The 4-Post Social Media Strategy with Katie Brinkley

If showing up on social media feels more like a time-sucking chore than a business-building tool , then you're going to love today's episode . I'm chatting with Katie Brinkley of Next Step Social . Katie is a social media strategist who has cracked the code on making social media work without posting every day or dancing on TikTok .

She's here to break down her four-post strategy , which is a smarter way to grow your business online that's clear , doable and surprisingly effective .

If you've ever stared at your screen and thought , oh my gosh , what the heck am I going to post today , or if you feel like you're burning out , posting every single day without seeing the results , this one's for you . So here's my chat with Katie . Hey , Katie , welcome to My Weekly Marketing .

We're not going to do it very much for you , but I always thought there had to be a better way when it came to social media . And it feels like with everything on social media it's like , oh well , the key is going viral . All you got to do is get that one viral video and your life's going to be completely different .

But it's kind of like , well , yeah , your life can be completely different if you win the lotto too . All you got to do is just pick the winning numbers , right , yeah , and but that's , that's not a , that's not a strategy , right , that's , that's not , that's , that's , that's just getting lucky .

And I'm tired of kind of just getting lucky when it comes to social media , and I didn't want to just try and get lucky with marketing .

So I spent some time looking to see what was working on each of the social media platforms , with different goals and different objectives , and I saw certain posts did better on certain platforms for certain objectives and I started to really kind of track those and I built out the four post strategy based on this entire framework of .

Okay , if I reverse , engineer an entire framework to have people do this end goal at the end of the week , how can I post less ? And that's when the four-post strategy was born .

I know it tells you how old I am , but yeah , I was like I know I'm like a dinosaur here , but I was like man , there has to be a better way than this . You know , there has to be a faster way for me to get more music in . And there was this new thing called MySpace .

I was like , well , what if I just send messages to bands I like on MySpace and see if they send me their CDs ? And then it started working .

And so I was getting all this music into the radio station and I was like , what if maybe they start sending me some merch and I give it away on air when I have my show ? What if I just pass their CD off to , you know , some of the other stations around here ? What if ?

And as I kept asking , what if, I was able to get more opportunities for these bands and I was getting more opportunities for myself and kind of promoting them and it really showed me a lot of opportunities that can happen just because of a social media app and asking what if ?

You know , but why don't you take a slightly deeper dive here and walk us through each of the four types of posts and what role they play in business growth for a small business owner ?

And then if you were to open up TikTok or Facebook or Reddit or YouTube , I mean you go to each of these platforms expecting a different experience , right ? And if you're posting and I get it there's a ton of social media schedulers out there . They're designed to make it easy so that you can post everywhere and be everywhere .

But if you're posting the same content everywhere , really are you going to get the same outcome or a good outcome everywhere ? Probably not , because there's a different culture and there's a different way of creating content on these platforms . So I mean , if you think about it , tiktok , I mean short form video , right , short form video does the best on TikTok .

Linkedin , you can write articles over on and newsletters on LinkedIn . Instagram , the carousel post you know the swipable image that's killing it over on Instagram . Facebook , you can go live . You can have just the bold sentence with a different colored background .

I mean there's so many different ways to create content on each platform that if you're copying and pasting and just posting the same type of content on all the platforms , it's really content for nobody , and this four-post strategy is designed to really create the content for the customer or the person that you want to take action .

And so the very first thing I want you to do , listener , is say okay , what platform do you enjoy being on the most ? So tell me , which platform do you enjoy being on the most ?

You have carousels , you have pictures , you have stories . You have a ton of different ways to consume that content . Now , if you are going to spend your time on Instagram , your clients are on Instagram as well , and so the very first post for your audience is going to be an awareness post .

Now , depending on what your end goal is let's just say , for simplicity purposes now is to listen to today's podcast episode . That's your end goal at the end of the week is you want people to listen to this podcast episode ?

Your very first post for the week is going to be an awareness post , and maybe it's an Instagram reel of you doing something with trending audio , where it's you saying something like biggest misconception is that you need to post 42 times a day on Instagram . What if I said you only need to post four times a week ?

Something like that ? You caught the right people's attention . You said a bold statement , you stopped at the scroll , you got in , you got out . People are going to say , huh , you're lying , or , yeah , you're right , or they're going to like it , whatever it is .

You made an awareness post , you made people problem aware and you used a trending audio , which again is working in the algorithm so you're going to get shown to a larger audience , and you did a reel which is going to get seen in the feed more . So that was the awareness post and we just chose Instagram .

We're not talking Facebook or LinkedIn or TikTok or anything else . We're only talking about one social media platform , right ? Right ? The next post that you're going to do tomorrow will be an elaboration post , and this post will be a carousel post . And a carousel post again . A carousel post again are those swipable images .

I'm going to say the 10 ways I grew my Instagram by posting three times last month . And then first was you know , I did this and I did it . So , like each slide is a tip , so every time someone slides , that counts as an engagement . Everybody is going to be going through there and engaging with it and it's going to be helping you with the algorithm .

You're educating people and you're elaborating on the thing that you made people problem aware of yesterday .

It makes it so that you are relatable and your audience can say oh man , I can trust Janice . She's been there too . I had no idea that she hated social media as much as me , or I had no idea that she , you know , wanted to grow her Instagram to 10,000 followers and she did it in 60 days or whatever . Oh , and she did it this way .

This is where you tell your story .

It can be a picture of you and maybe we got together like in real life , Janice , and like snap a picture of us together , whatever you and your customer or your client that you're sharing the story of , whatever it can be a picture of , maybe the lake , whatever you want .

This would take two seconds for you to make this post because it's a picture of whatever . And then the last post is the action post . If you notice , we didn't mention that this podcast exists yet . We haven't asked them to leave social media . We've told them nothing . All we've done is give value with all these other posts .

Now this last post is asking them to take action , asking them to leave social media , to go listen to the podcast , to go one step further with us , you know , and say , hey , you could include maybe a cool , maybe a snippet from this podcast episode . Maybe I say something really smart .

Who knows what's gonna happen in this episode here where I say something smart and say , hey , if you want to listen to the whole episode , comment podcast below and I'll send you the link . Or maybe you include a cool picture , or who knows .

And this is where you ask people to leave social media , to go one step further with you and listen to the podcast , go to your website , whatever it is . But now you have the right people who have been seeing your content all week , are actually interested in your content and are willing to leave social media to go one step further .

But I mean , like , if you would have said Facebook , I would have given you different examples of , like the best performing kind of awareness post , or LinkedIn , it would have been , in you know , a poll for your awareness and then the elaboration would have been a LinkedIn newsletter and , yeah .

Look at your metrics at least once a month and just be like , oh okay , it looks like my audience is on X day at this time . I should probably do my awareness post on this day and then do my you know elaboration post this day and then kind of follow it out that way .

So for me , I do my posts Monday , Tuesday , Wednesday , Thursday and then Friday , Saturday , Sunday . I just take off . But I mean , for some of our clients we do Monday , Tuesday , Thursday , Friday . Other clients it's Monday , Wednesday , Friday , Saturday . It all depends on what your best days are .

Right . Do you do the four posts just because it's more manageable or do you feel like it's beneficial ?

Like here's more fluff , that's what my stories are for . My stories are 100 . Like , if you want, I think boring content , check out my stories . Lots of pictures of my kids in there . That's just 100% fluff material right there . Like is what I'm up to as a mom is my stories .

But like if you want to see my personal life , that's what stories is for , and I kind of just keep everything else . Like business is in , like we're actually focused , getting helpful and getting new leads and getting, making quality stuff . If someone's going to see anything , it's in my feed .

Like , I follow people that I know through business and then I get pulled into, you know them looking for a new house , or you know their kids , just whatever you know , it's just , it's nice , because then I feel like , oh , they're not just somebody I follow on social media , they're somebody that's a friend , because I feel like I have inside knowledge of their

life, I don't know . So I think those have value too , right ?

Strangers don't see it unless they're like actively like "who's this person I follow' You're not just showing a bunch of randos unless they actively seek you out .

So I don't feel terrible

about doing this , but really it is just a matter of communicating with them and writing the changes in the algorithm , because , heaven knows , I mean , it's changing all the time , right ? So some of the questions I get is like I've got clients that are posting four or five times a week .

They're trying to put out valuable content , they're just not getting traction . They think that the algorithm hates them , and I'm sure that you've encountered these clients as well right so what do you have to say to them ?

It gives you the option to make carousels . Honestly , at the time of this podcast recording , carousels get the best reach . That's why I said you should do carousels for your elaboration posts , because those are the thought leadership posts I mean .

But I mean , like , this is where , like , you're giving the platform what it wants , You're giving the algorithm what it wants and kind of saying like , OK , you want a reel , here you go . You're wanting a carousel , here you go . You want a single image , here you go .

I've given you everything that you want a variety of posts , and I mean , like heck , on the action post , if you want to go live , that's your wild card . On the action post , if you want to go live , that's your wild card . You do what you want . You know you can do a reel if you wanted to .

I mean , whatever you want to do , it's the mystery , the mystery post , whatever the poster's choice . But that way you're giving the algorithm a little bit of everything .

You're posting a variety of days , You're posting a variety of ways and you're looking at your metrics , you're looking at your insights and posting on the days that your audience is already on , so that you're getting the boost already from your audience that's already there before the algorithm comes in to help you .

I think that it is one of the best ways to really get clear about what it is that you're passionate about . It's how I was able to get clear on the four post strategy . I mean , it really was . So I think that podcasting is a great way to create more content .

If you have a podcast , you can have blogs , you can have social media content , you can have newsletter content . The world is your oyster . But if you say , Katie , that sounds great , I just don't have the time . I don't really want to talk into a microphone . It's not my jam . Go to your website , go to your frequently asked questions . Start there .

That is a week's worth of content . I promise you Just that one frequently asked question . Move down the list and then you can move on and then micro content out off of the very first question . Okay , so now that we answered this question , you know , of how we help , what makes us different ?

And now let's answer what makes us different for ideal client one . What makes us different for ideal client two what makes us different ? You know , you can go down the list like that and again using the four post strategy of awareness, elaboration .

Believe it or not , Reddit is still around folks and Reddit is a great spot to go and find what people are talking about .

So if you take your frequently asked questions and put it into Reddit and then put your ideal client in there , you'll find that there's a lot of things that people are talking about and you can say , oh OK , I could rework that in there . That's how I could turn this into social media posts .

It's a gold mine , but I like my first answer better of starting a podcast . I think you should start a podcast .

She does not speak Spanish , but she has Spanish speaking employees , but none of them wanted to do the podcast , so we just re-translated her current podcast into Spanish with her voice , so now she has an entire podcast that's in her voice , spoken in Spanish , that we've used AI to do . So , yeah .

Yeah , so I mean , I think that really one of the best things I did .

There's this tool called Toggl , t-o-g-g-l , and it's free , and I tracked myself for a month with every single task that I was doing , and even like when I took bathroom breaks and stuff , and it blew my mind how long certain tasks took me , and that was how I figured out one , how long certain tasks took me and two , what tasks I enjoyed doing and which tasks

I didn't like doing . And that's how I figured out . You know what ? My podcast , I'm thinking it's taking me an hour a week . It takes me six because I'm editing it , I'm booking the pre-interviews , I'm creating the social media assets . I'm doing this , I'm doing that , and I was only saying it takes me an hour a week . That's crazy .

I should probably hire somebody to help me with this , because I'm not giving it up . I love my podcast but like I really shouldn't be spending all this time doing this part of it .

So I mean again , like I would whether it's social media , like I said , social media , bookkeeping , whatever it is, look at where I would track your hours , literally everything that you do , and say like I'm spending a lot of time doing this .

This would be a great thing for me to outsource , because maybe it is social media and you're outsourcing it for $1,000 a month , because that's $1,000 a month that you could spend doing a sales call a month , because that's a thousand dollars a month , that you could spend doing a sales call a month to bring in five thousand dollars a month .

But absolutely , the reason I was asking about social media in particular is because I feel like sometimes we're a little inauthentic if we have somebody else doing our social media . You know if it's, I'm posting a picture of myself and maybe even my family or something I did . I kind of feel like , well , this really wasn't from me .

You know I was like I have somebody else working on it and she's doing a great job , but at the same time , you know , I'm just wondering how . If you know , maybe nobody can tell , I don't know , Probably nobody can tell . I just feel like I can tell sometimes . But so I'm just curious about that one . But yeah , you have a business to run .

You cannot wear all the hats . It is impossible to grow while you're wearing all the

hats , so you do have to decide what you're going to outsource and what you're going to keep in . So now you have a book about this . I see it in your video . I see the social shift and does that talk about the four post formula ?

You know , think about I was able to make connections with people , all these bands , and it was amazing . And now we're building these connections and it's hurting our in-person relationships . You know , we're more interested in spending time like this than we are like this , you know . So look for people that are listening .

I was making eye-to-eye contact as a symbol of emotions . And it really makes me sad because I love social media and the relationships it's built , the connections it's given me , the community that it's given me , and I think that all these platforms , they all exist for different reasons . They all exist for a reason , especially with AI .

If we're all just having computers , talk to computers and we're all just AI , I mean , like what is happening here , you know , like there's a person behind the screen and it'd be amazing if we can have that person make a connection and go and talk to the person in real life and have a great in-person relationship . You know , and it happened .

And how can we make that happen ? Well , it's through social media and it's by showing up less and building a business and by spending less time on that screen to have more of an impact . So I talk about that in The Social Shift: The Road Back to Community .

You can get it at katiebrinkleycom slash book or on Amazon and hopefully it will give you the keys to getting you know , getting back to the way that social media was originally intended , so that you're not spending all your time on social media , making a bunch of dancing videos and just wasting away in front of a screen . Yeah , and I mean like I get it .

Like I have . I have a social media agency and I speak on a lot of stages about social media . I actually just was at Social Media Week and it's it's one of my favorite conferences . I've gone three years in a row now and I love it because I get to see a lot of my social media friends that I only see on like Facebook and stuff .

But it's so funny because I was just talking with my social media manager and she's like I really

want to post some pictures and stuff from the event and I was like I think I have like three and she was like what ? And I was like I didn't take any pictures . And she's like why ?

And I was like I don't know I was having too much fun , like I didn't take any pictures , I had my phone in my back pocket , I wasn't doing any , I was just enjoying the moment , you know , and that's I mean like kind of like screwed things up for my social media person , but like I was making memories , you know .

I was at this one and just saw so many people that I had interacted with online and it was so nice to see them in the flesh , you know , and to really make that connection and I really feel like that . I think social media can be a stepping stone to that .

If they reply , great , if they don't , that's okay , and , you know , make plans to meet up to , you know , gather in some day , some place and really make connections that can help each other , because we all are connected to other people and you know , I think , especially as women , we are hardwired for relationships , so I love that idea for that too , yeah , but

this is kind of off on another tangent , but anyway . Well , where can people find out more about you , Katie ?

I'll also link everything we talked about today in the show notes . You can find those at myweeklymarketingcom , forward slash 117 . Thank you so much for listening today . We'll see you next time . Bye for now .