I still can’t believe it!!
It’s our 100th episode today!!
Rocky Mountain Marketing started April 2020 with my passion for radio, entrepreneurship, and social media. It is a perfect place for me to share my expertise, my story, get other people’s stories in front of many people, and inspire them to take the same path that allowed others to succeed.
In this episode, I will share with you my 5 tried-and-tested tips on how podcasting can help you and your business grow.
1. Utilize social media to grow your network. Make connections.
2. Batch your content.
3. Repurpose your podcast episodes.
4. Be consistent.
5. Reviews help you be seen.
Learn more about these 5 main points by tuning in today’s episode.
Learn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications:
Clubhouse: clubhouse.com/@katiebrinkley
https://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.com
https://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/
Katie Brinkley 0:02
Hi friends. I’m Katie Brinkley, and you’re listening to Rocky Mountain marketing. This podcast is all about helping Colorado based small business owners, entrepreneurs, realtors and professionals discover the strategies and systems that take their marketing to all new heights. Let’s dive into today’s episode. Welcome back to Rocky Mountain marketing. This is episode 100 100 episodes are in the books of Rocky Mountain marketing. And today’s episode is going to be my five lessons that doing this podcast has taught me not just about podcasting, but also about business and how you can use these things that I’ve learned over the past 100 episodes, the past almost two years of having this podcast out the things that I’ve learned that you can apply with your business, my top five tips. Now for those of you that are regular listeners of the show, you know that I come from radio, I come from broadcasting and podcasting was always something on my list of things I wanted to do, quote unquote, someday, someday I would love to have a podcast and I was at Social Media Marketing World in March of 2020. And I met this woman, her name’s Kate Vander boot. And she lives in Australia. And she and I were at a happy hour together. And she had just mentioned like in passing. Oh, yeah, my podcast. I was like, oh, man, you have a podcast. That’s so cool. I just I want to do it. I don’t know how and the way that she responded was kind of a lightbulb moment. She was like, well, you should just do it. And it seemed so simple the way that she said it. Now, I remember going back to my Airbnb room and being like, How can I just do it? How can I just start up a podcast? Is it really that easy to just start it up? I mean, I’m sure I need a microphone and all this equipment, and what am I going to say? What will it even be about? And so all of these things that were going in my head, and then April of 2020 happened, everything got shut down. I remember coming down into my basement play.
I thought how can I actually try and do this podcast has been something I’ve been thinking about since I left the TV station since I left the sports television network. I wanted to try and get into broadcasting somehow I thought podcasting would be the perfect opportunity for me to get back into that broadcasting that speaking world. So I came downstairs, I Googled some microphones, some affordable microphones on the internet. And I got my very first microphone, it arrived, you know, Amazon Prime and arrived 48 hours later, and I plugged in my microphone. And I didn’t know what to say. And that’s one of the hardest parts is trying to figure out what makes you different. What makes you light up? What is something that you can talk about all the time and never get bored with it? How can you continue to show value with it? And I thought, well, I love social media. And I love hearing the stories of entrepreneurship. Everyone has a story. And that’s one of the things that I absolutely try to bring out with all of my coaching clients is is what is your story? What makes you different, and I was falling in the same trap that so many people fall into when they’re just getting started? Well, nothing, really. I mean, I’m just like everyone else. But when you start telling your story, when you start really embracing your past, or things that you do, whether it’s, you know, knitting or baking or or snowboarding, that’s something that’s that unique about you. And how can you bring that out with your business? How can you showcase what you think what you do with your business that people will want to work with, you will want to identify with you. So I came down to my basement, because everything was locked down. I plugged in my microphone. And I started recording. And I thought I have three episodes done. And I thought to myself, no one’s gonna want to sit and just listen to me talk all the time, who can I bring in. And so that’s where we’re going to get in to the first tip. my five tips I’ve learned over podcasts over these first 100 podcast episodes is reach out. It’s use the power of social media to find people to come on to your show for you to network with. Now, I used LinkedIn and at the time, I was still kind of new to the whole LinkedIn. As a social media platform. I had been using it but not really the way it’s meant to be used. I was using it more as that online resume just trying to make connections with people who I hadn’t, who I’d worked with in the past and people that I’ve met at networking events. And I remember seeing when I when I first started using LinkedIn, I’m like how am I ever going to get up to like 1000 connections are 500 connections, you know, I’ve been in the same field of work for so long. And that’s how I was using LinkedIn when I first got started. And so with the podcast, it forced me to go out of my comfort zone. So again, tip number one, utilize social media, as a powerful networking tool, make those connections, the podcast was my way of getting out of my shell of my way of getting out of my comfort zone. And I started reaching out to people who were living in Denver, and more business owners, founders, CEOs of smaller businesses here in the Denver area. First thing I did was send them a connection request. With a note, this is a super important part of using linked in, you must send a note if you really want to have that connection, be deeper and be more genuine and have the door open for actual opportunities, whether it is business related or networking related, send a note with it. Why are you trying to connect with this person? And that’s what that’s what I did is I started with all of these new connections through search and trying to reach out to people and I will never forget those first few episodes I had with John Murray and Kyle wells and Stephanie McTigue. They came on the show, and I found them through LinkedIn, I sent them a LinkedIn message and said, Hey, I see you’re a Denver based business owner, I would love to hear your story. I think you’d be a great fit for my podcast, Rocky Mountain marketing, and they wrote back, they answered. And now we follow each other on the social medias, we connect with each other online, I’ve bought a couple of Stephanie’s, who owns Koh Phi leathers, I have bought a couple of her purses and hand her. I think that they’re called hip satchels or hip purses. I don’t know, it’s a fanny pack. But I love it.
I bought a couple of them. But I mean, this is how you find those new connections. And it’s a connection that I never would have ever in a million years made, if I wasn’t doing this podcast. And I’m not saying that you have to start a podcast to make these connections. But go out of your comfort zone, go on LinkedIn, and try and find other people that are in your local area are in some of the same fields as you and send that genuine outreach on these social media platforms and tell them why you’re trying to connect with them. It doesn’t again need to be a podcast appearance, you can just say something along the lines of hey, I see that you also are a Denver business owner, how long have you lived in Denver, or wherever your city is? So tip number one, do that outreach, find people to bring into your network? And don’t be afraid to do it. If you don’t have any similar connections? If you do, it’s just another way that you could potentially get to know more more about them, I guess you can say it, I see that we’re both connected to so and so how have you worked with so and so in the past? Alright, so that’s tip number one. And
you know, I do have to say, too, if you are thinking about starting a podcast, don’t just worry about the big name guests now, I’ve had the honor of having some people that I’ve seen that I’ve paid to see at conferences come on the podcast, Brendan Kane, Sue B. Zimmerman. Those are some of the they get paid to speak all over the world. And I do have some more guests lined up for that for future episodes that I think you will all be really excited about. But don’t just focus on the big name, guests focus on the people that are willing to share their story. I mean, one of my favorite episodes is with somebody who I think that’s probably his only podcast appearance that he’s done. But he had a great story. And if you bring people stories that they can resonate with, and that they can learn from, don’t just worry about the big name guests. Alright, tip number two. Tip number two that I learned from podcasts, these first 100 podcast episodes that you can apply to your business batching your content again, I am a huge social media advocate. guys all know I’m a social media strategist. I coach consultants, entrepreneurs, and small business owners how to use social media in an effective way. So they’re not just spending all day on social media. Because Hello, you guys have a business run. Not everyone wants to be answered on Instagram or on LinkedIn all day, right? You guys got empires to build, but batching your content is one of the core strategies that I teach. I wasn’t doing it with my podcast at the beginning. I was trying to bring in these guests every single week and then i Back then I was editing all of the podcasts myself and I was lining up the guests. I was creating the social media graphics. I have things operating a little bit more like an effective machine. Now I have an editor and my assistant helps out. But at the beginning, it was taking me around six to seven hours a week. to line up the guests record the episodes, edit the episodes, email it guys create the social media graphics, just for a podcast episode for a 30 minute podcast episode. And that was one of the biggest things that I was looking back. I’m like, Why was I doing it that way? Why was I not batching my content. And NAT is now something that I do, I batch my podcast episodes, I have episodes lined up and recorded at least six to eight weeks out in advance. And the reason for this, I’m not saying to do this with your social media. But it lets you focus in on what you have important to do right now. And you can then fill in the whitespace of your schedule to build out this content and get ahead. No matter where you are with your business. If you are online, or if you are a brick and mortar store. Or if you sell coaching services, I mean batching your content is going to save you so much time, it’s super important to take that time that you have that VAT, I mean time is the most important part of our businesses, right? I mean, you can’t be spending, like I was six, seven hours a week creating content, that only is going to leave you with 30 hour 33, I guess hours a week to actually focus on your business. And if you can outsource things like social media, accounting, your bookkeeping, a salesman, anything that you can outsource to get ahead and focus in on the parts of your business that you do the best that is essential. So batching your content will help you focus in on the time that you have in then, if you again, with with social media, especially if you have extra time that you want to spend on it, then it’s you being social, it’s you having fun with it, you’re not focusing in on how you can create a post today because you know that your your peak time is Tuesdays between one and 3pm. And so you got to get a post out there, but you don’t really know what you want to say. And should you talk about the sale that’s coming up? Or should you just, I’m just going to post a picture of my dog. And that’s one of the biggest things that I see is businesses posting without a strategy because they’re not batching their content. So tip number two, batch your content. So quick recap the top five things I’ve learned from having 100 podcast episodes that can relate to your business. So don’t be afraid to reach out on social media include why you’re reaching out to them. Number two, don’t be afraid to batch your content batches, get ahead on things, and you will be able to still have a strong presence and a strategic presence without the overwhelm. Tip number three, lesson number three that I learned from having these over 100 podcast episodes is re purpose. There’s so much content that comes out from these podcast episodes, whether it’s a quote from the guest, or whether it was a video, we do have these all of the podcasts are available on YouTube. So if you want to see us in real life recording these podcast episodes, you can go check it out on YouTube. That’s another way for me to show up on another social network and not waste this time these interviews that I’ve had just because you don’t necessarily want to listen to the podcast, maybe you are a visual person. Now you can watch it on YouTube. Gary Vee is pretty much the king of repurposing, but we all don’t have 20 people that can take one piece of content and repurpose it 20 different ways. But it is something that every single business every single personal brand, every single, small business, every single realtor, you should be doing this you should be repurposing your content. And I wasn’t utilizing YouTube at the beginning. I wasn’t utilizing video and I record everything through zoom. I record all of these podcasts through zoom the podcast interviews, so when I have a guest on we do it through zoom. Right now I’m using using GarageBand. But when I have a guest on I’m using the zoom. So why would I not share it to YouTube? It’s just another opportunity for me to be found by another somebody else that wants to learn more about marketing and entrepreneurship and business. So that was a huge mistake that I was making a no it can seem intimidating to to repurpose content, but this is these are just some of the ways that you could do it. Again, I have the podcast, but I also transcribe this podcast and I upload it on to my website. All of the guests information is there. All of the transcript is there. The links to the podcast are there so you can listen Do it on Apple or Spotify or whatever your favorite YouTube, even you know, whatever your favorite podcast network is, you can listen to it on that my website. Now taking all these pieces of content, this podcast is a way for me to take little bits of micro content and push it out those who’d sign up for my newsletter, I will take a piece of the podcast and I’ll put it out in the newsletter, certain things that people share on the podcast, I will take and I’ll turn it into a carousel post on Instagram. This is one piece of content, this is 130 minutes that I’m taking, and then it gives me content for the rest of the week, the month, the year, it just depends on how much I want to repurpose. And whether it is you or if you have a team. If you repurpose your content, you’re not stuck trying to think about how to reinvent the wheel every single week, you can take that piece of content and turn it into different small micro content that people can digest easily on social media, in an email list on YouTube, in your blog, in your newsletter, there’s so many ways to repurpose your content. Just because you write a blog and publish it to the website doesn’t mean it’s dead. You can take that blog and do so many more things with it. So absolutely take this content that you’re creating and repurpose it. One stat that I saw that is that makes this 100 episodes. So important for me is that the average life of a podcast is six episodes, six, six episodes, I can’t believe it, it really makes it having 100 episodes really mean a lot to me. And there’s there’s over a million podcasts now. I mean, the sheer number of podcasts is why you need to niche down when you decide to start a podcast because there’s there’s so many. But consistency is key. Consistency is key. For Podcasting. It’s how you don’t get the pod burnout, the podcast burnout. Now, I’ve had weekly episodes come out every single week, since I started every single Tuesday 8am Mountain Time, a new podcast will come out and there’s been times I’ll be honest, where I haven’t had the guests lined up or someone had to reschedule. And before I knew it, Tuesday was going to be here. So it was time for a solo episode. And that’s where again, batching has played out and definitely helped me make sure that I never miss a week. But if you batch your content, you’re never going to miss a week of social media posts, you’re never going to miss that months of blogs, you’re never going to miss that weekly email. When you batch you need to be consistent. And when you’re consistent, that’s when your followers will grow. That’s when your community will grow because they know they can rely on you to show up every single week at that time and you’re going to provide value for them. You know, not only are you building yourself a habit, you’re building your audience’s habits as well. Consistency is vital to your podcast or your online presence, your business’s success. People want to have a consistent presence and not just know that you’re, you’re sometimes they’re you’re you’re kind of willy nilly on it. I mean over just sticking with podcast here for this statistic, but over 50% of the United States listens to podcasts. That’s a huge opportunity for me to get in front of a massive audience that wants to learn more about me now and if or what I have to offer a might what my guests can offer. When you show up consistently, you’re giving yourself the opportunity for new people to be aware of you. You don’t want to end up a dad podcasts. You know, like I said before, like the average podcast lifespan is only six episodes. And I think that this is relatable to social media. If you don’t see the instant results, you don’t see oh, well, I’m still only at 500 followers, I’m
still only at 1500 followers, I’m only at five followers. And then you get discouraged and say, Ah, it doesn’t work for me. If I only looked at the numbers for my podcast after the first six episodes and then stopped because I didn’t have hundreds of list downloads at the time. I mean, but it’s the same with social media. You can’t expect immediate results. Nobody really knows about you yet. You need to stick with it and not worry about the numbers at the beginning. Because I just was social media with the podcast. I’ve had so many people come on to my stage on clubhouse or reach out to me on the Instagram DMS and say I love your podcast. I had somebody come into my office, they’re here in Denver and she was doing something at my office and she said Hey, I just had to stop and introduce myself and I was like Oh, hi. I just want to let you know I listened to your podcast every week and I was I was flattered. I was like, well, thank you, you know, thanks for stopping by. She’s like, Yeah, I was, you know, I’m working the building too. And, you know, I listen every week and I just love your guests, and I love the love the show. But I, how else would I know that that I’m making a difference for her? If she hadn’t stopped, people are listening, people are watching, they might not necessarily be engaging every single week, but people see you. And if you show up consistently, you are going to build that community. And again, there’s going to be the silent followers, there’s going to be the silent fans. But you need to continue to show up and be consistent because you never know who is watching, and who is finding value from what you have to offer. All right, we’re on to lesson number five, that I have learned from having this podcast for 100 episodes. And it’s reviews. This is something that is essential and vital for podcasts. So a quick side note, if you have not left the podcast review, please head on over to Apple or Spotify and leave it a review. But reviews are essential for podcasts. And in particular, because you have to those reviews help you with the rankings. And when you rank on Apple, then more people are going to be exposed to you in their algorithm. Oh, look, there’s all these people that have reviewed Rocky Mountain marketing, I probably should should. Let’s give it a listen. Let’s check it out. It’s the same with your business. If you’re not asking for reviews on Google, on Facebook, on Yelp, whatever your preferred review platform is, you’re not going to be found as easily as somebody that is consistently doing organic outreach, and asking people for the reviews. Now, one of the things that I love about Google reviews is if you have not activated your Google My Business page, as soon as this podcast is over, I want you to open up the old laptop and go to google business.google.com and start your Google My Business page. If you already have a Google My Business page, you can make a custom G page code for you to just quickly send to people so that you can get a review after you are done working with them or while you are working with them. So mine for my business is G dot page slash next step social slash review. And you can include that as a hyperlink in your emails, you can include it on your Instagram bio, if you want reviews, it’s a very easy way to just directly link people to leaving a review reviews are essential for your business for your podcast. It doesn’t make a difference. But reviews will help you grow and build that proof that you are somebody to do business with that you provide great services that you provide great podcast episodes that you have great guests, whatever it is that you’re looking for reviews for asking for reviews is extremely important. And you should never be afraid to ask for a review. Even if it is a bad review. That is how you are going to grow. That’s how you are going to if I got a bad review for the podcast, they said hey, tired of hearing all of the all the guest episodes Katie or Katie stop doing the solo episodes that would allow me some consumer feedback. And then I can go back to the rest of my audience and do some polling and see if it’s a general consensus. Never be afraid of a bad review. Always, always ask for a review because it will help you with search. It will help you in your business grow. Always ask for reviews. So And with that, I have to again, give a huge shout out to all of you, all of you regular listeners who tune in every single week to hear these these stories, to hear the lessons of entrepreneurship and the lessons on digital marketing the business besties episodes,
I want to thank you for tuning in and helping me stay consistent helping me achieve something that was always kind of a bucket list item and and here I am 100 episodes. And so when I started, I didn’t know how if it would be 100 episodes, I didn’t even know if it’d be five episodes or here. I don’t see it stopping anytime soon. I’ve loved seeing how it has evolved from just the Denver based business owners stories to bringing in these digital marketing experts to help you all learn and grow from one another. And again, I would love to hear your feedback on the show. What what are some of your favorite episodes. I know I have my favorite episodes. I’d love to hear from you. And have you tell me what are some of your favorite episodes that I’ve produced over these past two almost two years. With podcasting. It’s allowed me to meet So many more people and I, again, for those of you that are regular listeners of the show, the whole purpose of this podcast was to hear the stories of other people deciding they wanted to be an entrepreneur. I never expected to be an entrepreneur, I call myself the accidental entrepreneur. And I can’t imagine doing anything else now. But I wouldn’t be where I am today. If it wasn’t for so many business owners that were one to 20 steps ahead of me that decided that they would just sit down with me for half an hour over a cup of coffee and, and share some of the lessons that they’ve learned. So share some of the tips that they learned along the way, share some of the mistakes that they made along the way, if they could have a do over. What would they do over what some of their best advice was. That was the whole purpose of Rocky Mountain marketing is to to not only learn from one another, but to help others here in the Denver area, do business with one another? If we can do business with somebody else? That’s right here, local in Colorado. Why not? Why not just stop by the local coffee shop and support the local business instead of a major chain? Why not support the local handbag store? Instead of going to Macy’s and buying one there. That was the purpose of the show to learn the stories to support other local businesses and grow our knowledge of how we can use online marketing as a tool, how we can continue using the internet, the social medias, the emails, the YouTubes, the the Instagram, LinkedIn, all of those, how can we use those to grow our business? Whether we are a brick and mortar store, whether we are a an online consulting agency, how are you utilizing all that the digital world has to offer, so that you can continue to grow so that you can be a success? 100 episodes, five lessons. Don’t be afraid to do the outreach. Always batch your content, whether it’s social media, emails, podcasts, always batch, repurpose your content. Don’t just take that blog, that article that podcast appearance, and just have it post to the website and then die. Continue to repurpose that content on all the different social media channels that you are on. So that you can continue growing your business you’re not having to think about what to post every day. Stay consistent. Stay consistent with your posts stay consistent with your online strategy, because if you step away, it’s always gonna be there. But you’re going to build a community and your biggest fans when you stay consistent. And lastly, ask for reviews. Ask those people that you work with to leave your review on Google ask them to leave your review on Yelp. If you have a podcast ask them to leave us a review on Apple or Spotify so that you can continue to grow so that you can continue to get that organic traction around your business. Thank you again, every single one of you for being along with me on this journey to 100 episodes. Here’s to episode 200 Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Rocky Mountain marketing. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can visit my website at www.nextstepsocialcommunications.com. Connect with me on LinkedIn or check me out on Instagram. Let’s keep taking your marketing to new heights.