Using Content Pillars to Build Your Personal Brand

Speaker A: Everyone is Googling each other. Nowadays, whether you're dating or you're applying for a job, everyone is Googling. And so it's just being a part of being in control of what you're allowing people to see. And that doesn't mean you have to put your whole self out there and be like, this is all of me. But you need to put the parts of you out there that you want people to see.

Speaker B: Welcome back to Content Logistics. I'm your host, Bailey Gunnell. And today we're tackling too many, uh, marketers still treat as optional personal branding. If you don't shape your story, the Internet will do it for you. To help us build a personal brand, I'm joined by Nicole or Nikki Ramirez, a journalist turned growth marketer, LinkedIn creator and coach who's helped executives and teams turn expertise into visibility and opportunity. Nikki blends performance marketing with customer centric storytelling, and she's built a sustainable system around content pillars, design that keep you consistent without boxing you in. We're digging into why your brand can't be an afterthought and how to determine what to even talk about. Let's get into it. Nikki, I am so happy to have you on the show. Super excited to talk about personal branding and learn from your experience here. One of the things that we had talked about previously is that some people see personal branding as optional, but you've called it marketing malpractice. I love that statement. It's a very bold statement, but I'd love to know your thoughts and maybe if you could expand, expand on that a little bit.

Speaker A: One of the biggest things I hear a lot is, oh, I don't need a personal brand, or I don't even know where to start. And what I tell people is, you already have a personal brand. Are you in control of it? Is what the thing is. What do people, when they Google you, you're applying for a job, you give them your resume. What, what's coming up on LinkedIn? What's coming up on your socials? Your socials may be private, but your LinkedIn may be public. You are already putting yourself out there as a brand, which is your person. Could be your resume or whatever it is. Are you in control of what people are seeing? Everyone is Googling each other nowadays. Whether you're dating or you're applying for a job, everyone is googling. And so it's just being a part of being in control of what you're allowing people to see. And that doesn't mean you have to put your whole self out there and be like, this is all of me. But you need to put the parts of you out there that you want people to see.

Speaker B: We probably have all done that before. You Google someone, whether it's for a job or for personal reasons, or you've even probably googled yourself. Like, what, what's out there about me?

Speaker A: Uh, if you haven't, I recommend doing it because that's a good way to start to see what's out there about you.

Speaker B: That is a really great place to start. Like you said, your brand exists whether you manage it or not. You have search your social impressions and all of that can shape your perception. But where do you recommend people maybe get started on trying to build their brand?

Speaker A: So after you do an audit of what's already out there and clean up your socials a little bit, A lot of us have been on social media for 20 years now. It's like crazy. But after you do that, I recommend figuring out what you want to be known for and how you want to talk about it. So what I recommend is starting with your content pillars. And how I start with that is like, what, what do I want to be known for? What problem do I want to solve for others? What do people come to me for advice on and what impact do you want to make? And start putting all of that together into this package that I call the content pillars and figure out what you want to talk about online and what do you want to be known for. So for me, I knew my main content pillar wanted to be like marketing expertise. So I was going to talk about that a lot. My second was going to be career and personal stories. Because I've gone through so many different jobs, I've been in so many different industries. I have worked at, uh, anywhere from small startups where there are three of us to Fortune 500 companies where I was a department of 38 in like different departments. And so when I worked at Forbes, they'd be like, oh, do you know so and so. And I'm like, that's a totally different part of the business. Yeah, but you're a startup, you're working as many hats as possible. And I say this because I basically seen it all and I wanted to be able to tell people about, here's what I've seen in small companies, here's what I've seen at big, here's what they both have in common, here's what they are totally different. And then my third pillar was humor. I am a very tongue in cheek sarcastic person. Always have Been. And I knew I wanted to make people laugh. I always say, if you get me on camera or you give me a mic, I think I'm a comedian and I start going off. So I knew that wanted to be a big part of my pillars. So I wanted that to represent who I am. Now that doesn't represent my whole self. I am also a mother, I am a wife. I'm, um, a huge coffee drinker. Always got a cup with me.

Speaker B: You're prepared.

Speaker A: It doesn't mean that is who I want to represent myself at all times, but they are things that make up a part of who you are. But you don't have to be everything to everyone. You can choose those small parts to show up as.

Speaker B: I definitely want to spend some time diving into how you create those content pillars, but I want a little bit more of your story too. And I think for a lot of people, too, your story will resonate because titles change, but a personal brand can stick with you wherever you go in your career. So I'd love to know a little bit of your story and kind of how you got started in this.

Speaker A: Yeah. No. So Last year, last July 2024, I had been at Forbes for almost three years as a director of marketing for the accolades department, and unfortunately I was blindsided in a layoff. And so you get a call Friday morning, 15 minutes, and your life has changed and it's. Your laptop shuts down and you go, okay, now what? And I took a step back and was like, okay, what do I want to do next? I've worked in multiple different industries. I've worked in cpg, media, health care, a lot of my stuff, finance. I looked at all of this and I said, okay, I'm kind of becoming this jack of all trades in all industries, and I need to narrow down, what do I actually like to do? What are parts of these jobs that I've always liked? So I really thought about that, thought about what I wanted to do in my next steps. And then I took a look at my LinkedIn, because of course, that's where I jumped to go, okay, I gotta find a job. And I started sifting through and I started seeing people sharing thought leadership and having these conversations and comments. And people started saying, hey, like, this is the place to be if you want to find a job, but not just as a job board, sharing your stuff. And I was like, hm. And I always make the joke because I legitimately. I was scrolling through everything, laying in bed, and I looked over at my husband, they said, I think I'm going to become a LinkedIn influencer. And he was like, I love you, support whatever you do, but honey, I don't think that's a thing. I was like, well, let's find out. And here we are a year and a half later and he's like, I guess that was a thing. And, um, it was just one of those decisions where I'm like, I want to kind of put my voice out there. And so as I started building up this thing, I started realizing, oh, this is a personal brand. I am doing exactly what I've done for companies, just for myself. The content I'm putting out there, the visual representation, I started redoing my profile to all be one color. I started doing exactly what I've done in my decades long career for brands to myself. And I'm like, oh, I'm a brand. Yes. M out there. So I became really passionate about talking to others about it. I kind of became really annoying to my friends. And that's when you have a sign that you've got a really good content pillar, is that when this is all you can talk about? I'm like, guys, you have to be on social and do your personal branding and do all this stuff. And they're like, okay, Nikki, okay. But a, uh, few of them actually listened and they were like, wow, this is incredible. So I started talking to more and more people about it and I just became really passionate about it. And it did, it, uh, opened so many more opportunities than I ever could have expected. Between consulting opportunities, I got my job at the agency. Because of it, I've had brand opportunities, speaking engagements, travel, you name it. It's come into my inbox.

Speaker B: That's amazing. I think you turn something that is sour for a lot of people. And really, I mean, an experience that I think a lot of people face and is really hard, but turned it into, uh, like a whole new career. It sounds like it, it's, it's working out really great. And you're able to help a lot

Speaker A: of my energy into something positive. But it is really hard. I will never be one to pretend that layoffs are not one of the most difficult things that you can go through financially, emotionally, identity wise. You, one minute you're so in all these projects, slacking your boss, everything, the next minute, it's over, it's done. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's very jarring.

Speaker B: Definitely. That is so hard. But I'm glad that you're, you're seeing all these opportunities come through your personal branding and Helping other people with this. Maybe for people who are working at a company and they're like, well, I still want to do personal branding, but maybe they don't want to freelance or go off and do their own thing. What advice would you have for them to maybe get started on this?

Speaker A: Yeah, I get this question a lot, especially with people who work for at a company that maybe hasn't completely embraced this whole personal branding thing too. Um, a lot of companies still have rules around like what you can post and everything. So keep that in mind. I'm not saying go out and just do your own thing, like make sure you have some job security. That's like, that's your first and foremost and be cautious of what you are posting. But you can start small. You don't have to post every day to have a personal brand. You can post a couple times a month and just represent some small things and you don't have to put your full self out there. And then I encourage you to kind of talk to your job about like, hey, I'm starting to do this thing. And like this, I'm a representation of the brand. Employee generated content is so important now, so you don't have to start showing up as a LinkedIn influencer. I tell many people that I talk to, I'm like, just because I decided, hey, I'm going to become an influencer does not mean that you need to be. There are creators and there are contributors. So, so creators are what most people on LinkedIn call themselves, content creators. And that's those influencers that you see. And then there's contributors. I have regulars in my comments every single day that are commenting on my stuff that never really put out comment like content you can contribute to other things, you can repost things that you really like. If there are a few content creators you really like and you really resonate with their content, repost. So there are small ways that you can get started without jeopardizing your job m and without having to burn out with doing content. And you don't need to be writing every day to show up when someone looks at your LinkedIn and go, okay, well they reposted XYZ and I see because the comments is this whole feed itself. I see they're commenting on this. That right there is already representing who you are.

Speaker B: Yep, 100%. So let's talk into now. How do you know what you should be talking about and what you do to build your content pillars? You shared the example of how you created yours, but if you're Coaching someone through this, where do you get started to build out what, what they should even be talking about?

Speaker A: Yeah, I have a worksheet that I start with first and I go through and I talk to people. I'm like, okay, let's define your purpose. And I talked about the questions I asked, what you want to be known for, what problems do I solve for others? What do people come to me for advice on? Like, what are your friends calling you, your colleagues, and what impact do you want to make? And then I have them kind of brain dump all of that and make a list of topics, skills, industries and personal experiences that they could tie into those and then identify what resonates with them. What are three common questions that people ask me that I can solve? What do I often find myself explaining teaching or mentoring about to others? And then connect those dots. Who is it that's going to be listening to this? Why? Who's your audience that's going to be listening to this? And can you keep talking about it without burning out? That's the big thing is you might be a email marketer, that's your career, but can you talk about email marketing every single time that you get on LinkedIn and post? No. Then that's only a sub pillar of what you're doing. It doesn't need to be your main one. What is the topic you can talk about all the time? There are a lot of aspects to marketing that I do, but I talk about overall strategy and just the overall brand about it. I'm not, uh, in the weeds marketer. I don't want to sit and go. Here are 10 things that Google did this week to change the algorithm. That's not who I am. Because yes, it's something that's a part of my job, but I would hate talking about it every day. It's not something that I want to talk about every day. Some people love that. Some people are data analysts that can talk about data and dashboards every single day. Perfect. That's your pillar. Some people have a job that, yeah, it's just a job for them, but actually their passion is hiking, knitting, running, whatever it is. Get online and talk about that. I had a client recently who he is an executive at, uh, a company, but his true passion is golf and travel and those are his pillars. So he doesn't even talk about the fact that he's got this amazing job. He talks about golf and travel on LinkedIn and you'd think, okay, what's that have to do with anything? He made it in a way that it does prevent, like, present value on the platform. And we leaned into things like, here are places that you can work while you're traveling. Like, wow. Yep. And so we ended up tying all that in. And he's starting to get an audience because of that. And he got an opportunity. Someone reached out and was like, hey, we've got a, uh, startup that we've got going on. We're looking for a CMO at a golf brand.

Speaker B: Oh, that is very clever.

Speaker A: And then you might end up stumbling into your dream job.

Speaker B: Wow, that is so clever. There's definitely so many tips and posts about business in general, but sometimes it can come across as. How do I say this? Like, it. It is all just very straightforward, But I love that creative spin on where can you travel to to work. Yeah.

Speaker A: And, uh, a criticism. The platform gets a lot, which for good reason is it's very performative.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And there is a lot of that. So I really encourage people to just show up as your authentic self. And I know people say that so many times and you get an eye roll like, yeah, okay, be my authentic self. But I'm like, I truly mean it. Because if you're sitting there and like I said, if he got on and was like, okay, I want to get more LinkedIn followers. So I'm just going to be like, being an executive is hard. And here is why it's hard. Every day I'm like, you can tell. You don't care about what you're saying.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: But when he gets on and he talks about travel and he talks about golf, you see this personality come out that is truly passionate about it. And that's why personal branding has become one of my pillars. Like, it's slowly seeped in because, uh, I'm doing this because I've become passionate about it. But a year and a half ago, I couldn't have gotten on there and talked about personal branding because I didn't experience it yet. I didn't build up this passion for it. So it would have been inauthentic. But now. And that goes into this saying, like, what I tell people is, your content pillars are not written in stone.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You can change. You can pivot. Now, I wouldn't go from I talk about golf and travel to like, like, flipping. And now, now it's cooking. You have to probably ease your audience into that. But there are ways to do that where you bring your audience with you without just, like, whiplashing them. And it's an easy transition for most of them. Like, my marketing and personal branding that really goes hand in hand a lot. And so it's been an easy transition to kind of take my audience with me.

Speaker B: Is there a certain number of pillars that is maybe too much or too little?

Speaker A: I wouldn't Recommend More than 3 to 4. 3 is a sweet spot. Then you've got your sub pillars. So I always say the ideal content hits multiple pillars. So if I can do a pillar that is something that's funny but also related to marketing and maybe a personal story that hits all three of my pillars, think of it as a 777 at a casino. Bing, bing, bing. You've not hit the jackpot. And then you've got your sub pillars. And some of those for me are like being a mother. I have a toddler, I'm currently pregnant, due in November. These are things that I talk about sometimes, but they're not a main pillar. Some people, motherhood is their full pillar. There are people that work at places like Bobby Formula or the motherhood and things like that that they are executives there. So their main content is I'm a mom, I'm a working mom, and I believe in moms. That is amazing. It's just not a main pillar for me. But it is a part of who I am. So sometimes we'll throw it into my content. And it might be about marketing or a personal story, or it might be humor. All of them. There are little sub pillars that you can go, oh, okay, this kind of like, ties into this. But your main pillars shouldn't probably be more than three or four.

Speaker B: Those sub pillars can really help bring your personality and that authenticity out, like you. You mentioned. And, uh, if I'm remembering right, one of your posts about motherhood is kind of what launched some of this. Or was one of your posts that went viral.

Speaker A: Funny enough is I reposted it today, uh, for the first time ever. Oh, wow. Ye. So it was like. So a post that went mega viral about seven months ago was motherhood is just marketing. And I talked about how my toddler doesn't like fish, but he loves chicken. So I call salmon beach chicken. And he's like, yay, beach chicken. He eats the whole thing. And it's funny because I reposted it today. Cause I was like, you know what? It's been a while since, like, I posted that. I have a whole new group of followers. And like, recycling content is a whole nother thing I could go into for a while. But I usually wait about six months and then I'll reuse some content Because I have a lot more followers at that point that haven't seen that content. But that one ended up blowing up. It, uh, was really funny. I posted it on a Saturday because it was a true story. It happened on Friday, posted and on a Saturday morning, closed my laptop, went about my day. Like we had plans that day. I opened my phone later and I was like, this is chaos. Like hundreds of notifications. By Monday, I had Newsweek calling me the Today show. And I'm like, it was a four line post, like, what is happening? And it was really funny because it was like you had this mix of mostly people that were mothers, parents, all, uh, this stuff that are going, oh my God, you get me. This is also what I do. This is what I call this. This is what I do.

Speaker B: Here.

Speaker A: Here's how I get my toddler dressed in the morning. And then you had this other side of it that people were like, how dare you lie to children? It was really funny because the Newsweek article was like, mother's controversial way to get her toddler to eat. And I was like, this is so dramatic. Let's talk about that. And there was a poll going on the Today show. Should you lie to children about eating?

Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.

Speaker A: So aggressive. And it just made me laugh. Like it really, truly just cracked me up. But you never know. Like this small thing that I shared that hit multiple pillars. That was my jackpot one, it hit marketing, it was a personal story, it was humorous. And it hit a sub pillar, which is market motherhood. You find that apparently you end up on Newsweek with polls about if you

Speaker B: should be lying to your children. Oh my goodness, that's so funny. I hear a lot out there that controversial posts are like a good way to get traction. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker A: Yeah, so it's like what a lot of people call rage baiting. I'm not opposed to it. I think that some, a lot of my hooks tend to be, if I want to get attention, a little bit of clickbait. Um, I don't do so much rage baiting. I've seen people do a little bit more of it. I don't need that energy. The best hooks are a little controversial. One of my best posts that I ever did was about how I know within five minutes of an interview if I'm going to hire someone. I go on to say how that happens. And, uh, I end up justifying it in the interview. I don't just like off the bat, yes or no. But that hook really upsets people. It either gets people to Go, me too. I trust my instincts. Blah, blah, blah. Or how dare you. Like, I'm not very good at interviewing all this stuff. That's some of my best content because it really gets people commenting and gets them up in a, uh, tizzy. Some people like to continuously do that content. With clickbaiting, I don't like to do that a lot because that is just exhausting. But sometimes you want people to kind of have a reaction to that kind of content and it does get that. I really spend a lot of time making sure that my hooks are pulling people in and then the rest of the content kind of explains that hook.

Speaker B: I think there's a difference between rage bait and clickbait, like you were saying. And for some people, the rage bait I think works really well. For me, that is not my style.

Speaker A: It is an energy welcome in if you are doing it. And I understand why people do it. I've seen my friends be like, social media is dead. And like, it's like, that's their hook. And you're just like, oh, here they come. They do a really good job of kind of doing that. And that is absolutely rage baiting people. But they're able to handle it a lot, a little bit more than I am. I don't like to kind of welcome a ton of trolls in my content. It does really exhausting. And it's also why I chose LinkedIn as a platform instead of TikTok and Instagram, because it doesn't have this anonymity that like a lot of the other platforms do. Your name and job are tied to your profile.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: A lot of people are going to come in and just start spamming you and trolling you because that's all going back to their profile and can be easily tied to their jobs and their colleagues and things like that. So, yeah, what I call a safer platform now. It doesn't mean our DMs don't get a little bit of that or people who don't have corporate jobs that just work for themselves don't have a little bit more audacity on the platform. But it's not as bad as where you've got username user x, y, z 1, 2, 3, 4 trolling you on TikTok.

Speaker B: There's pros and cons to the different platforms. But yeah, there's definitely something as nearly

Speaker A: as like viral and like out there as TikTok. Like you can go from like some of these posts that I had go viral on LinkedIn if I had the equivalent, uh, of that kind of virality. On TikTok, I would have hundreds of thousands of followers by now because people just naturally do that. It's a very slow burn on LinkedIn. Like, you slowly get these followers. It's not like TikTok, where people are scrolling really quick and it's like instant gratification. Follow next, follow next. People have to really, really be purposeful about following you on LinkedIn. They go to your profile, they follow you. These are the things like that they do. So it's a slower thing, but what I like to say is it's a very quality amount of followers.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: These are people that truly are in my icp. These are my audience, these are marketers. When I go and look at my audience demographics, exactly who I want it to be.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You have no idea who is going to be following you. On Tik Tok, you might go viral for Beach Chicken. And then it's a ton of different people that you might not be actually talking to. And then like, your content goes back to normal and they're like, oh, this isn't what I care about.

Speaker B: The quality. You're right there. The audience size might be smaller, but you have people who are really turned into, uh, the influencers, I feel like, on LinkedIn. And they're probably more primed to make decisions, whether that's like a purchasing decision or. Or maybe copying on an interview. We're connecting with people. We're trying to grow professionally. The state of mind you're in is very different on LinkedIn than these. Yeah.

Speaker A: And it all goes back to your goals. Are you trying to get clients? Are you trying to get speaking events? Are you trying to get a new job? Promotions, referrals, Those are the things you need to concentrate on. And that's where your audience really builds. And I've had so many clients come in from content. That has nothing to do with the fact that I'm in marketing consulting. They'll just find me through Beach Chicken, then go to my profile and they go, oh, my God, I found you because of the humor. And then I saw on your profile that you have this incredible resume and you're doing this. Can we talk? Absolutely. I've had that happen so many times and it's wonderful. So I'm always like, come for the vibes, stay for the insights.

Speaker B: Love it. Earlier, you talked a little bit about experimenting with some content or potentially expanding your pillars. If you're wanting to talk about something new, how do you recommend going about that so you don't abruptly make things seem really weird? With your audience.

Speaker A: Yeah. So experimenting is always good. I always say people are like, what happens if I have a flopped post? Do I just delete it? Like, people, that's their first thing. Like, I'll just delete it, pretend it never happened. Like, don't do that. Learn from it. Figure out why it didn't resonate with your audience. And that could be multiple things. It could be the content. It could be the time of day you posted, could be the time of week you posted. It could be just what was going on in the rest of the world. Like, did something big happen in your scuttle? Buried. Try it again if that, if it flops again, it was the content. What about that did not resonate with your audience? Learn from it. Every flopped post is a learning. Then every viral post is also learning what did, like, what took off. And so especially when you're getting started with content pillars, you might establish these content pillars that you think, okay, this is my audience. And then actually you put up a post that might be from one of your sub pillars and it just resonates and people just. And you're like, oh, this is what people might want to hear from me. And that might become a main pillar for you.

Speaker B: What do you recommend to people who maybe have a smaller following? Like, they're just getting started and they're maybe posting not getting a lot of traction. What is your recommendation for those people? Yeah, that's fine.

Speaker A: So when I started, I had about 2,400 followers, which is not a small, small audience, but it's not huge. I had built that over. God, I'd been on LinkedIn for nearly a decade at that point, which is like, crazy, because I can't believe LinkedIn's been around that long. It was a mix of announcing jobs or announcing hiring that's going to, of course, bring people in over the last decade that built this 2,400 following. But it wasn't an intentional audience. It was maybe colleagues and all kinds of other things that had happened. But when I first started posting, I didn't go viral overnight. I would have maybe a few hundred impressions and a comment from my mom. Like, it was like, great job, sweetie. And that was okay. You're going to have to start small and start putting things. Things in. But how I built people. See, my content is I leaned into being a contributor. I was commenting on people that I really wanted to follow. I was connecting. I would run out of connection requests early in the week. Every single week.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: And I was intentional about it. I wasn't just spamming, Like, I was literally, where are the marketing executives who are people that might be my clients? And I was leaving them notes, hey, love your content, would love to connect, blah, blah, blah. Uh, and then as I was connecting with people and people were coming, becoming connections, they were also becoming followers. Then they were seeing my content. So I probably spent the first four months, four to six months doing that. And my first viral post I started in July was, uh, in October, and that ended up almost 400,000 impressions. And that was like, crazy. And. But I didn't truly get my stride. Like, even after that, my content kind of went back down after that. January is when I truly picked up and I had regular, consistent stuff. And that was probably around six months of really working to build this audience.

Speaker B: So much of that time is building your audience, like you said, connecting with people, using those connection requests as much as you can, and commenting and interacting with other people's content. Because I think LinkedIn is one of the platforms that is. I think it's trying to actually build real connections with people, build your network. Not always perfect all the time, but definitely, like, having those relationships with people is going to make the content better and help you grow.

Speaker A: And, uh, it's gonna take longer for people who don't have the time that I had. I was laid off. I was laid off until November, beginning of November. So you have to figure I had from mid July till November to just spend a lot of my time on LinkedIn. So do not think, okay, it's gonna be six months. It could be longer than that if you're not spending as much time on there. So it's not gonna happen overnight. But I really took my time with my layoff and I didn't try to burn myself out by looking for jobs. I would apply like two hours in the morning. This is my job searching time. The rest of the time was building a connection and, uh, networking on LinkedIn, which is eventually how I got my position. They saw my content, I added people on LinkedIn. I was like, hey, I saw your job, would really love to talk about it. That is how I got my position. So it ended up working out in the long run. Patience is a virtue when it comes to these platforms.

Speaker B: It takes time and it's different for everyone. The time that it can take.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What are some, um, common mistakes that you notice people maybe get wrong when they're starting to build their personal brand?

Speaker A: I think going back to what we were just talking about is they get frustrated and they stop posting. They'll put out a post every day for two weeks. They'll start strong. Like when you pick up a new hobby or you, like, do something and you're like, I'm all in. And then you just get frustrated and you just, like, throw it in the back of your closet and never think about it again. That is how a lot of people choose, like, treat this platform. Start small. Do not over promise yourself. I'm going to post every single day for 30 days on LinkedIn.

Speaker B: Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker A: Like, you see those challenges a lot. At the end of the 30 days, you're going to be burnt out. You're not going to have any content left and you're going to be like, I'm done. So all that time you spent building all this stuff, it's just going to flop. So what I would say is, make a realistic goal. I'm going to post once a week. I'm going to post twice a week. I'm going to comment on five people a day. I'm going to do this, set realistic goals and ramp up. I didn't start by posting every single day. I posted two to three times a week. When I first started out, I think maybe even two was like, max. I spent most of it commenting and doing all that stuff because I didn't know what people wanted to hear from me. I didn't know what to say. It wasn't until probably a few months in, where I started getting my stride, really nailed down my content pillars, that I went, oh, I have something to say every day. I'm good, like, and, um, I enjoyed it. When it starts becoming a chore, that's when you need to take a step back. And I do that sometimes. A year and a half doesn't mean I've been showing up every single day. There have been times that I'm like, you know what? I'm a little burnout. We're going to post a couple of times this week. I'm going to reuse content this week. I'm going to repost other things this week. You can take a step back after you're doing this and go, okay, so that you don't burn out. Because if I forced myself every single day to show up and went, okay, I've got a post. This is what people expect. I would end up burning out and then just disappear off the platform for a month.

Speaker B: Uh, do what you can do consistently for whatever process that you can make work for you. I've heard a couple different strategies from people. Like, they'll batch content. They'll schedule in advance, and that can really help. Or just like dedicating a certain time of day to creating content. So I think there's so many strategies you can implement, but ramp up finding

Speaker A: that sweet spot for you. Because, like, for me, I know that I've got a, uh, keep notes. Like, I'd use Google keep notes. And I keep different folders. Humor, marketing expertise.

Speaker B: This.

Speaker A: At the beginning of the week, I kind of go through all those and then I put them into inquest and then I go, okay, what do I think I want to talk about this week? Then in the morning when I'm having my coffee or my first cup of coffee when I'm not. I was like, when I'm not pregnant, I get way more than just one. So I have my coffee and I go through and I go, okay, well, today I want to kind of talk about this. And then I write the content and it goes up by 10am every morning. That's my goal. But some people, it's. They need to plan out the content and just batch it and schedule it.

Speaker B: Totally.

Speaker A: I have a friend who literally has no idea what she's going to talk about until she gets online every morning and, uh, just stares at a blinking cursor and then just starts typing. Wow, that's psychotic behavior to me.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker A: She's one of the bigger, like, names on the platform. And I'm like, good for you. Because I can't do that. I have to have somewhere to start. I often tell people to make a content calendar. I no longer stick to mine because I've been doing this for so long. It's kind of like I go off of vibes every morning. But I did start going Monday, marketing expertise, Tuesday, personal story, Wednesday, whatever. Humor. This. This.

Speaker B: Yeah. Ah.

Speaker A: And I tried to stick to that so that I knew, okay, even if I miss Tuesday, I know this is what I post on Wednesdays. That kept me in a really good cadence until I didn't need it anymore.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's a great way to start training your brain. And I think I love your idea taking notes throughout the week too. Like, you have experiences throughout the day throughout the week that you're like, oh, I can write about that, but you're maybe not in the mindset to actually write and create the whole post.

Speaker A: And that's why I don't schedule mine. Even though some people like that is how they are able to. They batch, they schedule, they're good. I kind of go off of, oh, this kind of happened. This Week I want to talk about this, or I saw someone else talking about this, and I feel like I have something similar. A lot of the times I'll be reading and I'll be like, oh, this is going on. I have something that I've written up in here. And so I try to pull every week, every morning, and that just keeps me on a schedule. So it's whatever works best for you. You could be anywhere on this scale from showing up every day, having no idea what you're talking about, to planning a month in advance of content.

Speaker B: Yeah. One of the things you had mentioned earlier when you started on this journey was making sure your profile had all the same colors. How important do you think that is for other people to consider?

Speaker A: Yeah. One of the first things I do with my clients is I do an audit of their profile. So when someone does see their content and they go, hmm, maybe I wanna follow that person, what are they seeing? What are you putting out there? That means your banner. What does it say? It's almost. And it's my journalism background. Above the fold. Everything above the fold. So how's your profile photo look? How's your cover photo look? What's your headline say? I always discourage people from having vague headlines. I'm a guru marketing unicorn. Uh, and I'm like, what does that mean? What if people are looking for you and you're looking for a job? If you are a marketing expert, put that in there. I'm a marketing expert in email marketing. I do this. I help people do xyz. I should be able to look at your profile in the first five seconds, be able to tell who you are and what you do. Then I can explore more. Let's talk about your. About me. Tell me about yourself. Tell a story. Don't. Just. In the last 10 years, I have done, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've worked in blah, blah, blah. Tell your story. I'm a journalist turned marketer. Here's how I did that, et cetera, et cetera. Here's why I Show up on LinkedIn every day, ET cetera, et cetera. This is your point, to tell your story. Then the rest of it is your experience and things like that. For me, I knew as a marketer, I wanted to represent a brand, and so I leaned into green and I was like, I love green. It's my favorite color. And I was like, this is how I want to do it. So I went to a designer, got a new logo made, got everything made. You don't have to go that far. But I do recommend it being consistent. So I often do tell people, if you have a color in mind, do it and stick to that color. So then when you do put visual posts up, that color is in the background. So anything that I do that's like, uh, a visual post, that green is there because it's associated with.

Speaker B: I think it's really helpful for our brain to connect to people, especially because there might be so many people with the same name or even, especially when you're scrolling through content, it just kind of blends into your mind. So those visual cues can help. As you're coming up on people's feed. I've got one fun question left for you. And this is. I ask this on every episode, but what is your biggest content marketing ick? Something that you see and you're like, oh, I hate when I see this.

Speaker A: I feel like I have so many of them. A recent marketing ick of mine is sympathy marketing, where it's happening a lot on TikTok. And it's this way of telling these really sad stories to get your product across and like your brand and everything like that. Which, and, uh, people, some people have authentic true stories, but it's this way of pulling on people's heartstrings to try to get them to buy your product. And I just think it's not a good long term strategy.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, and people really lean into it. So I really hate this like sympathy marketing kind of thing that people are starting on like TikTok.

Speaker B: Yeah. And some of them you can just tell are fake.

Speaker A: Like they're not real stories and it's not a good, like, long term. Some people do have like, true. This is why I broke my it. It's kind of like if I leaned into the layoff thing every day, every, every time, it was like I really could use you guys to be a consultant because I was laid off. And like all this stuff, like it's. You still can have a story without trying to guilt trip people into doing what you, uh, want them to do. So that's my newest ick.

Speaker B: That's a pretty bad one.

Speaker A: Not as bad.

Speaker B: Well, Nikki, thank you so much. Where can people go to learn more about you?

Speaker A: Yeah, so you can find me, um, on LinkedIn pretty much every day. It's LinkedIn. Nicole Ray Ramirez. You'll not miss my green. It's in my background, it's in my cover photo. And yeah, like slide into my DMs. I, I do answer every one of them. I just spend about every Saturday answering dm requests.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Modern activity. Yep.

Speaker A: That's my Saturday morning. As I drink my coffee, I answer DMs. So that is where you can find me.

Speaker B: As long as you've got coffee, you gotta.

Speaker A: That's all I need.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: There you go.

Speaker B: Are you. Do you make your coffee at home or you go out to get it?

Speaker A: I do, though. I'm a good pumpkin spice latte.

Speaker B: Girly.

Speaker A: And so, uh, I've been out and about lately, but we have a really, really good espresso machine. And like I said, I'm pregnant right now, so I only get one cup a day. And that everything else is decaf. Train my brain to, like, accept the fate that I'm in. But yeah, I've got a Breville. We're big coffee people here.

Speaker B: Yes. Yes. I need to upgrade my coffee machine really bad. We've been making pumpkin chai's at home, though. Oh, they're so good.

Speaker A: And that's how I'm like. I'm so basic. Like, I go to Starbucks this whole season. Pumpkin spice latte every time.

Speaker B: Yep, they're delicious. So good. You gotta get them. Well, thank you again. This was so fun. I learned a lot and I'm excited for the rest of the audience to. To learn more.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.

Speaker B: Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Content Logistics. Make sure to subscribe to the show so you don't miss the next episode by.