It's no surprise to us that the podcast is growing at the rate it is. That's Grace Andrews, the marketing mastermind behind Stephen Bartlett and the Dire of a CEO, the fastest growing podcast in the world. In this episode, Grace reveals their social strategy that took the podcast from 6,000 subscribers to 4 million. The podcast had 5,000 followers on YouTube. Steve sat me down and he went, the next three months of your life are going to be the craziest learning curve of your life. And he was right. The behind the scenes secrets to DOAC success. Every... episode there's like 20 thumbnails being tested 100 100 thumbnails being tested what most people get wrong about social media do not belong on instagram and i will hang my neck on that line trust me no one cares about it as much as you do and loads more we've actually taken it a step further and i don't think anyone's in the team maybe even steve hasn't spoken about this yet This is an absolute masterclass. I really hope you enjoy it. If you do, please subscribe and let's dive in. So Grace, thanks so much for doing this. Really appreciate it. Let's start at the beginning. How do you start working for Stephen Butler? Always good to start at the beginning. So I was freelancing and I think it's worth noting that I have no marketing qualifications either. I had just finished as the pandemic was like evolving or like coming about I just finished a broadcast journalism master's degree because I thought I wanted to be a journalist like I was sat on being 10 o'clock news behind the desk presenting like that's all I wanted had to get this quite qualification ticked off anyway that finishes up and there's no jobs. Like the pandemic is in full swing. There's no way to get work experience. You need work experience to get into the industry. It's one of those like, who you know, who you know. And so I took matters into my own hands. And we'd actually studied as part of the degree, social media journalism. And that was my first introduction to the world of social media from a like a business perspective, as opposed to a user perspective, because we're all users, right? And I... I came away and went, well, I'm going to have to make the most of this. I'm back home in my childhood bedroom. I have no way into this industry. I'm going to force my way in and I'm going to push those doors open so that when the world opens up again, I'm there, I'm primed, I'm ready. So I, on a whim, set up The Social Climber, which is kind of what I go by online. And I started creating my own educational content to mainly educate myself. so that I could develop this authority to then start to educate others and attract kind of clients. I started picking up some freelance work. I mean, originally at the start, it was all free. So like totally pro bono and I worked my way up and I like figured out socials. I figured out what worked. I figured out how to stay ahead, figured out the trends and the platforms. And like, I spent a lot of time learning, which is so important. Like people just, we were, we were laughing because, or I probably shouldn't say we were laughing, but we put a job out for a social media manager and anyone thinks they can do a social media manager role because they use social media. You need so much willingness to learn and like drive and passion. We can go into that. But I started freelancing, I was building up a good client base and I was really, really enjoying it. I loved the freedom and flexibility and the ownership and I loved all my clients I was working with. And then this job post comes along, Stephen Bartlett posts on LinkedIn, I'm looking for a social media manager. And I was not looking for a role, which is always how it happens, right? It's when you're not looking, it's when you're really enjoying what you're doing. So I thought. That's going to be kind of my fork in the road moment. And I could either kind of carry on what I'm doing, develop at the rate I'm going. It's going well. It's going fine. It'll be like a slow burner. Or I can skip ahead 10 years, learn from the absolute best in the industry. And so we, I applied on a whim and it was like three bullet points, you know, his job hiring process. And I didn't, I half didn't expect anything from it and half of me was like, I'm going to try and make this happen. So I contacted everyone in the team. Well, there was only one person in the team at the time. And I was like, hey, can I get some insight? How could I get in? And within two weeks, like I'd started because I got in at the right time. And it wasn't, it's not a case of, you know, there's obviously an element of luck and there's an element of right place, right time. But I'd also been working and grinding behind the scenes so that when this opportunity came up, I was actually like a very good qualified candidate and I had the proof and I could demonstrate it. And I was willing to just kind of get stuck in, which. if you've ever worked in like small small small startup environment like you do a bit of everything and since then coming up for three years ago I've kind of evolved from social media manager where the podcast had you know less than 10,000 followers across the platforms just me and the podcast producer to marketing director position where I'm kind of leading a team of five six hiring a couple more at the moment and it's been a wild ride. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I love the, I think it's amazing when you actually sit on the other side of the fence, you realise the bar is so low when you're putting out job roles. So anyone who just comes across like they really want this and they like send those extra messages, all that other kind of stuff, you just stand out and it's such an important thing, such an easy thing, but no one does it. It also makes my life so much easier. Like if you can stand out to me and demonstrate to me why you're good so I don't have to go through a lot of applications, it saves me so much time. So in this, you know, this role that we're hiring for at the moment, Dell Act Social Media Manager, they're going to be responsible for the growth of the podcast on socials. The people that have stood out and the people I'm drawn to are the people who've reached out to me on my personal channels, connected with me on LinkedIn. They've gone above and beyond. They sent examples. They've sent case studies. They've done stuff I haven't asked. because I see that spark, it gives me more than like a piece of paper or three bullet points can ever do. And they're the people I'm interviewing. And I know there's kind of a lot to be said about, you know, people don't have time and capacity to be doing all these extra like flamboyant things. But if you're set on a role that you think genuinely has the power to change your life, I'm not even being dramatic. Put all your eggs in the basket, like go for it and just set yourself apart from the masses who are applying in the traditional way. And don't get me started on LinkedIn easy apply because there's no point. Yeah. And it's like when you come to that Instagram page and someone's like, or built the digital CV, that's what I want. I don't want to look at your actual CV. The best things are when people send me like a two minute video about them. I'm like done, got to know you, got to know you on a way deeper level. I now feel more connected to you and I feel like at least I owe you a reply. Whereas when I'm getting a piece of paper, it's a little bit human-less. And I mean, I'm not, you know, like we don't need to talk about recruitment on this cause I'm not a top recruiter, but that's, that's my method to the madness. Yeah. I think it's worth just, um, that we did just cover that though, but let's, I'd love this to be like a masterclass in marketing, podcast marketing, social media. So maybe we start at those first few weeks. What do the social channels look like at that point? And then like, where are they today? Sure. So when I started Reels weren't a thing. TikTok wasn't a thing. Posting videos to LinkedIn wasn't really a thing. So we're going back to like very text based. And this is only two, two and a half, three years ago, which is crazy when you think about the evolution of these platforms. So we introduced, I introduced short form content essentially to the strategy, which as we all know, the boom of short form content across TikTok, across YouTube shorts, across Instagram has been phenomenal in getting new eyes onto your content and getting that reach. And that was a huge turning point for us. But those first few weeks, Steve sat me down and he went. the next three months of your life are going to be the craziest learning curve of your life. And he was right. And I learned so much. I sat next to him, you know, day in, day out. He's literally built a social, the UK's leading social media agency at the time from the ground up. He knows everything about social media, which is really rare to have a boss. who is well-versed, better versed than you in social media, what I often have is people messaging saying, how do I convince the stakeholders to get on board with this campaign or this creative? How do I extend my marketing budget? And I really have to sit back and go, you know, I'm not the person to ask on that because I've always been. less informed than the person I'm working for um or you know trying to stay ahead and be at their level which has been a like a fantastic chasing opportunity yeah on day one though are you what are they like YouTube's at like 10,000 personally yeah like on Instagram what would he have when I joined he had so we already had a base of 1 million on Instagram big audiences like already in the millions so it's different to kind of the ball game I was playing before which was Small businesses, local businesses, thousands of followers, you know, 10,000 followers. So the podcast had, I remember so clearly, had 10.2 thousand followers on the day I joined. And today we're talking, we're, you know, heading maybe when this comes out to 4 million. And that's happened in... the space of two and a half years really maybe two years actually by the time we like really doubled down on the content so yeah the growth has been pretty remarkable and what do those first few weeks look like does do you does he say okay like give me a weekly schedule that there's this schedule already we're already posting this kind of stuff like what is is it a blank canvas and do you set goals do you set a do you start with a strategy like this is my vision for it Like where do you start and is that how you recommend other people start? I wouldn't recommend what I'm about to say. Yeah. But on day one, Steve sat me down and he goes, so when are you going to start posting? And you can imagine me, a million followers on Instagram, you know, a couple hundred thousand on LinkedIn. And he goes, well, when are you going to start posting? And I'm like, what? Like, sure, I'm just going to click post, right? You're going to give me the content. And he was like, if you don't post, you don't learn. And it's so true. So that element of it has stayed with me all the way throughout. I tell my teams all the time, try it. If we don't try, we don't learn. Fail fast. That's our culture. However, there is, you know, merit to creating a social media strategy. The research, the execution and the analysis and that feedback loop is how you're going to kind of gain those, succeed on those incremental gains. And really kind of start to develop that growth strategy. So there's one thing to kind of post and execute and fail fast. But if you don't have that beginning, you know, a research process and you don't have that end analysis, then you're not going to grow. You're going to kind of stay at that same level and actually probably... start to kind of decrease in your growth because you're not growing. So what's that first part, the research bit? And does that involve like saying like, what's the purpose here? Like what do we stand for? Or is that even a piece before that? I think it's always important when you're going in with your social media strat or your podcast strat or whatever it is to understand what you want to achieve. Is it growth? Is it community establishment and nurturing? Is it new eyes? Is it new leads? Because it's going to dictate the type of content you're posting. So that stage is really critical and it's really important to get everyone on board with that because you might get down to demonstrating the content schedule, showing the content schedule and they're going. Well, that post isn't going to convert into any sales for us. And we're going, well, no, we just want to get new eyes. So it's a different strategy. So on that level, being super clear on what you're trying to achieve and creating a framework process to measure it at the other end, critical. But in terms of trying out and testing new things, I think there's like flexibility within that framework. And we don't believe in rigid. formally structured content pillars, which kind of goes against the general narrative of social media managers or people who work in social, because it doesn't give you that flexibility to kind of experiment and have that trust to kind of run with it without having to get signed off from stakeholders, which, you know, I've been lucky enough to have that trust from day one. So. I wouldn't go down as, it depends on the size of your business and what you're trying to achieve. But I think at top level, you need to know what you're trying to achieve. Is it growth? Is it new eyes? Is it conversions? And create your goals around kind of those metrics. And then you've got something to measure in three months. And that might evolve. Three months in, you might go, we've warmed up this audience now. We've got a product coming out. We've got a podcast episode coming out. We're ready to go into the conversion stage. Then your tactics change. Then your messaging changes. Then your tone of voice changes a little bit. So it's important at that level to know what you're going for. Yeah. And I've heard you talk about brands like Red Bull. They help foster a feeling. Can you talk a little bit about that? How you see that for Daira as well? Of course. I think, so people buy from people, right? And the reason that, you know, this old adage, the old saying is because people buy from connection and from feeling and from a place of vulnerability. If you're posting about your product online, trust me, no one cares about it as much as you do. How do you get them to care? You've got to show that feeling and emotion and build connection on that level that's beneath the surface. So that when you do release the products or you do bring anything out, people are there to buy because they're so eager and they're so desperate to get involved because they've built that established connection. And we're seeing more and more on socials that that connection, that community piece is so pivotal and important. That warm up process that. build up that tease that bringing the kind of user journey on the bringing the user on the journey and the build is so pivotal and why I talk about Red Bull is because their product is an energy drink you go on their socials you're not going to see a picture of an energy drink I promise you there won't be a single picture of an energy drink there might be incorporated into an asset someone drinking at some point because it's part of part of the brand but there will be not one single product photo product photos do not belong on Instagram and I will Hang my neck on that line. Like product photos do not belong on Instagram because people are not looking to be sold to. It's like a repellent to organic social media users. They don't want to see sales. They don't want to feel like they're being sold to and they don't want to feel like they're consuming something that's an ad, which is why Red Bull do it so well because you go on their feed and they're creating a feeling, a community, a connection, which is what we need to achieve with our social media organic channels. because it's also really important to remember that social media is just one of your channels in your marketing mix or it should be anyway maybe your place to sell if you have a podcast is through your email so maybe you're building up your crm database so that when the the time comes to do a live show or sell a product associated with the podcast or expand the brand you've got that database who have signed up who are willing to be sold to Your organic channels, in my opinion, are your opportunity for reach and the content should be all about kind of reach, growth, connection, community. And they're the kind of areas you need to stick to. And I'll come back to Red Bull. What they're creating on their feed is energy. And that's what their brand is about. That's their why. I talk about this a lot. Don't, you know, publish your what, publish your why. Because the why is what's going to draw the connection in. If you want to feel energized, I know that I'm going to go and look on Red Bull. What's the why for Stephen? The why for Stephen and the why for Doak is slightly different. But in terms of Dyer over CEO, we want to... inspire, motivate and engage with as many people as we possibly can on important topics. That's the basis of it. So for us, when you think about that, our content needs to reflect inspiring, educating and engagement on a variety of different topics. You know, we do have CEOs, we had CEO of Spotify on today, but we also have health experts who have, you know, no social profile. And it's, we have... the biggest range of guests, actors, comedians, authors, all sorts. And I think that our goal in terms of marketing it when all this change is happening has to stay the same so we have to keep that front of mind that this is for the community without them they don't exist without without them this doesn't exist so we focus on them at the forefront of every single thing we do every clip every post even the long form episode itself we're going is this serving our audience is this catching the attention of someone who doesn't care yeah if you unlock that you're like into the magic yeah I think that's why yours works. Because if you look at it from like the what perspective, it doesn't make any sense. It's like if you were starting a podcast and you spoke to a podcast kind of expert, they would say, pick a niche, stick to it. You know, business, talk to the best entrepreneurs, sport, talk to the best sports people. And Doak is like. evolved and it's been a journey but like if you were to say speak to all these different people from different fields you might think that doesn't make sense but because you've got that why and like what you're trying to get from every conversation and then demonstrate that for every piece of content you create I think that's what makes it so special we want people to finish an episode finish watching an episode listing leaving having gained something yeah that's that's our mission it's and you know we get the most unbelievable unbelievably motivating kind of letters and emails and dms of people who say you know this episode changed my life and that's our why like that we go fuck we need to double down and do this 10 times more because these are real people and it's touching them in a really really genuine way and that's our reason that's that's why we keep doing it yeah let's get a bit more into the nitty-gritty um of the the podcast and how marketing and social kind of shapes it do you how involved are you with with guests and topic selection and that kind of thing so at the start we were doing everything from guest booking you trailer editing before we had our pros on board clip cutting topic selection title testing all of that stuff and as we've grown and evolved we've established a team of experts so we now have a podcast booking team which and a research team and a production team and a social team eclipse team and it's it's a content generating machine so there are experts in you You know, I'm one member of the team and there's experts in all of their different areas within the team. So you're constantly learning from everyone, but it means we are able to scale and work at the speed we do. I think when... What's often confused is we'll speak to a kind of a smaller, more like startup level podcast, which we were at just a couple of years ago, so I can relate. And they go, oh, you know, the Diver CEO are getting 10 clips out a day across all their channels. You know, how can we possibly compete? And remember, we've got resource, you know, remember, it didn't start that way. We started with one clip a day and then we built up sustainably. with the resource we had available. So, you know, the comparison game can be very damaging and detrimental, but it's also important to remember that like we did start there as well. We started just figuring it out and just trying new things and just trying to market a podcast in a way that no one else was doing it. Yeah. Let's talk through some of those kind of breakthrough bits and chunks. There's the short form video. Yeah. How do you approach that? Our short form video strategy is all focused around how we can reach new people and keep them engaged for as long as possible. We're actually not super interested in directing them to the long form piece of content. So... we'll let them know where it is, but we're not selling, which I think is really important. We're not kind of pushing it down their throats that they need to go and see the long form, because actually short form is a visual art in itself that people are consuming more and more and more. Eventually they might talk about it offline and you might develop these warm needs that then turn into people who go and watch, but we're not pushing it down their throats. So in terms of how the process looks is we'll usually have someone sitting in on the recording. So we have a green room, someone's listening live. speed up the process because then they can highlight the moments that we've come to learn perform best on our different channels so we know that anything about sort of health, whether it's mental and physical, relationships, performs really well on Instagram. We know anything to do with work-life balance or careers or entrepreneurship bangs on LinkedIn. We know that on TikTok, the craziest thing happened, the craziest things happened. So anything that, anything from a 10 minute clip of, I mean, we shared this week, a 10 minute clip of Maisie Williams literally sobbing and breaking down in tears. And it's got 7 million views to you. two second behind the scene moments. You know, TikTok's our space where we do a lot of experimental stuff. So we'll get the long form piece. Someone will sit in. They'll highlight those key moments. They'll then take that. Sometimes it's an editor, sometimes it's a social person. If they can't be live, they'll be watching the recording. They're marking down the moments and then it will go to our dedicated clips editors of which we have two. And sometimes we work with freelancers if there's a volume of them as well. And they will work religiously to make sure that those clips have the perfect story arc. the best hook possible, which might not be the start of the clip. You might be dragging the middle to the start so that you get those people in. Those first three seconds, as we all know, those first one and a half, two seconds are the most pivotal to your watch time. If you can get them in for that, you're probably going to hook them for five, 10, 15, which means your content is going to get shown to more people. So that's why that's so important. And then to come back to your story arc, has it got a beginning, middle and end? Is it serving a point? Do you finish the clip going? Cool, I learned something or that was interesting or that felt complete. And I think that's really missing from a lot of people's content at the moment. They will see the podcast, slice it up, maybe using the kind of some of these AI tools, which I don't think are producing the best clips yet. And you'll kind of end up with a bit of a washy unproduced point. So that's kind of the basic level. And we're also not set on that. Every podcast episode must produce 10 clips. Some episodes will get 20 clips, some episodes will get two. We're not going to compromise the standard to force them to happen. So I think it's also really important to have like flexibility because not every guest is perfect for every platform and forcing and repurposing it straight into those other platforms is probably not going to be where the audience are going to best receive it. So really think about your platforms, really think about that story arc and that three second hook. And then, you know, short form has evolved so much in the last few years. How can you level it up? Can you bring graphics in? Can you bring sound in? Can you bring BTS moments in? Can you bring comedy in? What can you do to level up that clip to make it as engaging as possible? And we're testing stuff all the time from the subtitle style. Are we doing dynamic subs? Are we doing colorful subs? Are we moving the hook from the middle to the start? Because actually that's more engaging. Are we trying 10 minute clips? Are we trying 10 second clips? We're just constantly trying new things because it's the only way we can learn what the sticking points are right now. And I say right now because I'll probably change in three months. The platforms change, the trends change. So it's all about just constantly trying new things, analyzing, seeing what works, seeing what didn't and doing more of what did. Yeah, that's gold. That's an absolute masterclass because so many people, they think, I'll just stick my podcast into Opus or whatever the AI tool is. It will spit out some clips. I'll stick them in the schedule. Bob's your uncle. 100K followers, here I come. I know. And it's like, there's like levels to all of these games, right? And it's not to say that that other approach isn't wrong as a starting point, but then to get your data, but then there are levels to the game. And I think it's... What we've also started to do is create a short form first strategy, which is challenging when you're working with a long form piece. But what we're always looking for is kind of the before the podcast starts and the after the podcast starts, those moments, those behind the scenes moments, those intimate moments that no one gets to see where you're off camera or it's happening kind of out of the podcast environment perform unbelievably well. So it's also worth thinking kind of you've got this whole filming time. Can you use bloopers? Can you use the bits that aren't meant to go on camera? Can you use the bits that don't make the final word out because something happens and it's funny? That's a short form first strategy rather than working backwards from the long form. And I think we're starting to see a... a turn in that in that moment and that's why we you know we're bringing someone on full-time it's gonna start sounding like a hiring hiring pitch and we're bringing on someone full-time to focus on a doack first social strategy that isn't a case of just churning out what we've got second as like a second thought it needs to be a first thought and it needs to be prioritized because podcasts aren't organic growth platforms you You don't get external search views through Spotify or Apple Podcasts. You kind of do through YouTube, but not everyone's even filming their podcast still. So you need those external platforms to be driving views into those platforms. Those are your reach platforms and they go hand in hand. Let's talk about something that I think nails that, which is the trailers. How did they come to be? I can't take any credit for the trailers. We have the most fantastic. I mean, you talk about goats, like the greatest of all time trailer editor, and shout out aunt. And essentially what it started being is we thought, okay, you have a show, you have a movie, you have a TV program, how do they promote it? There'll be a trailer, there'll be a sizzle, there'll be something that draws you in to tease the episode coming out. And we've always thought about doing things differently to how everyone else is doing them. So no one else was doing trailers. No one else was promoting really through social because not many people in the UK were filming. We were one of the first, you know, podcasts, shows to take the video side of it really seriously and not compromise and not use Zoom. So our standards have always stayed kind of here and now we're going above and above and above. And we started with kind of, Jack would just produce a kind of short form version of the long form with the most hooky part at the start and some sort of cliffhanger. And that's what our model was. And then we brought in someone full time who at heart is a storyteller. They... I mean, he is a genius. If you ever kind of have the opportunity to engage with him, like a hundred percent engage with him, he is the leading, you know, leading trailer, the best trailer that exists. He's come from, you know, working in Disney and movies. So it brings another mindset and a different approach and people won't notice, but every single trailer has a new experiment running in it. There's some sort of detail happening. some sort of thing's been turned or changed or amended or being trialed so that they're constantly evolving and constantly getting better and they've become synonymous with the brand and what we think is amazing but also quite funny is seeing everyone creating direct style trailers as a result of it um it's become kind of like industry standard and industry leading in that way which is just remarkable to us because we never could have expected that but it you It's just thinking from first principles. I'm going to sound like Steve here, but how do you get someone to watch something? How do you get people to want more? Serve them a juicy hook, draw them in, and then leave them wanting more at the end. You can do it with a clip, but even better, mash up all the best bits and pop it together in a trailer. It's just thinking about it from how do you get people involved? How do you get anyone to care? position the problem, demonstrate that you're going to offer the solution and then tease them in to come and watch more. And the amount of times I'll kind of be on, you know, if I haven't, and I'll be totally honest, if I haven't been there for the podcast recording and it's maybe not a guest, I think, oh, you know, that's super up my street. I'll watch the trailer and I'm in. And that's how you make someone who doesn't care, care. Yeah, they're genius. And like you say, they've created a whole kind of industry in themselves of like just copycats and all the rest of it and no one can do it anywhere near the same level. I mean, we need a second one and we can't find anyone who could do it. It's such an art. And when I say, you know, everyone's trying to replicate what they see as the final product, no one is seeing what work is going into those. The back and forth, the detail, the storyboarding, the planning. The iterations, the sound obsession, the, you know, taking out the audio and just listening purely to the audio for the moments that create that emotion. No one's seeing the work that goes in, so no one will be able to replicate it. Yeah. I love this framework. It's from Alex Hormozy and it's He sits, he tells his editor, I want you to put together a short form clip for me in an hour and hour goes by. He makes the clip. Alex then comes back and goes, yeah, that's good. What would it look like if I gave you a day? Then he comes back a day later and he shows him that the next version of the clip, he's like, yeah, that looks pretty good now. How about if I give you a week? I'll give you a week. and you know there's levels again to that game if you spend how long is he spending on these like a week or like days we now have so it it was just and we now have someone who's kind of doing the first section and then handing it over to him for the second section so but that's two full-time people two full-time people on the trailers yeah you can't replicate it unless you're willing to resource at that level and commit and dedicate which we were we wanted to double down on this space so that we became industry leading and that's kind of what's happened But he could turn around one in, I think if he worked 24 hours a day, like three days. Yeah. But it's like for, it's a process from the moment the podcast is recording. He's there manually taking notes of the moments. And, you know, he's learned a lot in the last year and a half about the moments that work and the moments that don't work as well. So you start to develop like an ear for it and it means you can get quicker and quicker. But he's amazing. It's so interesting you touched on the experimentation within every single one. Why is experimentation important and what are some of the best? experiments you've run breakthroughs i mean experimentation is the is the key to growth if you're not experimenting on social platforms you best believe you're going to be starting to decline in your your reach and your growth and your performance because the platforms are evolving the audiences are evolving and the content trends are evolving at the speed of light so experimentation is the key to success in terms of A lot of marketing channels, but especially in organic socials. When I think about experiments that we've run, I mean, AB testing podcast titles and thumbnails was... the biggest eye-opener to us. I mean, when I say we're obsessed with experimentation, we've just hired a full-time experimentation manager who actually got taken from my team, which is very devastating because she's incredible. But I'm going to let her flourish in her new role, who is dedicated to executing and analysing experiments within every team to ensure we're always staying ahead and staying one step in front of the curve because as soon as you get complacent, you're done. As soon as you think we're number one now, should we all just take a week off? It's why we don't do series. It's why we've never missed a week in the last two and a half years. We will execute even if all goes tits up. There is an episode going out Monday, 8am, Thursday, 8am because we don't compromise on our standards. Some more experiments. A recent one actually is how can we speed up the process of Steve feeding back the parts of the episode he found really compelling so that they can get featured in the trailer. We've actually, I mean, everything we do is a bit cowboy, but we've glued a track pad to the underneath of the table. You might've seen him speak about this so that when a moment comes up and it's connected to Jack's iPad, Steve will just tap. And it will highlight in the transcript because we're using AI to create the transcript live as it's going along and it's sped up process unbelievably. So that feedback loop has shortened from hours to seconds, which means we've got more capacity to do other things. I think that's also why experimentation is so important. We're all so strapped for time in this fast paced world. How can we find more time and give back time to different members of the team? Yeah. and there's so much that you're saying now which people just don't see I've seen your Facebook ads library for the thumbnails so just talk people through that every episode there's like 20 thumbnails being tested 100 100 thumbnails being tested so I mean it's no secret if you go look in the back end you're gonna see it all and you may have been subbed them before but So say episode's coming out on Thursday, a week before, we are running 100 thumbnails using three different facial expressions and iterating it kind of three times across those facial expressions. We'll then run them for a week up until kind of the day before to understand what is the most engaging title, what are people clicking through to. Also it serves as a fantastic way to build up our subscriber base because the call to action is to go to subscribe so that when the episode comes out, you're ready and waiting. and we'll look at all the data. We'll look at the click-through. We'll look at CPC. We'll look at everything to understand what are the key points people want to talk about. And we've actually taken it a step further, and I don't think anyone's in the team, maybe even Steve hasn't spoken about this yet, but we are now doing a pre-research testing phase. So our researchers will establish the 20, 30 topics that they want Steve to talk about in the conversation. They're kind of the topics that no one else has spoken about before, the research they've uncovered and investigated. And we're now running those as thumbnails to understand the topics that people are more interested in and more inclined to talk about or get engaged with or get involved with. So that that can dictate the conversation Steve leads with and also the assets we lead with in post-production. No one sees any of this unless you're looking. But there's even invisible stuff that we could be here for 10 hours and I couldn't talk about it all because it's all of that kind of invisible stuff that's happening behind the scenes, which is why you're starting to see the compounding growth now. It's no surprise to us that the podcast is growing at the rate it is. It's we six, six months, the work we put in six months ago, the work we put in a year ago is now kind of starting to be seen by the public. You know what they say about if you're, if you're losing weight, you notice it after a month, you're whatever after a month and then everyone noticed it after month three. That's the same with what we're doing. It's invisibly happening behind the scenes. And what we're doing now is going to be representative of the growth that happens probably between like five and 10 million, because the next few months are dictated by what happened six months ago. You can't change that. You can only change what's going to kind of compound for you in the future. Yeah. I think it's always... Good to be thinking, like almost hating what you're putting out now, because you know how good it's going to be in two, three, four, five, six weeks, because you're already working on that stuff and putting in the systems and the processes that are going to like just three times it. I think. the topic selection is is quite interesting as i think chris willicks does a great job of that like certain segments of his podcast are just like perfect for youtube and i'm sure he's like pre-planned them because he's got the title and the thumbnail already pre-programmed just on the titles that's another thing you're a master at it's you you can have a podcast with someone that nobody's ever heard of and sell it how do you do that do you test different stuff and like what's the general approach there So we're testing before we do title tests as well as thumbnail tests. So we're title testing before we're. Looking in the back end of YouTube and understanding what topics perform well, we're looking at kind of that author or industry expert and seeing what people are interested in in their industry. And we're doing all of this research behind the scenes to find the keywords that are going to help the searchability, help the reach and help the recommendation in the YouTube algorithm. Because once you're in the algorithm, you're set. So it's really, really about niching down and finding exactly what is going to trigger those algorithmic shifts. And we're looking at all sorts of things from Google Analytics to research in that specific community and how we can... And the real trick to a title, which I'm not actually directly involved in the process anymore, is really truly understanding. what problem they can solve. And it's about making it broad enough so that people are interested and specific enough so that people feel like this is the one you've got to listen to. And it's not. And we're all, you know, figuring out. But we have criteria that every title option of what we produce, 20 or 30, the producers produce 20 or 30 titles. We then have a spreadsheet of four pieces of criteria that every single one has to tick. in order to pass into the testing process do you know what I mean this sounds like absolutely ridiculous it sounds so pedantic when you say it out loud but it also makes me so proud that we're we're figuring out kind of the loopholes and the things that people aren't doing yet and setting the trends for what's to come yeah you're playing chess and everyone else is playing checkers love that um the youtube is just like the growth on that is crazy is there any Is there any lessons you can share there? Are there any lessons? We're doing something interesting at the moment, which involves engaging with the target communities that we want this to reach, whether that's a demographic, a country, a community, prior to the episode. to get them engaged in order to share as soon as the podcast is released. So we're almost kind of working to build like a network per topic, per guest type, who would ordinarily share organically. But if we can speed up and reduce that gap between going live and them sharing, means that we get that first hour rush. And the first hour on YouTube is pivotal. The first 10 minutes are pivotal. The first hour is... instrumental to the performance of the episode. Yeah, there's things that can come in later. Algorithm shifts, it can get recommended after a different podcast. But how can you hack the algorithm you optimize for that first hour? Which is why the audio goes live at six. We don't promote the episode until eight because eight is when it goes live on YouTube. And the trailer and all the visual assets lend you to wanting to watch because it creates that kind of emotional connection. And it has become more of a show. It's on BBC iPlayer, it's on international airlines, it's on all these devices because people watch it. as much as they listen actually which is quite interesting so in terms of YouTube it's pirating that prioritizing that first hour optimizing and testing your titles so and your thumbnails so you can run There's loads of, I mean, you can now do it actually within YouTube, but TubeBuddy is what we used to use to live test your thumbnails to see what's performing best. You get results after like 48 hours, I think. So you can see if one is outperforming another and you can optimize as you go. So it's not like everything has to happen before and then it's done and you put it out there and you go, you know, good luck. Hope you get, hope you go into the algorithm. It's all the things before and then it's all the things in that first hour, those first 24 hours, those first 48 hours. And we are. I mean, if I leave this, it's a Thursday morning, I'll go and check and we'll have a podcast channel. We have multiple podcast channels on our Slack. There will be 10 people who've screenshot by the 10 minutes, the watch time, the view rate. Is it performing better? Is it performing worse? What can we do to change? What can we tweak? How can we get this performing the top in our last 10 if it's sitting at the bottom? What are some things we can change and experiment with and try and figure out to get it in front of the right audience? And the YouTube algorithm is really interesting and it's worth, there's some great explainer videos on YouTube that I won't do it justice, but it really is about matching up who they believe the video is intended for and how and who you want to reach with this audience with with this long form piece of content and if you get that over at the close you can get those dots to overlap the more chance you're going to get sprung into the algorithm and that means um on the recommended side which if you get in you're you're off to the races and at the end of other people's content so there's some you strategic things you can do keywords topics making sure there's overlap but there's also stuff that people aren't thinking about physically putting your podcast in front of those audiences so that they're drawn in and you're overlapping yeah and i love the the um top boy recent one that like aligned perfectly with something happening the ai one um just quickly as well paid on across your socials do you do much of that Yes, we were in-house and we're currently outsourcing it because we want... The best in the paid world tend to be freelancers and external because they get more budget to work with and they get more chance to explore and try new things. So we're currently using Fantastic External and we do both paid testing and then paid promotion post episode. We also do paid for all sorts of experimentation. We use it as our kind of testing tool because it's controlled variables. And would you do that on YouTube to say like to find that audience immediately? Would you use paid? Yeah. So we will upload the trailer and we'll upload a couple of clips into paid and we are targeting specifically per guest, the ideal audience that we're trying to achieve. So one that comes to mind that I think about all the time is Black Coffee is South African DJ. His episode was kind of going like this. It was fine. It wasn't performing best. It was maybe like mid average. We pumped paid spend behind pushing it to a South African audience, hockey sticks. Because you've suddenly got in front of your target audience and you've been able to manipulate that slightly. And it's a controlled manipulation that's pushing the right people to the right place because it's not getting seen organically. And there you're, are you pushing the episode or are you pushing like a separate clip, which is the trailer on YouTube? We're pushing the trailer. Yeah. We're pushing the trailers, the asset. to and sometimes quote sometimes static quotes as well from the episode statics tend to perform quite well as well we're trying new things all the time but our trailer is our tease and that would be like from instagram to youtube or for on youtube yeah so at the moment we're only running paid on meta and tick tock sometimes so we're yeah we haven't delved into like anything really google or youtube yeah i think that's the other thing that anyone who's a podcast or creator should think about is like where does paid come in because like this is a crazy valuable tool like you say it's the perfect testing environment but like creators are out there and they're like just relying on organic stuff you've spent hours and hours invested loads of money in this piece of content and then you're just like hoping for the best yeah and there's there's So much you can do on a low budget. There's so much if you're willing to think outside the box and not try and replicate because as I've said you you can't see what's going into it you can only see the finished product so you're never going to replicate what's actually going into that. You can try some really cool things and experiment and get in front of new audiences and do some out of home stuff. Look at your other marketing channels. Your marketing mix shouldn't just be organic social. It doesn't make any sense. How are you converting? Are you building a newsletter? Are you doing paid? Are you doing out of home? All these other avenues and channels. When we talk about strategy, I don't love to delve in too much into a social media strategy, but you do need to strategize your media mix. Yeah, 100%. you guys do an amazing job of campaigns and i think that's a little bit more your role now the book launch is a is a cool recent one how would you think about that kind of campaign the book launch was phenomenal we and also it's worth saying we were prepping and planning that book launch for maybe six months And we work with a fantastic publishing house, you know, leading in the country who were able to kind of support with some aspects as well, which was different to last time. The key thing with the book launch, yes, you saw the gold boxes. Yes, you saw the influencer gifting and the paid collaborations with the biggest book pages to get in front of the right audience and the organic content and the competitions and the live event with Simon Sinek. They're all like top level stuff. Do you know what I mean? That's like the sprinkle on top, the magic, the stuff that's going to get it round and get it going, get it to new audiences, get the reach. The stuff we've been doing for the last year and a half is preparing our audience, preparing our community so that when we drop something, they're at it like hawks. They want it, they need it. So it's not really like, yes, there's ROI. We've seen return on investment from those gold boxes and the reach organically from those was phenomenal because of the... strategic element of ensuring everyone had to post that we created like we gamified the experience how do you ensure that someone posts when they get 10 pr boxes a day you say that they can't get in unless they have to post and there's loads of things to play around with there and not doing pr boxes that you see everyone else getting because if everyone else is getting them they don't care about yours it's like what we started with like standing up from the crowd doing things differently but really And again, anyone can replicate the gold box. Anyone can replicate doing a live event on the day. Anyone can replicate giving away 33 gold books. You can't replicate the work you haven't seen us doing for the year and a half warming up our audience so that they are primed and ready for this moment. The teases, everything we've done to make them feel connected and offered so much value for free. in that time podcast is free to consume it's which kind of blows my mind because it's an endless pit of knowledge any subject any topic you're getting an hour and a half two hours of an in-depth mastermind from the leading experts in the country internationally the leading experts in the world so we've offered all that for free so we bring out a book for 10 pounds you best believe they're ready and they're primed and they're ready to buy and this is what i was talking about earlier in terms of you don't just you know you can't just replicate a take-to-market launch that someone else has done because you haven't seen all the groundwork that's gone in behind the scenes for the year before that if you're launching something next year start now start warming up start adding value to your audience in a way that no one else is so that when you are ready to launch that product when you are ready to do the live show they're there in your hands it's how that it sells out every time we release you know the direct live in A year and a half ago when the audience was a quarter of the size, we sold out the London Palladium in seven minutes. They call us and say, we've never sold out a show like that ever. Can we do another night? We're like, okay, we'll try our best. So I was out in 15 minutes. They're like, please one more night, one more night. And then we're like, okay, that's it. So I was out in half an hour because we've created this desire and this like aspirational community where people understand the value they're getting for free. So imagine what you're going to get if you pay for it. And the other type of campaign that you do is where you you partner with brands how do you think about that kind of process brand partnerships are really interesting at the moment because we're seeing some brands and influencers creators get it right and some get it so wrong and the key to a successful brand partnership is creative control with the creator not just sign off not turning up for a shoot and following the script ideation stage whether it's the team or the creator themselves creating the content storyboarding story arcing it because if you are not leading that your audience will see right through and the brand wants to engage with your community and they want your audience that's what they're you know they're using you as a medium to reach a desired target audience hopefully if they've kind of marched up properly so you've got to let the creator have control it it's got better but it blew my mind in the start that we would work with the biggest companies in the world i'm not going to name drop anyone name and shame because we're still working with loads of them and the relationship's got so much better but they would you know be so uh religious about the terms and the, you know, how they wanted it to be without giving the freedom and the creative control to us who knew our audience. And it used to baffle me that these people and these companies were flogging huge volumes of their marketing budget into something that I knew when I hit send wasn't going to convert. So why wouldn't you give the people who were running the brand and running the creative? the ability to communicate with their audience that they do every day about your brand in a really organic and authentic way and there's this general narrative right now that like influencer marketing is dying it's rubbish actually we're seeing a huge rise in the b2b influencer space and especially with micro influencers who aren't full-time influencers that's where you're seeing really interesting stuff happening and you know myself with 15 000 followers that I've kind of grown very slowly and intentionally slowly so they're hyper engaged are getting huge brands come to me because they want to reach 15,000 people it's a huge amount of people who are highly engaged over someone who has five million followers who shot up with a viral reel or a viral TikTok a couple of viral you know elements and actually have a really dead and unengaged audience so there's huge potential for brand collaborations and influencer marketing still if they're willing to relinquish creator control to the creator and that they get the the partnership right you see it so many times where you know they may be as someone down the hierarchical ladder or someone who doesn't really get the space finds these influencers and actually they're really like unmatched and it's not a great overlap if you think about like as a venn diagram with the influencer and the brand you want that depending on what you're trying to achieve with the campaign how big that overlap you want to be in terms of is it acquiring new audience actually is it speaking directly to their audience etc and the overlap is sometimes very very minimal and you are not going to get anywhere if your audience are not interested in the product you're trying to sell to them because that is essentially what we're trying to do yeah and you guys nail that i think when i look at the brands and integrations you do whether it be whoop zoe hugh like crafted they all match and align perfectly i think the other interesting dynamic is when you get to the size of steven with the influence that he does what is the bigger play here because i see he's got he has equity in in hugh zoe some of these things this isn't just a podcast anymore this is just like a media platform that i can see sat on netflix or i don't know where do you guys have like a vision for it some people i i you see what oprah built there's like a lot of potential here. We don't want to do what anyone else is doing. So we don't look at anyone. We don't look at everyone. A lot of people often say, you know, we look up to Dirk. Who do you guys look up to? Because we don't look up to anyone in the podcast space because we don't want to do it like anyone else is doing it because that's worked really well for us up to press. So we want to build this into the biggest media brand it possibly can be. There are lots of things going on behind the scenes as you can imagine. We're really hot on distribution right now so we're working with really cool brands to get it on there. Equipment? Yeah. Screens. In the sky, we want it on every airline possible. We've partnered with BBC iPlayer this year, which has seen incredible numbers for their platform. We want as many people to be able to access this as possible. That's our mission. So whatever we can do to get there is the plan. We don't have an end goal. We love what we do. We're all hyper, if not slightly toxically passionate about what we do. Reward is seeing, you know, people respond and people engage and people at live events and people coming up to you about it. And it's the most rewarding thing in the world. So we just want to make it as big as we possibly can. Yeah. What's your relationship like with Steven? You know, he's probably going to watch this, which is hysterical. It's good. Like, it's like working. We shouldn't and we don't use the word, we're a family, but we work together a lot of hours of the day. We spend a lot of time together. And I have, you know, I have huge respect for him and everyone else on the team. And, you know, he... works harder than anyone's I've ever come across in my life but it's hugely inspiring and hugely motivating so I see it as the you know I see my job as the greatest honor in the world yeah do you ever fall out do we fall out uh we disagree on like loads of things we he'll share something I'll share something we exchange points of view we both listen we move on it's We're in the same industry, so we're kind of on the same side a lot of the time, but he's so experienced in this space and he's so knowledgeable that... often for me it's a case of going okay here's what my thinking but like I'd love to listen to why you're thinking about that but never on a personal level yeah good um let's talk about your social as a social climber this is how do you think about that you're on linkedin and instagram do you have like a vision for what you're doing do you have much of a plan behind it originally the social climate was my way to showcase to potential prospecting clients when I was doing my freelancing And I loved it. The community I established, the people I've met. It's just incredible. You know, some people that are actually really good friends in real life now, which is so weird to me because it was really just a place to showcase and, as I said, generate leads. And then it evolved as I kind of got the full time role to being more of a passion project because... You best believe there is no time in the day to be taking on kind of extra work as much as I would love to. As much as, you know, so many people message about it. I just I just don't have the time. I started when I first started. I'm still doing like little bits of consultancy. But. My job is all consuming. I love it, but it's all consuming. So I very much kind of gave up all of that and just treat it as a platform for my own experimentation and to keep myself educated because that is the difference between someone who's going to be successful in this space and not someone who's willing to stay ahead. I prioritize reading, learning, listening 30 minutes every morning to something in the industry because... One, it keeps me stimulated. Two, it means I will become an industry leader. And that's really important to me. So I think when I think about my why with the social climate now and what I'm building on LinkedIn is simply to establish myself as a kind of thought leader in this space and someone who people think of when they think of social media marketing. They go, oh, I know a girl. Oh, I've seen her do some stuff. Oh, that's cool. She's kind of keeping us in the loop. And I just want to kind of keep people. educated and up to speed and people are so busy and I do it for fun so why wouldn't I kind of share that as much as I possibly can and it's a great space for me to keep up with new features experiment with new features try out stuff before we do it to millions of people so yeah I love it and you know people talk about consistency and posting every day and that's the only way you're going to grow this lovely community has this like sustainable growth and I post when suits me because I've set that standard from the start and they know that that's what they can expect if I want to go if I wanted to grow it like if I wanted to scale it I could but I'm really enjoying the kind of the size that it's at and it's creating some crazy opportunities yeah you do a great job of just speaking to one person I notice it's almost like you know you're my best my my bestie social media marketing expert and you're just giving me up to date with secrets all the latest stuff I would say as well do you ever think about kind of if I at the moment I want to hire a social media manager You know, I'm thinking where would I get the best social media manager? Probably it's through your Instagram or your LinkedIn. Do you think about kind of wider opportunities there? I've hired three members of my social team through the Social Climber. So when I wasn't particularly looking for roles, people kind of came out of the woodwork and offered themselves up. And yeah, three of my four hires recently have come through that. So it's a huge opportunity. I was... I'm still thinking about some sort of referral scheme, but it's just time. And I often will post on behalf of different brands that I'm affiliated with. I do a lot of hiring for the Steve's Dragons Den investment brands. So I will build out their social media teams, which is a whole element that I never even discuss anywhere. And so I'll do a lot of recruitment through that. And it is essentially a community of social media marketers and small business owners who want to learn about social media. So it's a really... really great audience a great space yeah if anyone didn't think it was a good idea to build a personal brand it's just like competitive advantage for life because people you get you can hire people you're seen as a leader you can share your expertise it's just like everyone should be doing it let's just very briefly like when you're looking for the social media person or a marketing person what are the kind of two three things you're looking for i want to know that they I don't really care necessarily about skills, but I want to know that they have a ridiculous passion and drive to learn. I want them to... come to me and go you know I am not the expert in paid but I am going to do this this and this to make myself that expert or I've seen and what often really helps for me is if someone comes and goes I've seen you're doing this I think a really great way to do this would be that to do it like this because one they paid attention to what we're doing they're tuned in and they're trying to experiment already which fits in with our values really nicely so I'm looking for people who are willing to kind of get stuck in get their hands dirty um show like a willingness and an understanding of the industry um a willingness to stay ahead that they're doing extra stuff they're like attending webinars and they're reading stuff and they're sharing and talking about stuff if they have a person around even better um and that's kind of what i'm looking for like skills we can teach but i really need you to be driven and a nice person to work with because we're going to spend a lot of time together do you have a favorite task you set them I did a task recently actually for this this role that has proven really successful and what's really interesting is that most people came back with very similar similar concepts and stylistically everyone tries to kind of emulate the brand in their in their task so they all have a really clear style to them which was really interesting to see because that's what we're obviously putting out and people are absorbing um And the task was, one element of it was to kind of give them a case study or give them a proposition or give them a concept and tell me what you do with it that no one else is doing. So I put them a guest, I put them a situation, kind of like scenario testing. And I said, if budget that, you know, there's no limit, tell me what you would do. How would you get as many people to watch this as possible? and you just get to see like their creative cogs whirring and people come back with just like the craziest stuff of course we're not going to do like 90 of it but i love the way you're thinking and it's limitless thinking and it's yeah literally sky's the limit so come on board that's brilliant i'm going to use that let's wrap with just a couple of quick fire questions yeah kindest thing someone's ever done for you oh my god there's so much um you Well, that's not a quickfire question. That's a deep question. Kind of thing anyone's ever done for me. I mean, so many, so many people come to mind, but just when people are... willing to help for no reason I think that is just the kindest thing in the world like so many people come to mind both at work and um in my family and at home and I just have and friends I have the most unbelievably supportive network of people around me who have definitely helped me through the tough times in this role so I have a lot to be grateful for best advice you've ever received um you So again, so many people come to mind. I needed to pre-warm me on these. Sorry. No, I'm joking. I think the... No, best advice I've ever received was Mo Gowdat episode one on Diver CEO, keep it topical, who said that... any time and I live by this and I practice it anytime you have a moment of like road rage or a moment where someone really pisses you off or walks up to you and like does something totally unnecessary is to literally out loud and it happened to me yesterday because someone was very rude to me when we were driving they put their window down and said something and I just went in my head you don't know what's happening in their day to make them be like that kill it kill it with kindness and to reset your mind so you don't waste time being angry or like upset or let it get to you in any way because it doesn't mean anything it's just out loud talk about say three things i'm grateful for immediately i don't know the science but it releases like the whatever it is the happy hormones the oxidizer that makes you forget about everything that's just happened and it's been i know it sounds super cringy but if you literally go like you I'm so grateful to even have this car right now. I'm so grateful to be driving home to a cook meal. And I'm so grateful to have had a day of work where I'm leaving so happy. You're not pissed off about the road rage anymore. And it's changed my mindset. That's genius. Top two books? Shoe Dog, Phil Knight, Nike book. Fantastic. And... Obviously, diversity is a factor, you know. But one for the role maybe, one for the role. Like what's the next? One for the role, I'm actually reading a fantastic book by my friend Daisy Hurd right now, all about community marketing. And there's not much, in social media, not much stuff makes it to print because it's so temporary. But this is kind of like solid foundations that will stand you the test of time in terms of nurturing and building and establishing a really successful community. But seriously. diversity o 33 laws okay yeah is actually i heard i've heard some good reviews already it's everything you could need to know in a position of marketing or leadership yeah who are the two free creators that you follow that you're that you really admire admire um I'm really inspired by Sophie from Pretty Little Marketer. She is building an incredible community of marketers. Her content is fantastic and she's super, super lovely as well and just oozes with inspiration. Every time I look at her content, I'm like, why didn't I think of that? And then who else am I really inspired by? There are so many. I'm really into like fashion creators at the moment and I'm not gonna be able to name this guy's name but people who do like really like leveling up their content like I've never seen before. I mean like I love your like Alex Hormozy's and like all the people who've been on the podcast but I'm like trying not to mention any of those. Yeah. I mean the aesthetic stuff though is good isn't it and like people who just get like transitions and you are mesmerized and you can't stop watching there's one guy in particular I have to send it to you later um but also Alex Cooper call her daddy yeah um what they're doing with podcasting in the online network is fascinating and I'm keeping a very close eye yeah smart cookie yeah lastly where can people find you um I'm Grace Andrews on LinkedIn I'm at the dot social climber on Instagram you Yeah, hopefully that's enough. Awesome, amazing. Thank you so much. There's so much value in there. I just, yeah, I'm like buzzing. I'm going to get, can't wait to listen to it again and then implement it all. Thank you so much. Thank you for