]:
I don't really like short form video. I'm not on TikTok. Do when that first happened, but I feel like I was, you know, being

Jim [00:45:52]:
Missing out.

Katie Brinkley [00:45:52]:
Yeah. Passed away? Yeah. And I'm missing out totally. But you know what? I don't have it on my phone. I don't watch short form video, really. I mean, I if I do watch it, it's on Facebook, so I don't know. I guess I'm super old. But, I mean, I don't I don't do the short form video thing.

Katie Brinkley [00:46:10]:
That's not the way that I like to create content or consume it. So why even bother for me? It's I'm not gonna I'm not gonna make I'm not gonna go ahead and get sales from it. So why don't I just go all in on the platforms I enjoy being on? Because that's what the platforms want. They want my time. They want my data. And if I'm active on their platforms, engaging with their audience, creating on that platform, they're gonna reward me.

Chris Stone [00:46:41]:
So so what you're saying then is you are purposely choosing, okay, TikTok for an example. So if you have a client and they're like, Katie, I really wanna maximize what I wanna do on TikTok because this is where I think we you're you're basically, like, I'm not for you? Like Yeah. Okay. Alright.

Katie Brinkley [00:47:01]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:47:01]:
I mean,

Katie Brinkley [00:47:02]:
well, I mean, like, yeah. So, like, Rachel, she's she's one of our clients. Mhmm. She's she's killing it on TikTok. She has a 100,000 followers, and she does it herself. We manage her Facebook, and her podcast and her YouTube. You know? So, I mean, like, she she wants to still be over on TikTok. She loves the the culture.

Katie Brinkley [00:47:23]:
She spends all her time there, but she does not like LinkedIn and, you know, and her Facebook. So that's where we're she's like, I need someone to come and help. Can you guys take that over for me? You know? And if you're if you're looking to just I mean so for example, I said TikTok. I also have a pretty much eliminated Instagram, from my it's my biggest audience. I love my Instagram audience dearly, but I haven't created content over there in a very long time because I just the short form video thing. I I don't know why. It's just like it's not my thing. I don't wanna do it.

Katie Brinkley [00:48:02]:
It takes me way too long, and I'm I'm I'd rather record an hour long podcast than record a 15 second reel or whatever because it real it's gonna take me the same amount of time. I I just can't stand doing it.

Chris Stone [00:48:14]:
So You know what's crazy is I love it. I'm I'm just the opposite. I love it. People out

Katie Brinkley [00:48:19]:
there like you. But, I mean, you know, I'll write an entire, you know, 700 word article over on LinkedIn. But that's that's

Jim [00:48:26]:
the thing is where the Yeah.

Katie Brinkley [00:48:28]:
People consume content differently. Some people like watching. Some people oh, that was cool. Some people like watching. Some people enjoy listening. Some people enjoy reading. Some people you know, whatever. Everyone learns differently.

Katie Brinkley [00:48:41]:
So creating on the platforms that you enjoy being on is going to help tremendously because then you're you're you're enjoying it. You're you're happy to create on it Yeah. And you're engaging with the people that are there.

Jim [00:48:56]:
I wanna say, Katie

Chris Stone [00:48:57]:
Go ahead, Jim.

Jim [00:48:58]:
Yeah. Now, Katie, you bring up this great point of the fact is that, right, not everybody it's like they want everyone to like short form video, but not everybody wants to spend that time. Right? It's like I'd rather sit down and and listen or watch your interview with Chris and get the whole story where I think, you know, sometimes like, oh, you only gave me 2 minutes, but there's more I wanna know. Where do I go? I don't wanna have to go through 30 short form videos to figure out what that story was. And so I think that's where we all look at things differently. And even Roberto Blake thinks that eventually it's like people are gonna and I mean even Joe Rogan. Right? He does these really long interviews.

Katie Brinkley [00:49:41]:
Yeah.

Jim [00:49:41]:
And people watch it. So it's

Chris Stone [00:49:45]:
But he's in the court. It's like it's like saying that that, you know, Taylor Swift is, you know, selling out, you know, Wembley 10 days in a row and it's just like I I get I get in that that I don't know about you, Katie, but, like, when people when they start talking about podcasting and immediately when they say Joe Rogan, I'm just I'm like, I'm tuning like, you're talking about a unicorn at this point.

Katie Brinkley [00:50:08]:
Like Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:50:09]:
Most people are not him. Right? Besides he's taken. I used to Katie, I you know, that I used to when I talk to people about podcasting, I used to say, you know, gotta be consistent. Gotta do it. Gotta put in the reps. Gotta do it. Gotta do it. Right? And after a while, you could just tell.

Chris Stone [00:50:27]:
You could hear it in their voice. You could see it in their face. They just didn't love it. And so I finally got to the point where I was like, you know what? This isn't for you. You know? This is not for you. And it kind of this this whole thing reminds me of it. It's like everybody's like, oh god. There's this new app and you gotta be on it.

Chris Stone [00:50:44]:
If you don't like it and you don't enjoy putting content on that platform, you don't have to do it. Even if you think your potential, you know, prospects or clients are there. And, yeah, it's it's great. It's a great point. I mean, I think most of us think like, you know, it's nothing but teenagers on TikTok. But nope, that is not the case. There's grandparents and great grandparents on that thing too. And if you don't like it, then maybe it's not for you.

Chris Stone [00:51:14]:
And I'm I'm glad you you you had the guts to to to say that, because there's not a lot of people just are like, well, if your clients are here, then you gotta be there. It's like, well, what I hate it, though. I don't wanna be that person on TikTok.

Katie Brinkley [00:51:29]:
Yeah. I mean, like, if if I came to you and said, hey. I I would like to outsource my social media. And you said, okay. We're gonna have you to go on TikTok. We're gonna need you to do, you know, 30 videos for us every week. I would hate

Jim [00:51:42]:
my life. I would I

Katie Brinkley [00:51:45]:
I would I would consider giving up my business if this was the opportune if this was the only way, you know, of Right. Competing, I would be like, nope. No. Thank you. So, I mean, if if social media was designed to be fun. It was designed to build connections. It was designed to build community. And, you know, it can it can also build your business, and it can generate a lot of revenue.

Katie Brinkley [00:52:07]:
But the biggest thing you have to keep in mind is that you should enjoy being on it. And if you if you had to pick 1, which platform do you and if you're sitting in line at Starbucks, do you open up just to kill some time? If you opened it up and killed some time with engaged with your ideal client and made some money off of it, wouldn't that be even better?

Jim [00:52:30]:
Yeah. Awesome. Do do Krista, do we have time for one more question?

Chris Stone [00:52:36]:
Jim, it's our show. We have, you know maybe you should ask our guest if she has time.

Jim [00:52:40]:
So so, Katie, you did you did bring up something that I that I find interesting because I worked with them in the past. But do you think at this point, and and maybe you've kind of already given the answer, where should realtors spend their time marketing if they had to pick one platform?

Katie Brinkley [00:52:57]:
Well, it depends. I mean, it there's a lot of realtors over on Instagram. Like so if they said, I don't like any platform, Katie, but I have to do one. Tell me which one I have to do, and I hate them all. I would I would say Instagram, because it is the most visually appealing. You can create amazing content on it. So I think for for realtors, Instagram's gonna knock it out of the park for you. I do think that LinkedIn you know, I link like, I don't anyone sleeping on LinkedIn, you're missing out.

Katie Brinkley [00:53:28]:
It it's it's one of my favorite platforms. You can Same. They they now have a video feed. You can go you have audio rooms. There's all the things over on LinkedIn. It's it's a great way to, Yeah. It's it's a great way to to to build your business.

Chris Stone [00:53:44]:
It's a different platform to like they, you know, a lot of people say, well, you know, LinkedIn is now TikTok because they got vertical video. It's not the same. And I and I and it's not like everybody's super buttoned up there either. And they they absolutely have, you know, there's just people in t shirts on LinkedIn, everyone. It's not not everybody is, you know, got dresses and suits on. But I, you know, it's it's a different platform. And, you know, you can be a little loose there, like, much more than, like, 10 years ago. But, I I agree.

Chris Stone [00:54:16]:
I think it's a great place not just to go to get leads or to, you know, go find jobs, although you can do that there. I think it's it's a perfectly acceptable sort of social network. And I I just I love, Katie, that that you just kind of showed up and gave away all the goods today. You you definitely, walked the talk in that respect. I want everybody to make sure that they go check out The Social Shift. The book is in the Amazon carousel, currently. You can get it in a lot of other places too, but I I definitely want to make everyone aware, to go to a katiebrinkley.com. She's also a just an amazing speaker as well.

Chris Stone [00:55:01]:
Grace is many, many a stage, so make sure you check out the Rocky Mountain Marketing podcast. Even this knucklehead got to be a guest on that show, and it is it is an absolute coach. How many, how many episodes have you done, Katie?

Katie Brinkley [00:55:15]:
I'm nearing so crazy enough, I'm gonna hit episode 350 on December 31st.

Jim [00:55:23]:
Wow. I mean, I couldn't

Katie Brinkley [00:55:24]:
plan that much better. But yeah. So I'm gonna hit episode 350 on December 31st, so that'll be exciting.

Chris Stone [00:55:31]:
And so you just said you don't post that much on Instagram, but look at you. You're just really frustrated here on Instagram. Look

Jim [00:55:38]:
at how

Katie Brinkley [00:55:38]:
look at how old that is, though. That's from la not this summer, last summer.

Chris Stone [00:55:43]:
Wow. Yeah. And you're looking at like, why are you here? Why are you watching this reel of mine? But here here's here's one of my favorite photos right here. You're gonna see this on an Instagram reel. You know, look at the face. Can you tell, Jim, we had no fun at all yesterday?

Jim [00:55:59]:
You had no fun.

Chris Stone [00:56:01]:
Zero fun was had.

Jim [00:56:02]:
And it might

Chris Stone [00:56:03]:
have been some coffee spilled.

Jim [00:56:04]:
About it, Katie. We'll tell you about it on TikTok.

Chris Stone [00:56:08]:
Katie, so if someone wants to connect with you, what's what's what's your preferred is it LinkedIn that they need to go and connect with you?

Katie Brinkley [00:56:16]:
Yeah. LinkedIn and Facebook are where I spend the most time. Listen to the podcast, but LinkedIn and Facebook are are the best spots.

Chris Stone [00:56:26]:
Awesome. Jim, do you have another question too? Yeah. No. No. Just okay. No. No.

Jim [00:56:31]:
No. No more questions, but I I love

Chris Stone [00:56:32]:
all the answers.

Katie Brinkley [00:56:33]:
No. I I saw what Richard said. You can go to Instagram. I still update stories there. I just am not creating fresh content. I'm just kind of

Jim [00:56:41]:
You're just telling stories.

Katie Brinkley [00:56:43]:
In the know that I'm that I'm that I'm still alive. This is what I'm doing, but I'm just not creating a ton of content there.

Jim [00:56:49]:
Yep. Are you all threads? Are you doing threads?

Katie Brinkley [00:56:55]:
No? I did a thread, Jim. I did a thread because I was really excited for my client who landed a sponsorship, and the thread went viral. And I had people that were yelling at me, and they were like, people it's been 3 hours. People here have questions. And I was like, good lord. Some people sleep, and I don't owe you anything. So I was like, this isn't my these aren't my people. So I was like, that's it.

Chris Stone [00:57:17]:
I'm out. There we go.

Jim [00:57:20]:
But we know we know not to send threats.

Chris Stone [00:57:22]:
Awesome. Katie, you're amazing. Thank you so much for, being on, our show. Everyone pick up Social Shift, and as always, don't fear the gear.

Jim [00:57:33]:
Thanks for listening to Dealcasters. Congratulations. You've taken another step forward in your content creation journey. Please don't forget to hit the subscribe or follow button here in your favorite podcast player so you can be

Jim Fuhs [00:57:47]:
reminded every time we drop an episode.

Chris Stone [00:57:50]:
We love hearing from our listeners and viewers. And if you're wanting to watch our shows live on Amazon, feel free to follow Dealcasters Live as well at deal casters dot live. Follow us on Twitter or

Jim [00:58:15]:
also email us at dealcasters@dealcasters.live. Thanks again for listening, and you know the deal. Don't fear the deal.