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Social Media Decoded
Why You’re Still a “Hidden Gem”—And How to Finally Get PAID for Your Expertise w/ Jodi-Kay Edwards
00:24:55
In this Social Media Decoded episode, brand strategist and storytelling expert Jodi-Kay Edwards shares her proven blueprint for going from invisible to in-demand—without chasing hustle culture. We break down alignment over hustle, clarifying your message, building confidence to show up consistently, and turning visibility into real revenue with a simple, sustainable personal-brand strategy.
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A
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C
Friends Let me ask you a question. Are you all tired of being the best kept secret I know you are? Do you feel like maybe you have the expertise, the skills and the passion, but for some reason the bookings, the clients and all of the money, it just isn't flowing in like we want it to? Well, I am super excited because today's guest is about to change all of that for you. I am beyond excited to be talking to Jody today, a powerhouse brand strategist and storytelling expert who helps entrepreneurs go from invisible to in demand. And I know that's what you want, right? We want to be in demand. We have skills and expertise that we want people to know about, right? Joining she's and you know I don't bring on any experts because she's been featured in LA Weekly and New York Weekly. She's all about alignment over hustle. Because who wants to hustle in these 20, 25 days? Not us. Right? Because when you combine confidence, clarity and consistency, one thing that I know is the cash. And the the cash flow will come. So if you're ready to go from overlooked, my friend, to overbooked, let's get into it. Joy dk, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
- [02:26]
B
I'm doing good. Ms. Jo. Thank you for having Me, I'm excited. That was an AM intro by the way.
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C
I am really excited. You know, I do my homework on all the guests and I just want to make you feel warm welcome because you are the expert girl and we are here to talk about all things not being the best kept secret, which is something that I am super passionate about. So let's get right into it. I want to talk about how many entrepreneurs struggle with being seen. Okay, we showing up, right, we're posting, but we still feel invisible. So what is the biggest reason that you feel people stay hidden gems instead of being overbook experts? Because that's what we're trying to be, right?
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B
That's it. You know, so my background is in nlp, neuro linguistic programming. I got that certification because I found out that a lot of these visibility blockages that we have, it's all starting in the mind. And so for us to be truly visible, we have to learn how to get comfortable being seen for us, who we really are and accepting that right offline. And then it's going to be a lot more comfortable for us to accept where we are, our journey and share that with the world online. So, so visibility really is that thing where it's. If you are afraid of showing up because you don't have, you think that you have to have the aesthetic home, right? That was like a little trend for a while. You don't. I started in my two bedroom apartment with a little backdrop. We talking brown carpet, brown furniture, no fancy accents or anything. And I'm so happy because that YouTube channel was actually like the gateway to so many other things right now. The other thing is I have a lisp, I have a diaspora sometimes. I'm not wearing makeup right now. I did you just saw. I just was like, let me go put some earrings in. And I'm like, well, that's it for today. That's it folks. Because I'm in the middle of moving, doing all these things. So it's like I'm not stopping myself from showing up in my in between. You know, people will see me on socials and it's like I've got the glam, I'm on the red carpet, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, I'm in these certain rooms. But then I'm not afraid to show up like this too. They'll see me like this in my story. But that came with mindset. So all this to say is visibility is really you being able to accept who you are and being able to, you know, we Hear the word unapologetically all the time. But really, there's a level of getting over your own embarrassment that you might have by saying, well, I don't have my hair done, I don't have my nails, and I don't have my lashes on. That's for the girls, right? For the guys, it might be, well, I don't have the Rolex. I don't have the car. I don't have all these things that people might claim. Right? That's other people's version of success, not your own. So you have to understand that success looks like. What does success look like for you and for me when I coined that system? Clarity, confidence, and cash flow. If I have clarity, I know I can be successful. If I know where I want to go and I know what I want to do, the next step is the confidence to execute. No matter what resources I think or I think I have or I don't have. And then if I have the clarity and the confidence, I can create the strategy where the cash flow comes. So that's my take on visibility.
- [05:15]
C
That was a masterclass. I hope you all got your pens and notepads, and you all know how I feel. You. You said so many things that I can just definitely resonate with one being. I don't have, like, the. A super aesthetic house. Like, I've lived in my house for the last 13 years, and it did get in my head. I recently posted about this. Like, it did get in my head, like, okay, I can't post this angle. I gotta be at the. And then I just started to say, well, forget it. At least I have a house. That's like a. I have a house. Michelle, you have a house, right? So we're thinking we gotta have the perfect thing to show up. I am filming this podcast. I want you all to know this is my office bedroom. Like, this is a space that I created. It is working. This is a top 1% podcast. Because I show up in my room. You do not have to have all this stuff.
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B
And the corner looks good. You got your light.
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C
That's all this.
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B
We just need. We just got the little light everything, right?
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C
If you can see this on YouTube, you might want to go to YouTube and check out the interviews on YouTube as well. So you can see us talking. But, yes, you don't need all that stuff. You just need to show up consistently, because that'll beat everything. It'll beat everything. You masterclass. I know this conversation is going to be good, y'. All, so get your notepads. If you don't have them already. But let's, let's talk about hustling. Right? We do always hear about hustle, harder to get noticed. But I don't believe in that. Even in 2025, I started to be more like, you are going to talk about in alignment and not the hustle. Can you break this down for us, this new way that we should really be focusing on?
- [06:41]
B
Yeah. You know, I coined this term also success flow. So a lot of, a lot of parts about my brand. You know, I have these, these frameworks and the structure because I really want people to understand the importance of creating your own destiny. And that starts by you breaking, like breaking the chains and the attachments of what you've been told, what success looks like, and redefining what all of that means for you. So if you want to build a bigger brand, if you want to get on different platforms, if you want to create impact and income, and it really all starts with you having a sense of clarity on where you want to go. That's. That's the first start, the first part. Right. But I feel like a lot of people get stuck in other people's definition of success. And so it clouds your judgment and it clouds your clarity. So all of the visibility that we're trying to seek, it becomes like the brain is saying, well, I can't do that or I can't accomplish that. And now your brain is finding all these ways where you can't versus finding all these ways that you can, if.
- [07:49]
C
That makes sense, leads us into the next thing I want to talk about. Confidence and clarity are the key, right. To building a powerful brand. But most people, they don't even know where to start. So let's talk about. You were talking about mind. Mindset shifts and you, we gotta shift our mindset. You don't even have to be everywhere. I know you may see someone like me. You're listening, right? And you're like, dang. Michelle is on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. She on all these tweets. Like, how's she doing that? I want you to also know that I have been doing this and I'm sure Jody K as well. We have been doing this years, since 2009, I've been creating content for social media. So like, my social media and digital footprint is like, it goes far back. If you search me, if you Google my name, you'll see, like, there's so much content from way back. Right. So I've been building on that. So many people may see that, like oh, my God. I got to be everywhere. But if you're just starting out, that's super impossible, Right? So for someone who's thinking, like, it's too big for them, what is the mindset shift and some of the steps we need to take to stop playing small and build a powerful brand because we don't know where to start.
- [08:50]
B
Yeah, yeah. Break it down and you start with you. That sounds so cliche. But when you know that, hey, I really like fashion. I'm really. I can naturally speak on business or marketing. I always say, if I were to hand you a mic and say, look, I got you on a TED Talk stage, and you don't have time to prepare, what is the first thing that comes to mind for you? And that's really where you should start to focus on. Now you might say, well, I'm a mom, and I don't want to focus on, you know, just motherhood. I'm so much more than that. Okay, well, if you don't have a response, if you don't know what that so much more looks like, start there. Because it's the imperfect actions that's going to lead you to the actual clarity. Clarity is really all about moving forward. So if you notice all of my answers to all of these questions, it's like, it starts with you. It starts with you. And we have this, like, avoidant personalities, like the whole world does, where we do avoid ourselves. Sometimes we want to get distracted, whether it's with friends. We're looking for a lover, a husband, a s. A wife, a significant other, boyfriend, girlfriend. We're looking for friends. We're looking to be invited. We're looking to be in the room. We're always looking externally for all this external validation where we're not comfortable all the time sitting with ourselves. Now I'm a little bit different. I love to be inside. I love to be in the house. Like, all of that on Social, it's like I'm an ambivert. So I get a little bit kind of, like, drained really easily. So one thing about me, too, is that I've. I've trained myself to be someone who seeks internal validation, not external validation, right? And so when I'm seeking internal validation, I can really say, hey, it's not that I don't know. It's just that I haven't scheduled time with myself. Instead of going to call my homegirl, call my best friend, call whoever, you know, hire the coach, hire the mentor. That's what we're here for. We're definitely here to support you through that. But, but sometimes really all you need is like, schedule an hour by yourself. No distractions, no phone, no social media, no friends, no networking event, no. No being outside, no nothing. Right. Really, just sit with yourself. Notebook, pen and paper, laptop. And get real with yourself on who are you? Because building a brand is all about perception. How do you want to be perceived? If you want to be perceived as someone who helps others, okay, you know, your content is going to be educational. If you want to be perceived as someone who has a story that inspires others to take action, hey, you know, I went through some things. I'm a domestic violence survivor. We can use as an example. That's where you might be using your platform to inspire. If you are someone who has quick hacks or you're, you have been through a lot and you have a unique way of living, you have a solution. Show people that solution. So now it's really that simple. You sit down, you say, how do I want to be perceived? That's going to help you with your content marketing strategy, where you now can put your content in these different sections of educational, inspirational. Or maybe you just have a bomb personality. You just have to hit record and you're going to make people laugh, cry, think that's the next category. Entertainment, right? So all of that, I could sit here with you, Michelle, and just ask you a couple of questions and say, well, this is a strategy I would give to you, but that's all I'm doing as a strategist. So I'm giving you the tea. Like, other people can do this for themselves. You don't have to hire the strategist. I, I appreciate it though. You know, come my way, I got you. But the first step is get that clarity for yourself. Be real on how you want to be perceived, what you want to do, what you're naturally good at. Because no one wants to sit here and be like, well, I can't do this because I don't know how to edit in canva. Well, I can't do that because I'm not a video editor. Okay, Maybe you start out on Facebook writing captions, go to Threads, maybe you're on LinkedIn, you're writing blog posts, right? It's always an excuse because we see other people in different chapters than us. So if you're at chapter one and you're like, well, shoot, okay, I did that exercise, Jodi. Now what? Let's be solution minded. First, let's not think just because now you don't know how to edit videos. And maybe you don't have the budget right now that you can't be a video content creator. Maybe it looks like you only doing 30 seconds, 1 minute, 15 second sound bites where you don't have to edit at all. Right. So there's always a solution. But if you're kind of like spreading your energy thin and all over, you're not. I do believe in, like, divine downloads. You're not going to have clarity. You're going to be confused. And we know confusion comes from the devil. You're going to be overwhelmed with all the options and possibilities and choices, and you're going to listen to the voices of others who are not on the same path, who do not have the same calling as you, and you're going to listen to all of their objections. And really, that's, that's where we get stuck.
- [13:23]
C
Ooh, I told you all this was going to be a masterclass, so that was good. We need to stop playing small. We're. We're shifting our minds to playing big and showing up in 2025. And so I am right there with you. I agree with everything. Like, we, girl, we, we only met today. You all too. I feel like though the people that I bring on this podcast, we are friends and people bring their true, authentic selves. That's what I like. Right. I seek that out. And I think that when you're building a personal brand and you're seeking that out, like you seek out the people who are for you because everybody's not going to be for you when you build this personal brand. Okay. Just know that. But you said something about showing up authentic. Authentically you. I show up as myself. I mean, minimal makeup, like you said, how I need to show up because I know that what I'm doing is helping somebody. Okay. So all of us have skills. Now let's talk about the tactical how to monetize. This is what I love. This is. You all know, right? I feel like I'm the monetization queen. So you also help people monetize their expertise. And I want to hear your step by step priority process, because we can just be another expert. But no, we want to be sought after. That is what's in my, like, bio. Like, Michelle is a sought after. You want people to be calling you up. You want people to be breaking down your emails to get on your podcast. You want people to be breaking down your email to have you at their summit. But how do we do that?
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B
Yes. You know, that is something where the actual step by step, there's like 30 prompts that I give. If you go to WW JODK Edwards J O D I K A Y Edward S Forward slash CEO, I'm actually giving that all away for free. I'm going to give you a quick, high level, but as if you want it delivered in your inbox. Like, as of the time of this recording, there's no upsell. It's like, it's really just, you're going to get those things and every day is something you can take action. And the reason I did that is because I don't believe in gatekeeping. Now it's really just a matter of time. What people are paying me for is the time. I will share strategy all day. Now, if you want me to be the one who reaches out to these brands and pitches you and gets you in the room and takes your photos and edits your content and you want my team and I to post it and do all these extra things, well, baby, sorry, it's. It's time or money, but it's like, I'm not above telling people exactly how to do that. So for the first step, it really is getting clear on your messaging, which is like, oh, what does that even mean? So you can't get clear on your messaging if you don't know how you want to be perceived. That's why I started that way. Brand. The definition of like a brand is really just perception. At any given time, there's like hundreds of different versions of your brand because there's hundreds of different people perceiving you. So that version is like, how can we kind of corral them in now? Because there's going to be this perception that Jody is a brand manager. She is a socialite. She is on the scene, but she's also behind the scenes. That's the name of my media and marketing company. She's also someone who's going to. Who's no bs. All of that is visible through my content or even when you get to know me. But that also means I can take that perception and put words behind it. Right? So when I say things like get seen and get paid, it's setting the precedent for, okay, her content is either going to help me with visibility or help me with monetization. Right? So a big part of monetization is you can't make money if no one understands what you do and how you can help them. That's why I say start with messaging, get clear. If you need an I help statement, I help CEOs and creatives get seen and get paid using content marketing. Right, who do I help? There's my niche and we can talk about niching down later. It's really just, you can't help everyone and you need to focus. So if you don't want content to be all over the place, I suggest making content for just a certain amount of people. Now, I'm not going to say you have to niche down. If you've got the bandwidth and the energy to be for everyone, you can do it that way too. It just leads to burnout. So I'm kind of the opposite of most business coaches. You don't have to niche down, but it definitely helps you get there faster. Because when you think of Apple, they came out with one product first and then another and another and another. We didn't just get the iPhone and the Mac and the, the laptop and the Apple Watch all at the same time. So we have to look at bigger businesses and follow in their footsteps because there's, there's, there's a blueprint there. No point in reinventing the wheel. So after you have your messaging down, now you have a pillar that you can put into your content marketing strategy. If I'm just sitting in a room and I have no online presence and no one's in that room with me, no one knows I'm going, no one knows I exist. So we have to learn how to also create this online identity. Now, I like my online identity. I use personal branding as a strategy. So my online identity is my actual identity right now. You don't have to do that though, because if you have a business and you're saying, I hear this all the time, I don't like social media. And you don't like to make money either. That's, that's cool. Go get a job. Like, go get a nine to five. That's all good. It's just, I don't know why people even say that to me. Because I'm saying you get to curate exactly what you put on social media and you are the strategist. So if you don't want people to know this, you don't have to use a personal brand strategy. That's just what I do because I like to connect and my job is very personal. I'm in your home, I'm flying out with you. I'm on a plane with you. I'm there with you when your kids are walking across the stage at graduation. I'm there when you're, you're cussing out your husband. I'm a brand manager. We're talking about the real here. So for me, it makes sense for my personality for people to kind of shot me online because I'm not just coming to your house to take a couple photos. I'm all in your space, I'm all in your business. We're talking real talk. Like, how much do you want to bring in? What are you bringing in now? How can we create a strategy that's going to amplify that? These are real conversations. So I think when people see how much I'm online, they forget how much I'm also not online because they don't see that. People don't know I play the piano. I don't make content about playing the piano. I'm not a good singer. But people don't know unless I post a little, a little snippet of me bopping along in my car, right? They don't know that. I don't talk about my military experience a lot where it's like, yo, girl can run. I can do hand to hand combat, I can shoot a grenade. I know how to shoot most weapons. You see me in my little dress on the red carpet. You wouldn't know that. So again, it's like, well, that's not what I'm trying to build my brand around. So you see how easy it is to leave certain things off social media. It's, it's all, it's all a process, but also the authenticity is there. So it's like, I'm not saying go create this whole fake Persona. It's just be real. If you want to sell dog food and that has nothing to do with your brand story or who you are, go sell that, sell that dog food on that social media. Like stop saying I don't like social media. That's doing nothing for you. So monetizing also requires that you have clarity on your strategy so you can connect with the right target audience that needs what you have to offer. If I'm a dog owner scrolling and you're just chilling in your house, but you have something for my dog that maybe has cancer and you use all natural ingredients, I want to hear that story. I want to hear why you made that dog food, specifically that way. I want to know, did you lose a pet? Because I lost a pet, right? And that's going to be like something that I'm going to connect with only because I saw it online, only because this is the key. This phone right here is the key to pretty much everything. So it's, there's a typical ways to monetize Right. Like you have. And I'll just give the quick answer, but that's the mind. That's why I do mindset with it. Because if I would just say, oh, yeah, there's some ways to monetize. You can do brand deals, but how you got a pitch, how you have to have the message, you have to have value. How. Right? It goes deeper and deeper, deeper. If I was just like, yeah, social media actually will pay you to post, but how they're not going to just pay you after one post. They're going to look for consistency. Facebook will only pay you after you have been consistently posting. Whether it's videos or photos or copy, there's three ways to post consistently. So I don't believe in just telling the how I like to do the mindset behind it.
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C
Oh, no, that was good. And another masterclass. This has been such a great episode. You dropped so many gems, and I'm just over here shaking my head like, yes, yes. Like, yeah, I want to be an influencer. How you have to post, you have to. You have to know how to pitch. You have to know how to tell a story to sell somebody else's product. There's, like, so many levels to this. And I know we cannot get to all the levels today on today's podcast, but see you all, we can go deeper. Okay. You know where to find us, right? So I want, before we head out, I want to ask this last question too, about, you know, action steps, because I'm all about taking action on this podcast. You all know that. So if someone is listening, they've been listening, thinking, okay, I need to level up my personal brand asap or my brand asap. What is the one action step that they should take today to even start that process?
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B
It's going to be scheduling CEO time. You are the CEO of your life. You need to hire and fire accordingly. And so sometimes that means hiring new personalities and firing old personalities that you have within you. And so the first step is to write it down. Most business owners that I work with at the higher level, they have what we call sop, standard operating procedures. I teach entrepreneurs how to do that for themselves. If you always have it all in your head or you just told your kid or your best friend or something, that's not a. There's no operating procedure there. So you're always going to rely on your memory, and your brain can be overwhelmed one day or exhausted one day or tired one day, or just really, like, you just forget. Like, sometimes I forget too. So sit down Write it down. Write down your plan. It doesn't have to be called a business plan. Just write down what you do, who you are, how you want to be perceived. What are the different ways you're going to monetize? Are you going to have a product or service? Do you understand how to do storytelling around that product or that service? Or are you going to pitch it? There's a lot of people out there that don't have a social media presence. However, those guys are golden. They have a portfolio that is diversified. They are investing in the people with social media. So don't get it twisted. You don't have to have a social media presence, but those guys aren't using social media to generate income. Looking at people's social media and investing, you know, whether it's a pitch deck or whether it's some type of online brand presence, those guys are generally the ones. There's like those four quadrants. I don't know if you. What is that book called? It's super, super good, but it talks about the four quadrants and it's like you want to get to the investor level eventually, right? So right now I think most of us are kind of like in these other quadrants where we maybe haven't taken action as much as we need to. We maybe haven't had as much clarity as we need to. We maybe haven't healed. We haven't healed. So we have all this mental chatter, we have all of these excuses, we have all of this. You know, we're kind of in the beginner baby stages. But there's a beautiful level to transition into where you are certain of yourself, you are certain of your policies, of your procedures, you are certain of the actions you need to take. And now you're in the phase of just consistently doing it. But don't get stuck there. If you've been doing something for three months, six months, a year, it's time to scale it. Because that's also what I do. I come in, I look at your systems and your structure and we talk about how can we scale it. We've turned 1 into 2, 2 into 4, 4 into 6. Now how would you turn 6 into 120, 120 into like 280. Right? It's just like, how are we going to keep doubling, doubling down, Building the team, building the income, building the impact. So as crazy as it sounds, it really all starts with one the clarity. You writing down some type of process that you can rinse, tweak and repeat. So you have data in your business. So you can start to say, well, when I post on this day, or these people seem to like this and you know this, this post is going to do really well. So let me make this kind of post to get a bunch of sales right? Or this pitch worked really well. Let me send this pitch to another brand because this got me a $5,000 brand deal. So that's where I'm like, write it down so you can track the data. That's the best way to start.
- [25:03]
C
This has been such a good episode and Jody K. You just gave us a whole blueprint to get seen and paid. And I know so many people listening are ready to stop being invisible and ready to step into their power. And you have given us, like I said, the blueprint. But before we wrap up here today, please tell us where we can connect with you, work with you and soak up all of your genius.
- [25:26]
B
Yes. Thank you. This is so amazing. It feels so good to give. You can find me at Jodi K. Edwards everywhere. Jo D I K A Y E D W A r d s LinkedIn, Instagram threads, TikTok and again, if you want to opt in to check out that 30 day challenge, it's just you pushing yourself for 30 days to show up, get visible, get seen and get paid. You can go to www.jodi kamrass.com CEO Yes.
- [25:51]
C
And I will have all that information down below in the show notes. If you love this episode, make sure you take a screenshot and share it on your Instagram Stories and tag odykedwards and Michelle lthames and let us know what's one action step that you're going to take to build your brand and get paid for your expertise. I will talk to y' all in the next one. Peace.
- [26:13]
A
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B
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