KO Your Brand

Katrina Owens (00:01.162)
Welcome back to another episode of Pulling Punches, KO Your Brand Podcast, little micro tips on how to elevate your personal brand using public relations. So today I want to get into why you need to be using the platform threads to grow your personal brand. Honestly, this is a platform I'm recommending to all of my clients right now.

So if you're not familiar, which like, if you're listening to this podcast and you've never heard of Threads, we might have a problem. But if you haven't, I'll give you a little bit of grace on this one, because at least you're here learning. Threads is like the Twitter version of Instagram. Did I say that right? Yeah, Threads is like Instagram's version of Twitter, I guess is the right way to put it, or X, I guess is what we're calling it these days.

I've never really bought into that one, but threads is a text only platform. Yes, you can post photos and videos and all of that. I highly recommend you don't. I mean, you can, but I don't really see them doing much for most of the business owners that are posting that kind of content on there. So here is why I love threads so much. Threads is a discovery platform. So think about the TikTok algorithm. And when you scroll on TikTok,

you can get the most random freaking videos on your For You page. Like right now, I've started getting these like, it's called Northern Soul dance scene. And I guess it's a big and like the UK. It literally looks like Charlie Brown dancing or like what my parents used to do in like the 70s and 80s. Okay. But this is like shot in real time. It's like a blast from the past.

I don't know how these videos got sent to me or why the algorithm thinks that I'm a fit, but clearly it's just like testing some shit. And that's really what threads does too. It sends out your posts to whoever they think might be interested in them. And then as people like and engage with your content, it starts to understand who your ideal audience is and shares more of your posts with that.

Katrina Owens (02:24.024)
target audience. I've had clients come from threads. I've filled up webinars using the platform. I've, you know, gained speaking opportunities, countless podcast opportunities. I speak in a lot of memberships and communities because those opportunities are always posted on threads. One of my clients even got on TV using the platform. So, yeah, I'm a big believer in it. And I just want to

you know, get into why it's so crucial for you to start using this platform. So regardless of like the political side of meta, like, you're gonna like figure this out about me, but like, politics doesn't really have a place on this podcast. Right now, I'm really focused on making sure business owners know exactly what they need to do to grow their personal brand using public relations.

And that really means like using the tools that are available to you. And quite honestly, if you want to grow your personal brand using PR, you are going to have to use Meta's platforms. Sorry, not sorry. That's just the philosophy that I live by. I don't think I have a single client out there that doesn't use a single one of Meta's platforms. I'm not saying you need to use all of them, but I do strongly endorse you using at least.

one, just because they cover so many bases. So, you know, I have a lot of clients that actually aren't on Instagram, but I still tell them to use threads because it is such a friendly version of Twitter or X and it really lets you position yourself in front of new audiences that will start to follow you elsewhere. Okay. So it's really important to remember. So when you start on threads, I'm going to just give you some like best practices, because if you're listening to this and you go to download the app,

I want you to know like what your next move is. That's really the point of these pull-in punches to give you some quick tips. So today's tip is start using threads and here's how to get started. So you'll set up your platform or your profile on the platform and make sure that your profile is optimized. So yes, you can import the bio from your Instagram profile to your threads profile.

Katrina Owens (04:46.316)
but make sure that it still makes sense in the threads context. So like, I'll give you a really great example. So for me, in my Instagram bio, I have some links to like, obviously the KO your brand podcast Instagram, women with drive golf, which is another one of my business ventures. And those two parts of me, for lack of a better word, don't have threads accounts.

They don't really need them right now. Maybe that will change in the future. But you know right now they just live on Instagram. So there's no sense in me putting that stuff on to my threads profile because they wouldn't go anywhere and people want to understand like what those are. But instead, because I'll still post some threads about golf or like when I used to have an agency, I included the words agency owner because you want people to understand who you are when you

when they go to your platform. And I'm actually gonna give you a really great example of someone who did this totally fucking wrong, for lack of a better way to put it. And it was really, honestly, was a bit weird. Okay, this just came to my mind as I was remembering all of the things that went down on threads this week. So earlier this week, I posted a thread about...

pitching and actually I'll read it to you just so you know exactly what it was. I said.

because it got over like 10,000 views or whatever. Threads likes to tell you when like your posts do really well, which I honestly appreciate. So I said, I am begging you to please cultivate a relationship with a podcast or event host before pitching them. I promise it will get you so much further than just asking for an opportunity out of the blue. So I posted that and my profile is like optimized so you know.

Katrina Owens (06:47.22)
I am a PR for personal brands expert. know exactly who I am. You know, I'm a coach, a PR coach. You know, I'm a professional speaker. You know, I'm into golf all because that's like in my on the platform. I actually had someone like quote the thread I had made and say, so like this thread I had made about pitching. And she was like, this is what I teach PR experts to do in my program. And I was like,

is it? Because I was like, there's people out there running programs that teach PR experts how to pitch. Haven't seen them. And I do a lot of competitor research. So I went to her profile and actually let's like do this live because this, this might be a bit more interesting. I did hide her, her thing to be totally honest. Cause I thought I was like, that's kind of like a dumb thing to say. Maybe I won't be able to find it, but

When I went to her profile, there was nothing about public relations leading workshops. I don't even think this woman like worked in like a marketing field from the top of my mind. For some reason, I'm remembering her as someone who like was super like health oriented, like was more like a health coach, like that sort of thing. And so I was immediately like, okay, well, regardless if she's like, you know,

someone that runs these programs that might be in competition with mine or not, she's obviously not a fucking competitor because even if she runs these PR programs, I'm like, where?

I'm a PR expert that would probably benefit from her programs. I'm probably her ideal client, but she had no information. Her profile was not optimized. She was talking about like totally other businesses. I actually went so far to like look at her Instagram because I was like, okay, like, no, like if she's saying this, like she must be like some sort of PR publicist coach. And if she is like, got to know her nothing.

Katrina Owens (08:58.808)
could not find anything about this woman and these programs that she offers, but she had posted, she had like basically quoted my tweet and kind of shared that. But can you see how not having your profile optimized does literally fucking nothing for your business?

Like this woman, regardless if she does what she said she does, because even like a part of me is like, maybe I don't believe you, since like I couldn't fact check or like find these programs or like anything about her. But okay, say we live in an alternate universe where like this is what she does.

She made it way too hard for me to buy from her.

Couldn't find the information. So if you're going to start posting on threads, and honestly, I'm going to do a longer episode on how to use threads to really like amplify your public relations efforts. I'm going to do that in a couple of weeks from now. So stay tuned for that episode, but let's just keep it short and sweet today. Cause this is pulling punches. Go set up a threads account and optimize that profile. And then.

We'll get into posting in a future episode, because I've got a lot to say on that, but make sure your profile is optimized. Make sure it makes sense out of context from Instagram. This is another great point to remember. There's a lot of context on your Instagram profile, right? There's images. People can get to know you like pretty quickly, like visually. That doesn't really exist over on threads. There's no grid that can like really give your immediate vibe. So it's really important to have the profile optimized.

Katrina Owens (10:40.192)
make it make sense out of context and yeah, start scrolling the feed and seeing what opportunities are out there because I'm telling you there are so many and there are no PR agencies or publicists talking about how you can find opportunities like this out there. I actually had a publicist message me on threads because I had said like threads is a gold mine for PR opportunities.

You know, I've had clients secure speaking gigs, podcast interviews, interviews with journalists, like traditional media. I pitched to a Forbes article on threads, like literally so much. One of my clients got on TV on the platform. So like it's out there, but because PR agencies and publicists operate from a very traditional PR perspective that does not focus on building relationships and is really not focused on having a strong personal brand.

they are not going to be able to give you the same advice that I'm going to be able to give you. So keep that in mind. I'm your girl when it comes to learning how to use threads to grow your personal brand using public relations. So that's it for me today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please rate and review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me at knockoutdirective at KO your brand on Instagram and I'll see you next week.