Let’s Create A Podcast Launch Plan with Becky Mollenkamp

Andréa Jones (00:00):
Launching something new can be absolutely terrifying. And then the big question comes, what do I do on social media? Especially if I don't like it. In this episode, we're doing something a little bit different. I have the amazing Becky Mollenkamp on the show, and we're going to strategize together on how she's launching something new. Let's dive into it.

Intro (00:31):
Welcome to The Savvy Social Podcast, the show that blends stories and strategies to help businesses create engaged and profitable online communities using the unique power of social media. And now your host, Andréa Jones.

Andréa Jones (00:48):
Becky, welcome to the show.

Becky Mollenkamp (00:51):
Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited for this. You have no idea.

Andréa Jones (00:54):
I am very excited as well because I just love geeking out about social media and chatting about it together, and obviously I think you are brilliant as well. So I want to cover all of the things, but let's start a little bit with what you do and your sentiment about social media. I know that you have had this overwhelming feeling about social media and you quit Facebook entirely. So let's talk a little bit about what brought you to today.

Becky Mollenkamp (01:22):
I'm an accountability coach and I work with mostly women business owners who are in growth mode and are looking for help in that transition from solopreneur or maybe themselves and a few people and really going into that next level of their business. And my experience with social media, I'm an old person and so I've been on social media for a long time and I believe I started on LinkedIn. I don't really call that social media personally. It feels more like it's less social and more about just business. But I started there and then Twitter is what changed everything for me, and I loved Twitter in the old days, like oh 9, 0 8, 0 9, 2010 days. In fact, I met my best friends through Twitter. I met all sorts of people through Twitter and I loved it until I didn't. I obviously was on Facebook. It's fine. I liked it a little bit in the beginning.

(02:13):
I'm with my husband because we reconnected on Facebook, so I am happy about having been there, but it really got stressful for me because of all the politics and everything else happening. So by 2016 I was like, I need to leave this space and Instagram, I'm on. It's okay. And I'm on all the places now to TikTok and Threads and everything. What do I probably, the thing I liked the most was old school Twitter, which I am pretty happy about threads very much resembling that. But what overwhelms me with social media is that it is so many places it feels like I'm supposed to be in all the places, and every time I think about leaving one of the places, I feel like, oh, I can't. Even though I did manage to get myself off of Facebook, so that was huge, but I still have all the others and it just feels like I don't know what to create.

(02:59):
I feel like everything I do isn't cool. There's me being vulnerable, but I just feel like whatever I'm doing, I'm not funny. I'm not naturally witty. I can be kind of humorous I guess, but I'm not a freaking comedian. I feel like you have to be a comedian to be successful on TikTok and Twitter or you have to have some gorgeous life to be successful on Instagram. And I just feel like I don't have any of it. And so when I go on, I feel like what's the point? I can't measure up here and I'm not going to stand out. That's the big thing is how do I even stand out if I don't have some cool thing like that? And so then I just feel like not doing much of any of it.

Andréa Jones (03:34):
Yeah, I think we all feel those feelings at some point or all the time, especially the funny piece, people are show up, be yourself. And my thought is always, what if myself isn't that interesting? And I think that that is a hurdles to climb. I'm curious though about the content that you consume. Are there people on social media who you follow who aren't funny or traditionally interesting, attractive, et cetera? Does a type of person come to mind?

Becky Mollenkamp (04:16):
Well, yeah, and so this is good because you're going to throw it back in my face because yes, the truth is most of who I follow, especially on TikTok, but in other places as well, the content I'm consuming is nerdy girl content for people who like me are creating something around feminism and who are talking about big important issues. If Clifton strengths, my top strengths include in election and communication. I'm somebody who likes to think about big important ideas and I like to talk about big ideas. And so a lot of the people I consumer are talking about that kind of stuff. But for some reason it feels like it doesn't work for business. And I know this is a story I'm telling myself, but I have a hard time. And then I think the other piece that'll come up is my own sort of concerns around, it's the thing that I help people with all the time, but here I am with it myself, which is who am I to talk about these things? I don't have a PhD in gender studies or whatever the things are where I think, what's my little piece of this world and how do I show up in a way that feels authentic but also doesn't seem like I'm talking about things that I shouldn't really be dipping my toes into?

Andréa Jones (05:26):
Yeah, I am nodding my head because I think you've really nailed this. Who am I feeling? Which is the actual barrier it sounds like. It doesn't sound like based on what you've described doesn't sound like the technology is the barrier. It doesn't sound like your knowledge is the barrier. It doesn't even sound like the types of content you consume could potentially be a barrier. It's really getting to the place where you feel confident enough to be exposed on the internet.

Becky Mollenkamp (06:01):
I mean, I'm super honest on the internet anyway, so I've shared all sorts of things about my life and everything, and yet there's something around the piece of, and this is so much of this is conditioning the stuff that I help other people with. So of course here I am showing up vulnerably saying I still have to work myself on the stuff that I help other people with. But I know a lot of this is conditioning around expertise and what it means to be an expert voice. And if I don't have the degrees in my head, there's this story of I don't have these degrees so I can't speak to these issues or even if I can, I think the other piece of that that's related is I can't do it better than the other people who are already doing it, right? There's already people, the people I'm consuming are already talking about the things that I care about and ways that I find even more interesting that I feel like I could talk about them. So it's, that's that other piece of who am I when there's other people doing it better. Even if I do feel like I can carve out my areas of what I talk about, I feel like, oh, there's other people who seem to be doing it so well that what's why me?

Andréa Jones (07:05):
Yeah. And you mentioned that you are very vulnerable. I am a subscriber to your newsletter. You talk a lot about issues, concepts, those big picture things, and you share it through your personal experience, the lens of who you are. So there, excuse me, seems to be a barrier with the social side because you also created this podcast, which is a creation reflection of the conversations that you like to have. So talk to me about what inspired this show specifically and what are you hoping to the result of the show to be? What are you hoping people to feel after listening to the show?

Becky Mollenkamp (07:47):
So the show's Feminist Founders podcast, it's my baby. I'm so excited about this. It's born out of my own discovery or process over the last, I mean, it's been a decade of me unlearning all of the white supremacist, patriarchal capitalist conditioning that we all get. And going on my own journey of that unlearning and then relearning and having really amazing discussions inside of a book club that I had that I started with a few friends where we'd read feminist books and talked about these things and I just wanted more of these conversations. So the impetus was really selfish. I just wanted to have more conversations with people who are doing cool things and talking about these things and who care as much as I do and my background's journalism. So that part comes naturally interviewing, it feeds into coaching. Well, I love asking questions. I love learning from people.

(08:38):
And so a podcast made a lot of sense. I had another podcast before that was just me, and it started with interviews as well, so I felt comfortable with it. So there wasn't a lot of strategy behind it. However, the more I'm doing it, the more I'm realizing that in addition to wanting to uplift these other, the thing I'm most excited about is for people who are like me, who are trying to do business differently, who imagine a world where business can be part of the change for better. What does that look like? How do we step outside of all of the things we've been taught about how business has to run this sort of greed model and feel less alone? Because when you're trying to do that, it can feel like everything I'm trying to do is against what all of those bro marketer guys are telling me is right.

(09:24):
All the experts are saying the way I have to do it. And if you don't have support system that's saying no, it is possible. It can feel really isolating. So I'm hoping that people that are coming to this podcast are people who are trying to do business differently and who get excited in seeing that it is possible. And so that's for me what I hope that would be success. If I hear even a few people send me messages and say, oh my gosh, I feel less alone now, or I feel so seen or this feels really inspiring, then I will feel like it was successful. Yes.

Andréa Jones (09:52):
Okay, those of you listening, I want you to listen to the energy in Becky's voice as she's describing that podcast. It's contagious, right? It's like now I want to go listen to it because I can tell that you're passionate about the work that you do and that energy is what I want to bottle up and put on social media because I wrote down the word feeling less alone, feeling isolated. Even if there are people talking about the topics that you're talking about, the more people that talk about them the better because it removes that feeling of feeling alone and isolated. So I think that energy is something that I want to bring to social media. So let's talk about your social strategy. And I want to start with, obviously we want to do this podcast, but you mentioned in the Green room before the show that you had this little decision moment between should I create separate social media accounts for the podcast or should it be under my personal brand? What was the initial thought behind creating separate for the Feminist Founders podcast?

Becky Mollenkamp (11:08):
If I get really deeply honest and vulnerable, more than likely it was because I felt like who am I? No one knows me and they're not going to find it through that. I'm not a name that they're going to recognize, right? I'm not some big name that they're going to go search for. So if they're interested in the podcast, they're going to look for that. And so my thought was for searchability, which was also still probably tied into some confidence issues, but primarily I was thinking around searchability so that if somebody's looking for that podcast, that's going to be easy for them to find and follow. The reason that I decided not to do it was because thankfully I have friends in the business space who are like, you already say you don't like being on social media that much, and now you're doubling your social media load.

(11:48):
What are you doing? And I was like, you're right. So the reason I didn't do it was strictly from a overwhelm standpoint, but I still have these internal doubts around should it be under my name or should it be under the podcast name? Because it is, although I mean technically, I guess it's called Feminist Founders with host Becky Mollenkamp. It still feels like, I don't know. And there's also probably some outshining stuff that's happening. If you've ever read The Big Leap, which is one of my fundamental fears is this outshining thing. And it does probably feel a little bit like putting myself out there, and I don't want it to be just about me, it's about the podcast and it's about the people I'm featuring. Although I mean ultimately would sure be nice if it helped my business, but that isn't the motivating factor that brought me into it.

Andréa Jones (12:34):
Okay, so I agree with your business friends. I think anyone, especially if you're feeling overwhelmed by social media, creating secondary tertiary accounts for the various brands and projects that you run will only increase that overwhelming feeling. And especially now in 2023, managing just one brand on social media is pretty much a full-time job, right? So as you mentioned, you have Instagram, we have TikTok, we have threads, we have YouTube, we have Twitter, LinkedIn, not even talking about Facebook, which you are not on there anymore. So it can be a lot. And so then duplicating that process for the podcast can be challenging. Now you did mention you already claimed the names, correct?

Becky Mollenkamp (13:27):
Yeah, I have them on all the places.

Andréa Jones (13:30):
Good. So my recommendation is to use those as landing pages that point back to your personal brand. So I have this for the Savvy Social Podcast. If someone goes to Instagram type Savvy social podcast, you will find the account. It just has a picture of the cover art. I did a nine grid, I split it into nine, and that's my nine grid. It is a landing page. So if people happen to hear the podcast, not me, they go to Savvy Social Podcast, it still gets tagged all the time. People tag it in their stories and things like that. It's there, but it's inactive. It's very clear in the description that it's inactive. We don't update this account. Go follow the OnlineDrea accounts to get all of the updates, but it holds it there for you in case as things grow, you do get resources where you can manage that page separately. Let's say the show blossoms into something amazing and popular and you have hundreds of thousands of listeners every month, and you have a production assistant who's also posting now to that channel for you. You have it there. And also if a competitor comes along and tries to steal your idea, they can't steal that handle as well and do that. So how does that feel? Does that feel good?

Becky Mollenkamp (14:55):
Yeah, that feels great. Also, I love that vision that you're holding for what's possible. So I'm going to let that wash over me. I'm going to go check out, obviously what you're talking about on your Insta to be able to see that model and probably just steal it.

Andréa Jones (15:08):
Yes, steal away. And I will say for those of you listening, I do have a template for this. It's $9. You can get it at onlinedrea.com slash grid. I'll put the link to that and to the Savvy Social Podcast Instagram in the show notes as well. So y'all can take a look. Alright, so we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to dive into the entire launch plan for Feminist Founders podcast. We'll be back soon.

(15:32):
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(16:06):
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(16:44):
And we're back. So now that we have solidified the Becky Mollenkamp brand is going to be the home for sharing the podcast. I want to talk a little bit about launching the show. So what date is the first episode coming out?

Becky Mollenkamp (17:01):
The official launch is September 13th, though the way podcasting works, I'm going to be submitting things early, so hopefully there will be the trailer and maybe the first couple of episodes out. I'm hoping maybe even by a week ahead of time. But the official launch is September 13th.

Andréa Jones (17:19):
Okay. And have you thought at all about how you're going to celebrate this launch in your marketing?

Becky Mollenkamp (17:26):
So I'll tell you the things I've thought of and you can tell me. I've thought again, which will be representative of probably everything I've said a lot about the external, but not so much me, how I'm listing others. So I've been thinking through having a street team or whatever, asking people to support the launch by emailing their lists or sharing on their social media, and I'm creating resources to give to them for that. And I'm also thinking about having a live launch party, maybe the week before the podcast launches, where I'm going to invite people into a Zoom room to celebrate all the guests that are coming, anyone who will come to be there. And because of the type of audience I'm working with, I think what will be fun is to do that as a networking event. So the first part will be celebrating the launch, but so that it doesn't feel just so just come and listen to me talk about my new thing, make it something that benefits the people that are there as well.

(18:16):
So the first part's me talking about the podcast and the second half is the networking piece. So I feel good about those components. The part where I'm feeling the most stressed is what do I do on my own social media and with my own messaging around this beyond just throwing up a static, I dunno, just like a picture of the logo art or the first guest or something. I don't know. I'm trying to think. Especially for the things like the Instagram posts that seems simple enough. I can just throw up some pictures. But when I think about things like reels, if I was going to do that, although I rarely do, or Instagram stories or TikTok especially. And then now with threads showing up and what that might look like, where still people aren't wanting to be too, but hopefully by then they will be. And then LinkedIn's also kind of I'm, that's probably where my ideal audience is, but it feels like a weird thing to promote there for some reason. So asking others to help, I've got down having a party to celebrate, I got down what the hell I'm going to do, not so much.

Andréa Jones (19:29):
Okay. Follow up questions. Do you have a plan already in place for your newsletter around that time? How are you inviting people to participate in this launch party, for example?

Becky Mollenkamp (19:43):
Well, because Zoom, I don't have pay for webinars Zoom, so I can only have a hundred people, which if a hundred people come, I will be over the moon ecstatic. But I'm going to think big and think that everyone I invite will want to be there because it's going to be this amazing networking event too. And so I'm going to be intentional about who I invite. I don't think I will send it to my home email list unless it becomes clear to me I won't have enough people. I've already identified about 150 people in my network that I want to invite and have it be an event that feels really purposeful and meaningful for them versus like, lemme just throw it out to everyone and whoever comes comes and they may or may not be a good fit for the networking angle. I don't know if that's a good idea or a bad idea, but I am thinking strategically because these are all people that would also hopefully have some amount of audience and having them there would get them more excited about sharing the podcast as it launches.

(20:33):
The email list, I mean, I'm obviously going to send emails about the podcast and I want to make sure that some of that includes asking them to rate and review. I would like to think of a way people have suggested doing prizes or something to incentivize more of that. I also though need to be mindful about my capacity and how much that adds to my plate on trying to manage getting, I don't know what screenshots to prove they've done it or just I don't know how all of that would work. So I haven't really thought that part through.

Andréa Jones (21:03):
Yes. Okay. So I'm going to come back to the giveaways angle in a second, but do you often reflect what you say in your newsletter in your social posts or do you consider them to be completely separate?

Becky Mollenkamp (21:17):
I'm not very good at that. I know repurposing is really smart and then I get in that little story about like, oh, people are going to already have heard this, even though I know that's not entirely true because a lot of people are not in both the places or all the places. And also, I don't know, I don't know what it is. I have some block around sharing all of that of, I don't know, my brain gets into this, but what do I do with it? How do I turn it into something? What should it be? Should it be like a story? Should it be a me talking? Should it be a graphic? I don't know. Again, it's probably, I don't know, for whatever reason I haven't fully been able to figure out. I get very in my head about all of that.

Andréa Jones (22:02):
Do you think your skillset is stronger in writing or speaking?

Becky Mollenkamp (22:06):
Well, my background is journalism. Certainly writing is because even what I'm going to do, speaking generally, unless it's really off the cuff like this, and I don't mind this kind of thing at all, but anything where I feel like I'm going to be, the attention will be on me and I feel like I should be prepared. I write it all first and then read it.

Andréa Jones (22:25):
Okay. So

(22:30):
My suggestion is going to start first with your natural way that you like to share your thoughts with the world, which is written words. And I would suggest having your newsletter be kind of your core content piece. I know that this is about social media, but I think there's something magical that happens when you're writing to your closest network, which is your newsletter, and there's a mental barrier is lifted when you're like, this is just for the newsletter, right? Because I'm on your newsletter and I see the content that you produce, and then we're going to think about how to repurpose that on social, which I'll get to in a second. But I want to first know if that feels good for you because some people approach their newsletter as exclusive content and they don't want to share it on social. And some people, when I write my newsletter, I know that it's going to be social media content later. I just don't think about that later because it serves its purpose as newsletter first. Does that feel comfortable for you?

Becky Mollenkamp (23:40):
I don't know if you want to go down this avenue, if I'm going to throw a whole big wrinkle in for you, which is that I have grown contemptuous, I've had contempt growing for my email list, which is a whole other bag of worms because I feel like I create content and create content and create content that my open rates are 50%, that's really good. Half of the people on my email list are opening my emails and yet they don't buy from me. And that has developed some contempt that I don't want to feel. I don't want to feel that way. And so I've actually been thinking about moving to Substack in advance of this release because that way what I feel like it's going to do for me is allow me to say, alright, I will continue to create free content, but I'm going to really drastically reduce how much of that I'm giving away for free.

(24:25):
And those people who are willing to pay me a cup of coffee like five bucks a month, which is nothing, then I will gladly pour into you. But I'm getting really, I'm growing weary of pouring. And I think music is part of social media too. Growing weary of pouring into people for free to feel them consuming, consuming. And then when I say, Hey, will you buy this thing from me? Even when it's something really inexpensive or even when it's not, it's like, no, and I don't want to feel that way. And so I've been thinking about moving to ck. So I don't know if that creates a huge wrinkle or if you want to even go down this avenue, but that's where I'm at right now and I'm thinking about doing that next month. I've been working on content for that.

Andréa Jones (25:02):
Yes. Okay. So I do consider Substack to have a lot of social elements to it. There's likes, there's comments, there's sharing. I know it's long form content and a lot of it is gated, but it to me is like a social network. So I'm actually working on a podcast episode around the social media 2.0, which is more private conversations at scale, more exclusive pockets of conversation, not necessarily everyone on the same platform at the same time. So I find it interesting that you're going that angle and it definitely makes sense. So then the conversation becomes what is free Sock does oftentimes have a free version of your work and then a paid version. And I paid for several folks stack newsletter content things because sometimes they're podcasts.

(26:01):
So that's the first conversation is once you decide what's free and what's not, I would take anything that's in that free open to the public version of CK and turn it into a carousel post on Instagram and turn it into a long form post on LinkedIn and turn it into a series of threads or tweets on Twitter. And it's the exact same thing just elsewhere. And then the call to action is for more sign up for my sub stack. So this is kind like a pre-launch period if you're thinking about doing this next month, that's kind of teasing out leading to Substack, which you'll obviously talk about the podcast there.

Becky Mollenkamp (26:42):
Okay. Yeah, because planning on doing once a month, you now get a message from me for free on Substack instead of what I've been trying to do, which is at least once a week and burning myself out. So then the people who want to pay get to hear from me every week and they're going to get behind the scenes stuff. They get all that extra stuff. Plus you're right, there's community within it so they can talk to each other. And I will be sharing more of stuff about the podcast and all of that, but so there'll be free content once a month. That is going to be very long form as you mentioned. So hopefully that would be enough to be able to really pull from for the whole month on social media.

Andréa Jones (27:14):
Yeah, I mean, we don't need as much content on social media. I know a lot of experts out there say post every day, post multiple times a day, but if you don't have a team, I think that's impossible. I'm really planting my flag on that ground. It's really challenging. If social media is not your job to post every single day, I think that weekly, maybe even twice a week is more than enough for your average business owner. And so that's what I would recommend for you. So if we're posting monthly on Substack super long form content, I would take that exact thing and post it on social media. Now you do also have a beautiful backlog of free content that we're going to start pulling from as well. So for example, leading into August Q three, summer's ending, the thoughts that your people are having are going to start shifting into thinking about Q four, thinking about end of year thinking about sales.

(28:25):
And so you probably have in your decade plus experience of this, you probably have resources where you talk about this time of year. So we're going to go back through those and repurpose those as carousel posts, written carousel posts, long form LinkedIn posts, Twitter threads, Thread threads. We're going to repurpose those as content as well. So you really maybe are tweaking a few things, but we're not recreating the wheel. And this again, is probably leading into the launch, not necessarily talking about the podcast just yet, but keeping your social starting to reactivate it a little bit. Do you think that's possible?

Becky Mollenkamp (29:08):
I definitely think it's possible. Yeah, the repurposing goal content is extra possible. That feels super easy. I just need to think through what that is. And I think part of what also gets me a little hung up sometimes is I start to feel like I have to be super strategic, and then if I don't have some super strategic plan, then that I just don't take action if it's not this leading to that, leading to that instead of it feeling kind of random. But I suppose random and useful is still better than nothing.

Andréa Jones (29:38):
Well, and think about the amazing connections that you've made so far on social media. From what I've heard, they've all been random. You randomly reconnected with your husband on Facebook, you randomly bumped into your best friends on Twitter. I think random actually works better sometimes than the strategically we got to post this and this and this and this. You know what I mean?

Becky Mollenkamp (30:02):
I'm loving all the permission. Thank you.

Andréa Jones (30:05):
Yes. And so I want to talk a little bit about the launch now as well. So as we head into the launch itself, I think this loose strategy of reflecting what's happening in your business on social media is going to be key. So there's lots of post ideas that I've written down that I'm just going to fire away at you just based on this conversation. You've talked about moving to Substack. There are several conversations you can have on social media about the decision to move to Substack because your audience is business owners. We love a B T S behind the scenes moment. Why did you move to Substack? What inspired you? What was the process like? How are you liking it? Even the tech of the interface of Substack, there's so many ways that you can start and have conversations about those things, and this is where the casual placements will happen.

(30:59):
So your feed main posts will be reflections of your newsletter, but reels stories and even LinkedIn, additional LinkedIn posts will be reflections on the behind the scenes of what's happening. I think that this lens to the more casual nature of those placements, especially TikTok doesn't necessarily need a setup. Just holding your phone, you can be sitting anywhere or even having on the tripod and just talking like you're talking to a friend is really what's resonating right now. And it doesn't need a strict posting cadence. So I know a lot of people say this, but in the studying that I've been doing, even the people who say this are not following what they're saying, they'll say post five to six times a day on TikTok, and they'll do that for a week and then they won't post for a month because it's challenging to post that much.

(32:04):
So I think posting when you feel inspired actually lends itself to something and then repurposing that. So I use a tool called Repurpose.io that anytime I post on TikTok, it'll auto post to Instagram reel, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook reel, wherever you want it to go. So I film record edit in TikTok and then it'll just disseminate it everywhere. I think that's a really easy way to repurpose that content and it doesn't necessarily need to be so strict as sign up for sub go listen to the podcast. This is really that conversation piece that you so love. It's starting those conversations, initiating curiosity and letting curiosity lead those people to your subset, to your podcast. How does that feel?

Becky Mollenkamp (33:02):
I love that. I like the behind the scenes part because I know that stuff is great. I think my journalism background sometimes gets in my way because with journalism background, I feel this need to have to tell a story from start to finish and that I need to, I did a lot of service kind of journalism, which is helping people figure something out. And so I always feel like whatever I'm doing needs to be really in service of something. By the end of it, I need to have summed it up with a little bow and given them a lesson, and I need more permission to say, I don't have to do that, because that really limits me because everything feels like it has to be so thoroughly researched and so perfectly framed, and then they have to walk away from it feeling like they've gotten something from it. And all of this that is I think, limiting me. So it's nice to think just like I could just go on and just say, here's why I'm thinking about moving to Subtack, and it could just be that it doesn't have to be, and now here's how you do it, or I don't know. Some bigger business lesson.

Andréa Jones (33:59):
Yes, yes. One of my recent videos that did really well was literally me saying, I get ready every day in three minutes. It's a hot mess of panic, and I'm always, almost always late to my first meeting because of it, and then I just turn up my Zoom filter so that it blurs out anything that looks, and it's just like the relatableness of this isn't leading to anything. I'm not selling anything. I'm just being a human on the internet. I think oftentimes that's where connection points start, and then people dive deeper into your world and get to know you more on your sub stack and in your repurpose content from there. Okay, so launching the podcast specifically, I think you have this invite only Zoom party that could be really interesting to reflect some of the connections, conversations, and feedback that happens there specifically. I like the exclusivity of it, and I think it really encourages people to want to be more in your world. So I would talk about it after the fact. So the week between the invite and the actual launch date. Talk more about some of the conversations that you had there, and I think what I'm hearing from you is your assumption about social media content. I want your content to be more of a reflection of what you're already doing in your other marketing areas. I don't think you need to create new content specifically for social.

Becky Mollenkamp (35:44):
That feels like challenging. I feel like I'm supposed to be creating something new, but I like the idea of not having to, so that feels good.

Andréa Jones (35:55):
I think if you feel inspired to create something new, obviously we can create new things and there's ways to tie in trending content or conversations that are happening on social into what you're doing. But I think this idea of every single post, every single thing on social media has to be new. Could be what's stopping you from creating on social.

Becky Mollenkamp (36:15):
Yeah, I think that's part of it. I agree. It does feel like it's just a lot. So I think that is probably part of what's keeping me from it.
Andréa Jones (36:22):
Yes. So the activity around the launch is going to be heavier than actually sharing the new episodes every week or every, are they weekly? How often are they releasing?
Becky Mollenkamp (36:39):
I'm doing 'em seasons, but it'll be weekly within the season, and then there'll be breaks in between the seasons. It'll be two seasons a year.
Andréa Jones (36:46):
Okay. So weekly during the season. To me, that is an easier reflection of what's happening in the show. So leading up to the show is asking people to subscribe exactly how you would in your newsletter, and honestly, you're already doing this, reaching out to personal connections. I think reflecting that on social media is an easy way to do that as well, just as you would talking to a friend. I don't know if it has to be as polished and buttoned up as you kind of alluded to, and I don't necessarily think it has to be nude content. Now, you mentioned as well posting just the episode artwork and asking people to subscribe. I do think being that blunt and clear is a good strategy. Here's the show, here's where you go subscribe, but also talking about the conversations you have in the show. So there's a huge conversation right now about audiograms pulling clips, audio clips from the show.

(37:51):
Does this work, does it not? I used to be a huge fan of all of the technology behind that, but I find that the amount of effort that it goes into creating an audiogram or similar is it doesn't necessarily have the return on the time investment that we put into creating it. So when you talk about the show, however you talk about it elsewhere, I think is also how it goes on social media. So for example, I write a little blurb in my newsletter about the podcast. That's the same thing that goes on social media. So I'm working once to put it two ways. Another that one of my clients does is she is a talker. She loves talking. So when new episodes comes out, she takes her phone records and says, okay, this is what's happening this week on the show. Go listen to the podcast so you can still frame it in a certain way. Are you thinking about this? Are you wondering about this? Well, today on the podcast, this is what we talked about. Here's how you go listen to. Do any of those styles resonate with how you want to share the episode, the specific episodes as they're being released,

Becky Mollenkamp (39:06):
I actually started creating because Canva now with the way they allow you to put video in and create video stuff, it actually makes it really not so hard to do little clips from the show. So I've started making little clips from the show. I'm pulling out two or three from each episode that are just interesting little tidbits that I find interesting anyway of the guest talking about something, and I'm going to share those. So I've started that process, but I like the idea of me doing some maybe far more informal reflecting each week. I have to think maybe I just need to record that stuff now to do later because as I'm editing it, I'm listening to it, but they're going to be, I'm editing in advance, so there'll be coming out some of the months after I've had the conversation and edited it. So maybe I just need to make those, do those reflections now. Just take some video of myself as I'm editing and be like, here's what I got from this conversation, or here's some cool things that came out of this, and then I'll have that ready?

Andréa Jones (40:00):
Yes. Love it. And are the Canvas that you're editing, are they Instagram reel size?

Becky Mollenkamp (40:08):
Well, I was doing 'em for Instagram stories. Is that the same as reels? I don't even know. Yes. Okay, then yes. So should I do them as reels and then share them to my stories?

Andréa Jones (40:19):
Yes. Okay. So here's the thing about reels, TikTok, those placements is that they're discoverable placements. So while I love stories, it is definitely more intimate and people have to already find, you know, to consume the stories. Posting an interesting clip from the show into a reel increases the chances of someone discovering it. So finding it for the first time when testing this with our clients, we have found to have some sort of moving background around it. They have these stock videos have worked really well, as well as pairing it with one of the sounds that Instagram recommends, and just turning the volume down so that your clip still has prominence, audio-wise, has worked really well. And then it's the value of the content at that point that works well. So if it's an easy lift for you, I'm excited to actually see the end product put together.

Becky Mollenkamp (41:28):
And I'm recording video because I'm going to be putting the podcast on YouTube as well. I'm testing with that. I've never done it, but they say to do that, and so I have video clips that I'm putting into that would be gone, so it'll be the person speaking and me nodding my head mostly, but so I hope that counts for the video if it's the people speaking. Okay,

Andréa Jones (41:50):
Yes, that works really well, especially on platforms like TikTok. If you're having these conversations and your TikTok feed is already telling you that these conversations are interesting, the discoverability aspect is astronomical for especially this style of work and the people that you're talking to, I think it's really going to resonate.

Becky Mollenkamp (42:12):
Good. I hadn't even thought about putting those on TikTok, so I will,

Andréa Jones (42:15):
Yes, put them on TikTok, put them anywhere. You can place vertical video, YouTube, shorts, TikTok, and reels. And I truly believe you don't need more than that at this stage. As the show grows, you can obviously create custom content pieces, but the fact that you're recording this as a video, you're already pulling out clips as you edit the episodes, you will have your monthly sub stack. You will have your private paid sub stack. There's a lot of content you're already creating. I think it's a great, great, great starting place. The key is to help people find it, and that's where the discoverability placements will go. And then you can always share those to stories, maybe elaborate more in stories if you'd like to, but really you've got it. You're off to a great start.

Becky Mollenkamp (43:08):
Yeah, thank you. I hadn't even thought about YouTube shorts, but my son watches them all the time. He's a little young for my audience, but clearly people are watching them, so it's something to think about. So thank you. This is great. I mean, I feel like there's permission inside of this to do less, which is really important to me, and to repurpose and to just let things, here's my favorite thing. I like to ask people all the time in my coaching, how can this be easy? And I feel like that's ultimately what you're trying to help me with, and that's what I need. So thank you.

Andréa Jones (43:34):
Yes, I'm writing this down. How can this be easy? Becky, this was such an amazing conversation. I hope you got a lot out from it, and I hope listeners got things from it as well. For those listening, they want to listen to the podcast. Where do they find it?

Becky Mollenkamp (43:52):
Well, September 13th, but hopefully a little before. It will be available everywhere you listen to podcasts. If I've done my job right, feminist founders, you can also go to feminist founders podcast.com to find all the episode information.

Andréa Jones (44:03):
Yes, I will put that in the show notes y'all onlinedrea.com/ 2 6 9. You can also follow Becky on socials and admire her beautiful clips from the podcast and go show them some love as well.

Becky Mollenkamp (44:16):
Yeah, you can see if I've done what she told me to do or not, so now I feel the pressure because you're going to be checking on me, which is good. I need that. I'm an obliger, so this is great. I need the pressure. So go look and see if I did what I said I would.

Andréa Jones (44:27):
Yes, everyone go look. Go look and see what doing to launch the podcast. Becky, this has been great. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Becky Mollenkamp (44:36):
Thank you for having me. This was really helpful for me, hopefully for everyone.

Andréa Jones (44:40):
Hey, awesome. Awesome. And thank you, dear listener for listening to another episode. Make sure you go rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify keeps us in the top 100 marketing podcasts. And I'll be back with another episode very soon. Bye for now.