Small Business Savvy | Web Design, Systems, and Marketing · Kristen Doyle, web design and business strategy

156. The Candy Crush Rule for Social Media Success with Kate Gilbert

July 15, 2025·33 min·2 clips

Kate asks: “How often are you sitting online judging everybody you scroll past?”

Kate Gilbert starts from a familiar place. A lot of business owners know they should post on social media, but the second they sit down to do it, the worry shows up: no engagement, judgment, embarrassment, and the feeling that failure will be visible to everyone. The episode treats that reaction as normal. Instead of pushing the listener to post more for its own sake, Kate describes her work as a mix of compassionate support and a can do attitude, the kind of coaching that helps people get unstuck without pretending the fear is imaginary. Her programs, including Post-it Pronto and 30-Day Sprint, come up as examples of turning social media struggles into strategies you can use to improve your business. The host says she appreciates that approach because it is not about posting every day or chasing huge follower counts or any other vanity metrics. That keeps the conversation grounded. A big thread in the middle of the episode is the idea that the algorithm is not a single machine you can crack with one trick. Kate explains that it changes based on what people are interested in, what is happening live, and even what else is taking over attention that day, which means there is a limit to how much anyone can engineer the outcome. From there, the advice gets more practical. You can ask for the follow, remind people where to find you, change how you ask, and keep showing up, but you cannot make someone click, like, follow, or comment. That distinction matters because it gives business owners a clearer job. Do the part you can actually do. Let the rest go. Kate also makes room for the uncomfortable truth that not everyone is your person right now. Sometimes someone will never be. If you do not want to hear the occasional bad word, you are probably not going to like hanging out with her. That is not a failure so much as a fit issue. The episode keeps returning to that calmer way of thinking, where repeated exposure and clearer asks matter more than trying to please everybody. It feels less like a strategy keynote and more like a steady conversation with someone helping you look at the work without dramatizing it. The result is a practical reset for anyone who has been treating social media like a test they are about to fail.

As heard by us

A calmer way to think about social media when posting starts to feel personal.

The discussion frames social media as a place where anxiety and resistance can stop business owners before they post. Kate Gilbert, a business coach, offers a steadier angle: not daily posting, not follower chasing, and not vanity metrics, but attention to what can actually be…

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Why you'd press play

When posting feels personal, this gives you a steadier way to show up online.

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