Ep #425: Social Media Summer

You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo episode 425.

Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.

Brooke: Hello, my friends. Welcome to the podcast. This is pretty exciting. I have my kids with me. Well, some of my kids with me. And we’re going to talk about our Social Media Summer that we’re about to have. And I want to tell you the story of how it all started.

But first, I want to let you know, we have Mason with us…

Mason: Yes, ma’am.

Brooke: We have Connor with us…

Connor: Hello, everyone.

Camo: Hi, guys.

Brooke: Okay, so Connor is my actual blood child and Mason and Camo are my adopted friend children. And we also have two other kids that are joining us over the summer; Jessica and Eyob. They are not on this podcast, but they will be on the follow-up podcast for sure. They just haven’t started with us exactly yet and they aren’t in the same house with us.

So we are all in a house together. We are going to be in a house together all summer, and I kind of want to give the backstory on that a little bit. I decided that I wanted to educate my children on how a business – an entrepreneurial business – works, because I feel like, in college, they aren’t taught that well enough.

So, I invited them all to come spend the summer with me and pay them and employ them and give them projects to do and make them work, otherwise they kind of sit around and just get bored and drive me insane. So, they’ve been here for about a week.

We’ve set everything up. We’re about to get started. And we’re going to tell you all about our plan for social media and all about what we’re going to do, because I think many of you will find it very interesting if you’re trying to grow your social media presence, but also I think you’ll find it interesting for what we’re actually going to learn about business along the way. And we’re going to share that journey with you.

So, first, I’m going to ask Mason his kind of perspective on what it was like to be asked to do this knowing what he knows and why he decided to – he actually quit his job to come and spend the summer with us. So, Mason…

Mason: Basically, I was already looking for a new job and then Connor texted me and said, “Hey, my mom’s got an opportunity for you.” And so, obviously, I said, “That sounds phenomenal.”

The only thing that I was really particularly worried about is, like, being held to an expectation, and I just wanted to fulfill that expectation. So, I just hope to get better at editing, just as a whole, and look into social media and show that I’m supposed to be here, alongside with these guys.

Brooke: What are you most excited about?

Mason: Learning how to edit. I’ve always thought social media was very interesting and fun just to look at. I used to learn algorithms for fun, so this is just, I guess, something I’ve always wanted to do, deep down.

Brooke: Okay, That’s Mason. So, Mason was Connor’s friend in high school. And he used to come over all the time and bring a pizza with him. And he has since – this is what, three years later? Four years later, he has since lost 100 pounds. So, we’re going to share his story too, his before-and-after story and how he did it. It’s amazing. We’re so proud of him.

Okay, next is my redhead son Connor. So, Connor, you’ve worked for me before and I’ve asked you to work for me since. But you agreed to work for the whole summer. Tell me everything.

Connor: First of all, I want to say, it’s good to be back on the podcast, whoever saw me on the first one. Thank you for sticking around. It’s been a long time. I’ve grown. But agreeing to go for the whole summer was definitely a growth experiment between me and all my friends because college and school only gives you a certain amount of space.

It really tells you, “Do this in this order right now.” There’s like a step-by-step process and I don’t think that’s really what entrepreneurship is about and what social media is about. So, I just wanted to make sure all of my friends were at the highest level of intelligence and entrepreneurship and business-running and all that, and make sure we’re all just prepared for life. And there’s no better time to do it now, as we really don’t have a bunch to do. And like you said, we could just be getting bored, doing some dumb stuff instead of building a social media empire, I guess.

Brooke: Awesome. I love it. So, we’re in my house in Scottsdale right now. So, I told them all, “Hey, just come to Scottsdale and, just for a couple of weeks, we’ll chill and then June 1st, we’ll get started.” But I’ve been giving them previews of what they’re going to be doing and kind of talking through everything. And they have already been kicking ass and working so hard and doing so much already. I’m so proud of them.

And I’m pushing them really hard. And I kind of want to share – as we go through the summer, I’m going to share what I’m trying to teach them and why I think it’s so important for all of our kids and all young adults, and even adults that haven’t learned this yet, to learn this process and the way we approach time management, communication, and business.

Okay, the next one is Camo, who has already worked for me before as well, but was eager to come back and work for the summer. So, tell us why. Tell us a little bit about you, Camo.

Camo: Well, I wouldn’t say eager, but yes, I have had the opportunity to work for Brooke before, working out of the garage before we’ve been able to sit in a house in Scottsdale. But yeah, it was so great the first time, and kind of what everyone else has already said; it’s just such an awesome opportunity working for Brooke, working for The Life Coach School, listening to The Life Coach School Podcast every Thursday.

So, I mean, it’s just like the biggest learning experience that we could ever get and kind of throwing ourselves into almost rebuilding the social media now, it’s all three of us – or actually, all five of us – are going to take this summer to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Even with these first few days, it’s been hard work. We’ve been trying to figure everything out. And it’s something that none of us have ever really done before, especially working for such a well-performing and successful business. There’s a lot on the line.

So, we have to know how to perform and really meet those criteria, meet deadlines, all that good stuff. So, this is something that we can’t really learn in college. But it’s only something you can learn just throwing yourself out there, I guess.

Brooke: Perfect, so let me tell you a little bit about our social media at The Life Coach School and where it’s been and where we’re going. So, most of you know, I’m not personally on social media. So, most people in a position like mine, that are running a company, that are trying to use social media to grow the company, are on social media posting about themselves. They understand how to interact on social media. They consume social media. So, most companies have a much bigger social media presence than I do.

My company has not been focused on it. We’ve been focused more on paid media. So, I decided that this summer would be the summer of getting me on social media, really putting a lot of videos out there across all the platforms, learning how to use it, engaging with it, and connecting with all of my students, all of my clients, and all of my potential clients on social media.

So, the current social media is very, I would say, the way that – we kind of just did an audit on it – it’s very professional. And it’s very clean and it’s very – I don’t know, how would we describe it, Connor?

Connor: In the right direction… Formal.

Brooke: Formal. Yeah, it’s very formal and professional. And we’re going to mess it all up. We’re going to get crazy with it. And we got onto social media, we saw the social media posts that really do well are the ones that are not as formal. And even the posts that I’ve done where I’ve just grabbed my camera and put it in my face and talked to it are the ones that you all interact with the most. So, that is what we’re switching to.

We are, right now, trying to get the format ready, trying to figure out, how do we get me on camera? Most importantly, we’re trying to figure out these filters, because they matter. And my kids are like, “No, that is…” it was so funny, my kids are like, “No, that is what you look like.”

I’m like, “But look at everyone else on social media. They have all these cool filters.” So, you will definitely see me filtered and unfiltered. And I will be speaking unfiltered the whole time. So, let’s talk a little bit about our plan for what we’re going to do. Do you want to start, Camo? Yes, come on.

Camo: Sure, alright. Plan, elaborate. Like, what do you mean, “The plan?”

Brooke: Like let’s talk about what we’re going to do to change it up.

Camo: Oh, okay. Well, the plan is to have Brooke’s face everywhere that you look, all over social media. So, we’ve got – we’re starting a TikTok. We’re going to start posting more content onto Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook. And you guys are going to be so sick of seeing Brooke.

Our goal is to have you guys sick of seeing Broke by the end of the summer, because she’s going to be everywhere.

Brooke: Is that our goal?

Connor: That is our goal.

Brooke: So, we are starting a TikTok channel, which everyone thinks is hilarious because I didn’t even really understand what TikTok was. But I will tell you, this is a really important thing. I have these cards that are called Wisdom of the Oracle. First of all, if you don’t have them, you should get them.

And what you do – my girlfriend, Kris Plachy, gave them to me. What you do is you shuffle them every day and then you ask a question and then you draw a card. And the card has an indicator of what you should do.

So, for example, I drew this card for my business for the year and it said, “To the sea.” And it basically talked about how we’re going to be expanding and growing out into the sea. And that’s kind of been my thing.

So then, when my team was here in town, we drew a card, we were like, “What do we need to know about our business?” And we literally picked a card that said “tick tock,” on it. And I was like, “Okay, we’re going to do a TikTok channel.”

So, we haven’t ever started a TikTok channel. We’re going to launch it and then we’re going to just start posting, twice a day, videos on TikTok. We’re also going to be doing lots more Instagram. We’re going to try and post twice a day. What’s our plan? Twice a day on…

Connor: Instagram and TikTok…

Brooke: Instagram and TikTok, but not the same videos. They will be different forms of videos on there. We want to do a behind-the-scenes, and we’re going to do that in Stories because Stories disappear, I hear. And that, you will have to see on Instagram.

So, that will just be, “I’m living with my children and friends all summer in Colorado.” So, we want to kind of show you what it’s like, a day in the life when we’re working, what it’s like for me when I’m working out, when we’re going out, when we’re eating, when we’re chilling, when I’m reading, when I’m working on my business. We’re going to do a lot of behind-the-scenes on Instagram. Those will be Stories. They will disappear and then we will do something else with them? What will we do?

Connor: So, they’re going to disappear, so make sure you check in with the Instagram, all the time, every day, as soon as you’re awake, as soon as you’re going to bed, be ready.

Brooke: Okay, so that’s behind-the-scenes. Then, we decided, for this other idea, that we’re going to do Questions with Brooke. And so, we’re going to ask you all to submit questions. I’m going to give you a text phone number on here and you’re going to be able to text in any question you want. And then, the kids will be on camera with me…

By the way, if you’re listening to this on the podcast and you want to see the kids and you want to see us record it, you can go to TheLifeCoachSchool.com and go to the podcast and you can see the whole video of us recording this podcast and holding microphones.

So, anyway, we’re going to do Questions for Brooke. So, it will be – one of the kids will ask me a question and I will answer it and it will be something you’ve asked that we think everyone will benefit from, and we’ll be posting those on Shorts, right? YouTube Shorts. YouTube Shorts.

And then, the other thing that were going to do is Zoom clips. So, basically, what that means is the Self Coaching Scholars calls that I teach, we will be going through all of that video and pulling out snippets of the best things I say. Do you want to talk to us about that process, Mason, how you do it?

Mason: So, basically, it’s just going through, seeing some gold, and Brooke says some powerful message and you’ve just got to want to share it to the world. That’s pretty much just what I’ve been focused on, trying to make it look as nice as possible, put it in front of as many faces as possible…

Brooke: So, talk about specifically how you’re going to do it.

Mason: Oh, yeah, you just pull it out, cut it up, make it nice.

Brooke: Add..

Mason: I mean, yeah, you would add subtitles and make it all pretty, make it readable, make it nice for the audience to look at with their eyes. Have Brooke in the middle. That’s the best part.

Connor: I’ll clarify that as well. Just some captions, a little more friendly to the eyes. There’s like a social media platform trend, you know, where it’s really readable, high-intensity, with TikTok and Instagram. And we’ve been more formal up until this point. So, we’re going to be trying to be as personable and readable as possible.

Brooke: Love it. And what’s crazy about it is we’ve been watching some of these videos, you have to like zoom in and make them a certain format for a certain platform. And then I feel like I talk totally fast, but even some of them, we’re having to speed up how fast I talk. We’re shortening down the videos.

So, as you are all scrolling through, you can just stop through, get a gold nugget, like something that will make you think, “Huh…” and then move on.

Now, here’s my ulterior motive that you may not know about, boys. In order for them to access these great pieces of content, they have to watch all of my videos and hear all of my teachings and learn all of the things about the Model and everything I’m teaching you all.

So, these kids are not normally kids that would join Self Coaching Scholars and watch my videos for fun. So, it’s forced mental education as well.

So, like Mason was just talking about, he’s learning how to edit, he’s learning how to do captions, they’re learning how to upload, download, they’re learning how to communicate with our team, how to get approvals, how to make everything really professional, how to manage their time, how to get everything done.

But most importantly, they’re learning about the Model and everything that I teach. So, you want to talk about that, Camo? What’s that going to be like?

Camo: So, question was what’s it going to be like watching all those videos and learning all that stuff. I mean, there’s only pros in that circumstance. I know that Mason has been editing all these videos and taking all these Zooms out and he’s just been saying Brooke quotes. He’s already been talking like Brooke and he might take over the company one day.

Brooke: That’s amazing. Okay, so we’re going to be doing lots of clips from Self Coaching Scholars and the classes that I teach in there. The other thing we're going to do is what I’m calling my podcast review. So we’re basically going back to the beginning of the podcast and I’m going to do two or three clips from every single podcast that we’ve done, the content in there.

So as you know, we have a podcast, it’s usually 30 minutes, and then we also have a podcast book that has a one-page summary of each of the podcasts. And this is going to be even more snipped down. So we’re basically going to take that one page of the podcast and we’re going to do three different video clips from that. So you want to talk about how we’re going to record those?

Connor: So we’re going to try to make them as professional as possible and quick as possible, make sure that we’re getting the whole entirety of the podcast inside a couple sentences, make sure you guys go and want to watch them.

Brooke: But what’s the process? What are we going to do, like at the house?

Connor: So we’re going to be setting up a camera, we’re going to be filming in probably a nice view, make sure we have a nice background. And then we’ll just be going through and probably reading the scripts for the entire week or the next couple podcast highlights, we’ll make sure to have the scripts all ready and the camera will be turned on very nice and focused in.

Brooke: What are we going to do about that filter? Post-production filters. So what we’re going to do is schedule time every day so we can record maybe three of those and I’m going to try and change clothes throughout that so it’s more visually stimulating.

Because I notice that when I’m watching even these videos that these kids have done for me so far, if I’m in a different outfit in every one, it’s just more interesting. So that’s one of our strategies that we’re going to do for that.

We’re also going to do quotes because what I’ve heard is that you all love sharing some of my quotes with each other and having them. So those were just going to be designed on - I don’t even know how we design those. Do y’all?

Connor: It’s an innovation thing. We’re just going to have to innovate as we go.

Brooke: Okay. And those will just be written quotes, and maybe I’ll say them too. And maybe they’ll move. Mason just did this video where all of the subtitles were coming at you, like forward at you. So maybe we’ll do them like that. We’re going to test and experiment.

Now listen, go on to our social media and please comment and let us know what you think. Do you have any suggestions? Should we do it differently? What do you like? What don’t you like? Please come and interact because our goal is engagement. I hear that’s important. And we definitely want to hear from you and talk to you. And then we’re also going to do Lives, which, Camo…

Camo: Well, a Live, we had to basically teach Brooke what this was. So she liked the idea of Instagram Lives, and what we’ll be doing on there is - because the idea that you had earlier about them texting questions is a really good idea.

So we might actually take some of those questions that you guys do ask there and she’ll answer them live. So you guys have to make sure that you check in to her Instagram Lives and see if she answers one of your questions.

Brooke: Or couldn’t they come live? Couldn’t they come live and ask me questions live too?

Came: They sure can. They absolutely can. So make sure you’re there. And we’re still finalizing what day works best for you for the Lives, but she doesn’t want to work on Fridays but we might make her work on Fridays and do Lives then.

Brooke: Okay. And then I, every once in a while, have a shower thought or I have a walk thought or I have something that I feel desperately like I need to tell you all, and I’m going to start doing that on my social media. And so I do it now sometimes, especially when I was doing a behind-the-scenes scene in Scholars.

I would just record it on a camera and they would post it in there. But I haven’t done it for a long time, but I still have all of these thoughts all the time. So I’m just going to grab my camera, video my own face, and have –

I just looked at the clock. We were just supposed to be starting now. We started a little earlier. That’s my bad actually. You still look good.

Filters matter, my friends. I’m so confused. When I look at myself on Zoom I look one way, I look in the mirror, it’s a whole ‘nother thing. That’s going to be a whole coaching session later. What was I saying? Messages.

So I’m going to record me saying the message to you, and then they’ll just pop that on all the social medias and you can have special massages from me as well.

And then the last thing we’re going to do is what we’re doing right here. We’re going to have Jessica and Eyob and Connor and Mason and Camo on the podcast and we’re going to shoot some videos and talk about how it’s going. Are we growing our social media? Is it working? What isn’t working, what is? We want to share all of that with you.

So if you guys are trying to grow your social media, we can share what’s working and what isn’t. We’re also going to be doing paid social media alongside all of our organic social media. So I’ll be really fascinated to see how those affect each other as well.

I have a lot of friends who have a lot of experience, like Alex and Leila Hormozi are two of my very good friends, they have a lot of experience. They just completely grew their social media followings. They’re coming to Colorado for some time as well. So we’ll be able to learn from them, and we’ll share what we learn from them and what works and what doesn’t.

And what works specifically for me as a life coach may not work for everyone else, so we’re going to figure that out. But we do need your feedback because we all just have our opinion of what we think is great. So we want to know what you think is great as well.

Alright, so to finish this up, let’s talk about what we hope to learn and how we hope to grow through this process. I will start. I want to learn what social media actually is. I have never really interacted with it and never really understood it.

I am not ever going to be one to spend time consuming it and I will tell you, it’s because every single time I get in there, even now with the boys, trying to get in there to understand how it works, I could spend my whole day there. It is so addicting to be there and so exciting to be in there.

But I will use it for my business and I will use it to learn how to be more available and educate y’all in ways that you’re asking me to do, in a way that’s easily accessible to you for those of you who do want to use social media.

And I really hope to help my kids understand what my business is and how I run it and how it is to be an entrepreneur, to give them the exposure to that, and what it's like to work really hard with a really demanding boss, and how good it feels to perform at that level and to be proud of your work. What about you, Camo?

Camo: Well, I will say that you are the five people that you surround yourself with and…

Brooke: That scares me actually.

Camo: Well, it should. But without getting into the people that I’m working with, first off, we have the opportunity of being with Brooke every single day, whether she’s teaching us or yelling at us. Either way, we’re learning something. And then we get the amazing opportunity to have Alex and Leila Hormozi with us for a week in Colorado.

I mean, these people that we’ll be surrounded by, it’s almost making it impossible not to make this a successful summer and take as much as we can out. And then as far as our team that we’re working with, Connor, Mason, Eyob, Jessica, I mean, if we're able to learn how to work together and produce great content for a great business and be able to problem-solving 101 - another podcast - if we’re able to learn how to problem solve on the fly and just be adaptive to any of our situations, this summer, it’s only up from here, which is awesome, so thank you Brooke for the opportunity.

Brooke: You’re welcome. Awesome. What about you, Mason?

Mason: I was just going to say like, this summer I just hope to learn the entrepreneurial mindset and just get direction in life as a whole. And I’m excited. I feel like at the end of the summer I probably will be a life coach just from how much content - and I’m not complaining.

Connor: Apart from all the secondhand life coaching that we're going to get, I like spending every day with my mother as well. It is very great. But I love the chance that my friends are able to get this opportunity to learn kind of what I’ve learned throughout my entire life, and it’ll become more of a lifestyle now.

When you wake up every day thinking about work, you realize it’s time to go to work, and if we’re able to really challenge ourselves and hold each other to that high standard, it’ll prove that not only we are able to work at that high level, but we’re able to hold each other accountable, not only in work but in life in general.

Brooke: And listen, we are all a really good time. I have not stopped laughing hysterically since these boys have gotten here about a week ago, and I love spending time with my kids. I was just telling one of my friends, it was like, “I love being with my kids. I have created fun people to be around.” So we’re going to have a great time and we’re going to bring you along for the ride so you can enjoy it.

So make sure you follow me on all the things. @TheLifeCoachSchool on TikTok, on Instagram, we’re going to be on Facebook, we’re going to be on LinkedIn, we're going to be on Pinterest. Did I forget one? That’s all of them. Facebook, we’re going to be on all of the platforms.

And each one of those platforms is going to have different content each week. So it’s not like we’re just going to do one video and put them on all of them. So you need to be following us on all of those platforms. And we will keep you updated on the podcast on all of our activities over the summer. And we are very excited to bring you along. So have a beautiful week, everyone, we’ll see you on social media. Bye.

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