#64 - Hannah Page - OLLY'S [Social Media Manager]

0:00Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the founders. Today, I'm joined by the wonderful Hannah Page. who is the social media manager at Ollie's. Now, Ollie's is a snacking brand making delicious olives and pretzel thins, which we are obsessed with in this household, especially the sweet chili ones. Now, I wanted to speak to Hannah about all things social because Ollie's have always been making great content and campaigns. Ollie is brilliant at camera. And I wanted to get into the creative process. How do these videos come about? What's it like day to day? What does your role entail as a social media manager?

0:28Is it just sitting on TikTok scrolling all day? The answer's no. There's so much within this. Hannah is super passionate about the industry. She loves what she does. I loved her career history about working with a previous manager in one of her roles and how she's had a lasting effect on her. There's so much within this that I really, really hope you enjoy it. And if you haven't tried the brand before, go out, get some pretzel fins, you will not regret it. Without further ado, let's get on with the episode. Are you a founder of the next exciting food and drink brand? Are you looking to scale and grow?

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1:32Hello and welcome back to Young Founders. Today I'm joined by the wonderful Hannah Page. So Hannah, can you please let everyone know where you work and what your role is there? Hi, so I am a social media manager and I work at Ollie's. So two things there. What is Ollie's and what does your role as social media manager entail? Yes. So Ollie's, if ever my friends ask me where you can find Ollie's, generally most people have kind of tried them on planes and trains. That's where we initially were. But Ollie's, we sell pretzels and olives. Ollie, the founder, basically started it because he saw a gap in the market for snacks that could be healthy and taste good, which is where Ollie's was born.

2:11And it's been going for seven, eight years, I think. I think I made a cake for Ollie's seventh birthday last year. I feel like there's definitely a seven somewhere. So they've been going strong and you can now get us worldwide, everywhere from Australia. We're in like 16 different countries, which is pretty awesome. Lots of supermarkets across the UK, Tesco's, Waitrose. So yeah, we're doing good. Small brand things, which is always great. From a social side. So if you tell people like, this is my job and this is what I do. I think it's really interesting for people knowing what different roles are out there.

2:44Because obviously, even within this, it's not gonna be a specific job spec because you're going to flutter around doing a whole host of jobs. So what's a typical week like for you? Like what does that look like and what does your day-to-day entail? Yeah, cool. I think most people when they think of social media, they're like, oh, do you just sit on TikTok all day? Which yes, part of that is the job. I need to know what's going on. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I actually do have to do a lot of research into the platforms. I kind of study them to find out what's going on, what's trending, all of that different stuff.

3:14But essentially, I probably view myself personally as more of like a content creator and I view the brand almost as my own but I do everything from kind of writing scripts for little mini skits I do with Ollie or my intern or the Ollie's intern not my intern and I do everything from kind of scheduling, posting, advertising, planning ahead content and thinking outside the box. Ollie's is a really great space because they've allowed me to kind of make mistakes So if you look back at my earlier work, it's slightly different to now because I've been given a platform where I can really lean into the creator side of what I do.

3:56It's really fun. Every single day and week is very different. So you like week to week. My Mondays start with a lot of admin. Like I mentioned, kind of just going through the platforms, what's trending, applying to any comments I missed over the weekend. Social is a little bit always on. I have everything on my phone. So I am pretty connected. Any notifications that come through, I can't help myself but check because I'm very house proud. The content I've made and put out there is like my own identity. People comment on it, I engage and reply back. Tuesdays and Thursdays we are in the office and that's when I'm generally filming with our wonderful intern Alice she is amazing it's like having a mini me around we just bounce off our ideas and run through what's working and any bits of content that we can do Wednesdays and Fridays I'm generally editing so I'm normally at home noise cancellation earphones on notifications off so I'm impossible to get hold of and I'm generally just editing because I need complete silence and some of those skits and fun videos that people see that sometimes don't do as well will take me about three to four hours to edit or anywhere from there as like longest um yeah because the thing is with editing is you can never really be done you can always do more you can always add another meme you can always add another layer another sticker whatever it is yeah so it's uh it's I think finding the time to be like right okay that is enough time spent on that video it's great and just put it out there but it's so much fun it's so great I mean the other week I was literally in a lederhosen interviewing people along brick lane and then the week before that I was doing a skit um where we were all sims characters you know like every single day is completely different and having that creative outlet is so great and it's so fun when I was younger I never kind of viewed myself in the corporate world so this is as like on the edge of corporate as possible I mean I did my interview Ollie's wearing Crocs um I was like if this isn't a company that accepts me wearing Crocs it's not the kind of company I want to work for which uh set the precedence going forward Ollie he's like number one cheerleader for me and what I do on social which I mean the whole team are but that's really helped boost my confidence having a founder that really believes in what you're saying about his product and his business.

6:22So it does give me a lot of confidence and any fears about being online or like doing anything embarrassing. They just don't exist for me. I don't think I could get embarrassed anymore. So done it all, covered myself in olives. Yeah, there's everything. Everything I've done is probably on the internet. So yeah, there's no secrets of me. But no, it's really great. I love it. I've learned so much and learning so much constantly every day. I follow lots of creators. So if there's any time I can learn a new trick, learn a new editing style, I'm on that straight away. So it's really fun. We all know that brand is important, right?

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8:15Yeah, totally. I mean, the packaging rebrand, full credit goes to Sam, my boss, Ollie's brother, and Ellie Lewis. They fully led the charge on that. I just post the after effects of it and talk about it online. But essentially, we kind of did some market research with OnePulse at the start of the year and worked out that obviously, if you think about a shopper who's never heard of Ollie's no clue what it is the first thing people were seeing were Ollie's and then Pretzel Thins was a bit smaller the product name was smaller and it made sense for us as a brand to kind of almost switch that around just make it clearer make it more obvious and also the flavoring just kind of make that like stand out a lot more because we know that the pink pack is sweet chili the blue is salted but it's not necessarily as obvious we just wanted to make that is obvious to new consumers and people that maybe want to buy something slightly different and healthier and better for them as well.

9:10We are also now HFSS compliant. I hope I said that right, apart from the salted. So we also are updating all of our backup pack as well. So it just kind of made sense to at this time sort the front out. Also, it's just a nice little moment on social that obviously because we've shrunk Ollie's name on pack, we're, you know, leaning into the jibe of, you know because ollie's ego was getting too big we had to do something about it so that's always really good fun but yeah full credit goes to sam and ellie um they're doing a really really great job super exciting we're just waiting on a few more updates i think will come in the new year with like sesame and stuff but otherwise it's all starting to roll out i think people can already see them and buy them in waitrose which is really cool as well but yeah love that yeah no i think it makes absolute sense it's especially from a retail shopfront perspective it's you've got less than three seconds to grab that shopper's attention and if it's a new brand obviously the branding is super vibrant i mean if you haven't heard of ollie's or seen them or tried them like where have you been because these are absolute staples like you should be enjoying them all the time um but i think yeah it just made absolute sense when i saw it i was like oh yeah i didn't really think about it being that way around i've seen ollie's journey through like you said these seven eight years however long it's been um i remember kind of cheering on the sidelines and and then kind of indulging and loving them.

10:27What are some of the fun campaigns you've been involved in as well? Because you guys are always doing great things, like taking on the nation's hatred towards olives. So that was a fun bit of content. Yeah, we have done some really cool campaigns. And this is what I love is like, we just had our brand planning sessions for next year, both all the way through. And just like thinking about these crazy ideas that we're going to do that we somehow link to our products is just so fun. But my favourite one was actually the first one I did. So when I interviewed, Sam, my boss, wanted to... So we were launching Sweet Chili into Asda at the time, or they were about to.

11:02And they wanted a campaign around that, like video ideas and all this kind of stuff. And I was driving up to Northumberland, I believe, and I heard on BBC Radio 2 someone talking about the fact they got married on a train. And I was like, God, that's so weird. Like such an interesting, you know, I've never heard of that before. And then I was just thinking about like marriage, partnership. And then I was like, oh, my God, I have to do a partnership between the Sweet Chili and Asda. And then it kind of snowballed into this wedding scene I was going to do on the London Underground on the Tube. And then lo and behold, I do my interview.

11:36Sam rings me the next day, offers me the job. And a month later, I am planning a wedding on the Tube. And it was the first campaign I did. Sam, it was complete chaos. It was so much fun. Sam went on paternity leave two weeks into my job. So next thing I know, I'm kind of printing. I'd written a hymn. I'll have to wind it somewhere. It's so funny. It's like Ollie's pretzel thin Jerusalem version on one side and then the marriage vows on the other between sweet chili pretzel thins and Asda. I then made a dress for Ollie out of sweet chili packets and a veil, got him to walk to the underground on the underground got the whole team involved which was so fun because although people are like all the team maybe don't love being on social they you know afterwards everyone was smiling and happy and they really enjoyed that moment so it's nice that I kind of orchestrated that but yeah I filmed and did a whole campaign about um all sweet chili thins getting married to Azda on the tube and it was hilarious and great fun so that was a bit of highlights.

12:40It was a nice moment because it was from my interview and it was the first thing I did. And that was the great thing is that they actually put the money where the mouth is and I actually did it. And I was like, okay, yeah, we're into weird ideas. That's cool. And then the campaign we did recently was a lot of funds. We were doing some research and basically found that apparently 40 % of the UK hate olives, which is wild, but also I guess pretty true. I even remember the exact moment I hated olives and telling myself it's grown up to eat olives very young being like so I needed to eat the olives when my parents were having you know drinks or whatever I would eat the olives just so I could be a grown-up so I really remember that so anyway the kind of campaign was born from like multiple different ideas and all this research that the marketing team did and it was just so fun our last billboard for the pretzel thins was really really successful and this was equally just as successful we had a viral video off the back of it which was epic as well so it was a big win no brilliant so many great ideas and i think that's the thing like ollie's not not ashamed to get out there and and have be a complete fool uh at the expense of building the brand and there's been some so many great things uh yeah get on the socials and check them out but how big is the ollie's team now obviously you said you go into the office on a wednesday thursday i think it was but yeah how big's the team now and yeah where are you guys based we are based in brick lane on brick lane i should say near truman brewery which is great for foodies um so many great sandwich shops which is a big win for me we are 11 or 12 including my dog she comes in every day and is i have self-proclaimed her as the ceo so chief eating officer but yeah it's a small team but we do lots and we're all pretty yes people anything that kind of comes our way we just crack on and do and help and you know the sales team will help with some of the sampling stuff that we send out and vice versa so it's a very collaborative space which is super fun nice what are the some of the kind of things that uh the extra bits about working at ollies you love is there good team socials like what do you guys do is there any perks like what what are some of the kind of the more tangible things it's like as part of being able to do everything you love as the job like these are also things that I love about it yeah one I mean a huge thing for me like as a creative is I do get creative fatigue I can't just churn out ideas I'm not a machine I am human and Ollie's has so much flexibility I mean I go in loads of people are going to hate me for this but I go into the office for 10 a.m if that sometimes I'm a little bit late I'm not great with um the mornings and it is an hour commute for me and I just don't want to be squashed next to someone so I'd rather just take a bit of time but vice versa you know in the middle of the day if I'm struggling with filming or editing I really can't get into it you know I just go and do Pilates class or I go for a dog walk or I kind of change that up and Ollie's very very flexible we have unlimited holiday as well and yes we do actually take it which is great we're actually very much encouraged to go off but it means you can take you know you can go do like proper big holidays last year went to Mexico for two and a bit weeks and it's really fun it's great having that balance as well but we're actually planning our Christmas social myself and Emma are planning that with Ollie as our go-to approval for everything to do with the budget so I can't say because the team don't know what we're doing but um yeah it's really good fun well I think it's going to be fun because I've organized it but it's great and also a lot of the team actually don't live in London so I think it's also great that people are able to kind of live outside of London and still have the opportunity to work in London, which I think is really fun.

16:20And, you know, if I called my boss, Sam, and said, hey, I'd love to go work up in Northumberland for a week. Is that OK? I don't have any filming or I don't have any campaigns. It wouldn't be a problem, which I think is really great. We have, Ollie and Sam have really cultivated a culture where there's a lot of trust involved. And that's so important for me. It's so important for the rest of the team because I don't think you can do your job if you're not trusted. you know so I do not take that for granted because I know and you know there are other scenarios where you can be micromanaged and that's just really painful so especially in the creative world if someone tried to micromanage me would not go well so I think those are just really important to me and like I said I went into my interview wearing Crocs and it is the kind of place that really just embraced and accepted that as a part of my identity and my personality so So yeah, it's just a really fun, creative space for me.

17:18Yeah, I love it. And also because Ollie just gets involved in the videos. He loves being in them. I was filming something the other day and he wasn't in it. And he was a bit like, you know, when am I next in it? And that's also so great having a founder that just wants to get stuck in. Because at the end of the day, he wants us to do well and sell the products online and in such an obvious way and things like that. And he fully, I will ask him to do anything. He doesn't even question it. he just does it and I'm like this is crazy I was getting him to last Chris this time last year I was actually getting him to twerk around London with no context and he did it he didn't really even ask what it was for this same this time same this time of year I was getting him to do a Mr.

17:58Blue Steel Pout I don't think he really asked what what for you know I send him a plan when I'm filming with him of exactly what we're gonna do and stuff and he's just like yeah cool amazing like I'm sending him we're filming in a couple of weeks for January and we're doing this really funny skit that I can't say because part of that campaign but he was just like yeah cool I'll learn it amazing I'm just like great and having a founder that is so great for that and also he's actually good on camera because you can have people that want to get on camera but aren't really very good behind it and he's he's very like confident and he's very charismatic and therefore he's very good behind the camera as well so kudos to Ollie for doing the brat apple dance with me on TikTok uh shout out fantastic yeah and i think as you said about like the flexibility side it's very similar with pact in terms of it also allows you to attract talent further afield so if you're not from london where everything seems to be london centric um it allows that flexibility throughout the week and when you need to come together you can so i think that's that's really important and a good sign of as you said trust and getting people to to give their give their all when they are working and doing everything they do um because as you said social can be a very always on kind of job.

19:08Now, I'd love to dig back to when you were younger. I can't imagine you ever thought you'd be working for a snacking company selling pretzels and olives. So what did you want to do growing up? And what's your career journey been like to get you to where you are today? Yeah, for sure. I actually and I have such a distinct memory of this, I think, because we were going through old report cards when I was little. The other day with my mum and one of the report cards was my maths teacher talking about how I kept banging on saying I really wanted to go to Hawaii and live in a shack and become a surfer.

19:45So that was my dream aged eight still could happen who knows but no truth be told I've actually always kind of had a bit of a love for everything online. I've been working in social for around five years now but actually a bit of a niche backstory. I got into a cathedral choir when I was eight and my reward was being allowed to make a Facebook account, don't worry, heavily monitored by my mum. It was just so I could play Farmville, if anyone remembers that game. Super niche. But from that point, I've just kind of always been that friend that was taking photos, editing background, making silly dub smashes.

20:23I've just always loved how we connect online. And I've grown up as the platforms have developed. I remember getting Instagram for the first time when I was about 14 and we just post anything because back then it didn't really matter. But I don't just use them and I just study them. I know what's working, why it's working and how to translate that for a brand. It's without losing its authenticity. I basically essentially live and breathe social and have a disgustingly high screen time. But I studied business with HR at uni because I was obsessed with people, how they interacted, their behavior, because it almost went down the psychology route.

21:03And I actually graduated in COVID and found myself at home in North Yorkshire, which is how I ended up applying for a role in a pet food brand called Inspired Pet Nutrition. They managed Wag and Harrington's at the time and have now grown to so many brands. I don't even think I can name them all. Bit of a full circle moment is actually why I've got a dog now. Shout out to my dog, Lola, who is the whole soul and purpose of my life. But yeah, from there, I basically joined the business in more of a corporate role, which didn't sit super well with me because I'm not very corporate. As I mentioned, I wore Crocs into my interview and I did used to wear Crocs into the office and they did slightly stand out like a sore thumb, but in a good way.

21:45And I basically worked out that at the time they had no one doing social in-house. And I worked out that they were paying an agency four grand for the two brands, Wag and Harrington's. So I was like, look, I love social. I have dogs at home. There are dogs in the office. I will do this for you. Pay me slightly more and it will save you so much money, which I did. So I started managing two of their social accounts and grew one of them from zero to 25k in under two years, which at the time was pretty great for, I mean, it's super great for any brand to grow that quickly. I mean, people love dog pictures, so I guess actually maybe it was slightly easier than I thought.

22:26But by the time I left, I was actually managing five brands that they had bought, which was a lot. I had an incredible manager at the time and she was just amazing. so she really kind of helped balance all of that she really shaped me into the person I am today when I first started working which slightly terrifies me even thinking back to this time I used to not use a notepad I would just keep everything in my head and obviously as a manager that's not exactly there it's not exactly very helpful so she from every part of my career she's kind of shaped me into who I am so she was incredible but yeah managing those five accounts It taught me a lot about like structure, finding story in each product and tailoring content.

23:12And yeah, I did three and a half years there and then decided it was time. That was based in Yorkshire and I was living in London. And I really did miss that connection. Social is a very connective job. I think you do better when you're around people, bouncing off ideas. And I really, really missed that element of it. even though my boss was incredible, I did really miss that kind of face-to-face interaction. So that's when I joined Tenzing Natural Energy, best energy drink on the market. In my personal life, health and fitness are pretty important to me. Grew up running, went to a school in the Lake District, fell running, although I didn't love it at the time, but I now love running.

23:54So it really felt like a brand I truly lived and breathed. The team was so, so amazing. I am very good friends with quite a few of them. They're just so great. But very sadly, the marketing team became redundant. I think it was five, six months into my job, which at the time was completely gut-wrenching. I thought it was the end of the world. But literally the next day I saw this job for Ollie's on LinkedIn. I'd already kind of sat down, redone my CV, whatever. So I see this job role. And I've completely changed my CV and everything. So it's completely Olified. I don't even know if I have the old version anymore.

24:30But because I was like, right, this sounds like a really fun company. I want to stand out. So it was probably bright purple with white writing and lots of pictures and probably silly stories about me, which thankfully did work. Yeah. And then everything when I joined Ollie's, everything just kind of seemed to fall into place for me with my career I was at a bit of a crossroad of you know where does social lead to and I am I going to get to a stage where I'm going to be too old to do my job I know it sounds crazy and I am not saying I'm old now but I just mean that social is constantly changing and you need to be very on it otherwise you will be redundant from that type of industry but Ollie's just became such a space that allowed me to make mistakes test and learn new styles of editing and because of that I was able to grow and develop into this style that people see today.

25:24And now our channels, you know, are getting noticed. And that kind of cohesiveness, it's turned these casual browsers or people that follow us into loyal fans. You know, I get messages every week being like, you guys are hilarious. And I think just having fun with our socials has really helped us kind of stand out in quite a noisy and saturated space and because of the way the brand is and the feel-good mission I really wanted our socials to very much reflect that I wanted it to be a place that made people smile and laugh generally at mine or Ollie's expense but I just think that's so much more fun that no one really wants to get a product shoved at them I just thought for myself why why would I buy a brand Why would I buy into a brand?

26:15Why would I even follow a brand on social media when I can follow all these cool creators? So I kind of try to take that narrative, but my own style for Ollie's. Yeah, so it's been, yeah, it's been incredible. And I just think with social, it's such a funny world. And there's this whole slight obsession with going viral. And it can be a little bit of a trigger point for social media managers who feel that pressure every day that they haven't gone viral. or that they need to go viral every day or whatever it is. But to be honest, for me, the most important thing is consistency because I think that's like a key driver for social media.

26:52And that's something I've literally said to Ollie and Sam from the very start was, trust me, and if we are consistent with our content, it will just, the results will show over time. You know, we started at like 50k views at the start of the year and we're at 300 just this month alone. It's not even just from advertising. I mean, 80 % of our views are organic, which is incredible. But it's just about showing up in who we are, being authentic, having fun with it. Because I think if you're not authentic online, it really, really shows. So yeah, it's just been, yeah, it's been such an incredible journey.

27:29I kind of can't believe the girl that was obsessed with Farmville now gets to sort of, it's kind of a version of gaming, I guess, because you get rewards for likes and views. but uh yeah it's it's great and I wouldn't change any part of my experience because I wouldn't be where I am today but I also wouldn't be where I am today if it hadn't been for Ollie and the team being so supportive of me and yeah so it's really great yeah I love that um a few things I wanted to kind of try and touch on through that is um you said your your previous manager um inspired pet nutrition who yeah you said was amazing like what was it about her that really kind of stuck with you or some of the lessons or things that she empowered you with you can hear like she clearly had a lasting effect on you so I'd like to try and draw out some of like what that was yeah I think she just nailed the way to manage she adapted I am very like the stereotypical creative where my concentration can go pretty easily and you know she never got impatient with me.

28:32She was just always there. She always listened. She encouraged me to be curious. She encouraged me to try new things and to test and learn. And if there were repercussions, I didn't know about it because she would just shield that from me. And she just really helped nurture me and helped me grow. I don't think when you leave uni that you have any clue what you want to do. You just accidentally fall into stuff. And I really, really believe that. Like I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do I mean I did I was doing recruitment right and you know before joining a business before joining IPN so yeah she was just amazing and also she just became someone that I can confide in about stuff like personally as well she was just such a such a support and when we were in the office together we'd always go and have lunch together and just like doing sounds silly but doing really human things of you know she'd always bring me in sweet treats and she'd always every year as a joke because of the notepad thing we always buy each other notepads with our names on and things like that she was just yeah she was just really incredible and had it not been for her I don't know what I would have ended up doing she just really saw something in me and really encouraged me to go down this route and she she was like Hannah you are so creative like who else is wearing Crocs in a corporate space and you know she just really believed in me before I believed in myself and I think that was key to her being such an incredible manager yeah she was epic love that yeah i think that's one of the biggest traits isn't it it's just being having someone who believes in you and you go actually yeah you know what i do have something to give here i can grow and i can develop and that takes you obviously to where you are today so i'd love to now swing the complete other way and talk about the tough times and when something like a tough day at the office or when things didn't go to plan like not necessarily just around content because obviously you can spend hours doing something around content and then it doesn't do anything and you can do something and it will go absolutely like bonkers in terms of views but yeah I'd love to let know some of these kind of days where things didn't quite go to plan yeah um I think that happens pretty much anytime we're filming something goes wrong nothing goes to plan when we go filming because you just can't predict the environment and the people that engage with your content what they say or don't say the amount of times I've been rejected on the is just it's great for my rejection therapy but to be honest I think one of my it's more of like a personal struggle there rather than things with work is that people have often over my career especially when I was younger maybe not quite as confident in my own voice is a lot of people maybe didn't really get what I did and just thought I sat on TikTok all day and didn't really see any value in what I do.

31:14I think social media, especially for challenger brands, where you don't have the money to do TV adverts, to do huge billboards, to do mass, mass sampling, social media is that tool because you can advertise, you can reach these people without having to spend crazy amounts of money, especially on TikTok when it is slightly cheaper to advertise. But I think I found it frustrating for a long time having to kind of be like no my job is serious and but it's fun it's still important and it's so vital to companies and that's why so many companies are embracing it now and they do understand that but um yeah there have been multiple times of kind of frustration explaining to colleagues or people higher up you know stuff about social I once had to show someone how to view a story.

32:06And this was the person that was kind of evaluating and looking at my KPIs. And that was quite a painful moment for me because I was like, you don't even know how to use the apps and you want me to go through the KPIs, the data side. So that's always been a bit of a bit of a like struggling, a bit of an area that I've always been a bit, probably a bit defensive on. But I've just learned over the years that that's okay if people don't understand it and just to try and kind of go through things and that I believe in what I do and I know that I'm making an impact I can see that in my KPIs and I guess that's kind of like the most important thing but yeah yeah no love that and it's made me think for like the potential people who are listening maybe in college or university going oh what what does a future career look like like how do I get to do something like this where I'm as passionate and as excited about my job as Hannah and what she does like what would some of your top dips be in terms of um how people can kind of get into a role like yourself yeah i mean key thing is i just well in summer or may actually last year i was advertising for an intern and we had 800 applicants in three days so i just stopped the job because i was like um anyway one thing i looked for because i was like okay this is people that don't need to have experience at all i just went through and blanket read okay whose cvs are creative whose cvs actually used color whose cvs are standing out i'm like if you want a creative job it takes no seconds just to change your the background of your cv so it matches the brand colors i mean it's so so simple like it's such an easy thing to do and i i know people always say tailor your cv but i was like mind numb at the number of cvs and people that had applied obviously on easy apply linkedin that hadn't really couldn't be bothered and i was like if you can't be bothered to even just like do that simple thing of even just changing your font so it looks a bit fun or whatever it is.

34:01I'm not going to give you the time of day to look through it. But even when people then kind of got further through, people that stood out to me were people that, you know, if they wanted to get into social, they were active on their own socials because I basically said I would like to see, can you send me your, you know, links to your profiles and stuff so I can have a look through and if you're not active and or you're embarrassed to post how do you think you're going to do that for a brand you know just posting and having fun with it like it doesn't need to have hundreds of thousands of views it's just like showing that you have fun with your friends and you're posting and you're in tune with what's going on and things like that but I'm also always open to like talk to people and help them I have regularly kind of met up with people for coffees just to go over what I'm doing or had calls with people because it can be quite a funny place it can be quite a lonely space you're just online and connecting with people and learning from them you can never stop learning in social so yeah one thing I'd also say is just reach out to people and if there's someone that inspires you or you want to learn from just badger them ask can we go for a coffee or you know if if you want feedback on something ask the hiring manager like what did I do wrong and you know don't be afraid to ask questions and kind of go from there really great advice I'm a huge advocate on that I remember when I closed my business when I was applying for brands I would literally take their packaging and fully convert it to my name so like yeah okay Mitch like I've done one for Ollie's in the past where it was Mitch's instead and yeah you just do these little tweaks that maybe take you 20 minutes half an hour like whatever it is but it's just that like that extra level of effort for someone to even just acknowledge and say look appreciate it but now it's not the right time or whatever it is you're more like to get a a rejection no than just kind of go and apply, apply, apply, apply and see what happens.

35:47So yeah, great advice for sure. Yeah, well, it's just taking the time, isn't it? It just seems like it's such an obvious thing to say and to do. But if you want to stand out about thousands of applicants, because I know it's very tough applying for jobs at the moment, just take that little bit of extra time. I know it all adds up when you're applying to hundreds of jobs, but if you really want the job, you will put a bit more effort into your CV. Yeah, agreed. Final few questions. being kind of all things social, doing all your research. And what would your kind of like top three tips be for nailing some socials to any brands or people listening going, yeah, we probably should be doing better or being doing more, but I don't know what that is or how to do that.

36:27Like what would some of your top tips be if you're willing to share and not keep them as Ollie's trade secrets? No, I don't keep, I mean, top tip lighting and sound. I mean, I know that sounds like an obvious one, but if you're filming, especially with Instagram where it needs to be slightly more curated just make sure the lighting's right film it outside whatever it is that will just make so much more difference because it will just look so much cleaner I know TikTok prefers kind of that raw rough edited but I still think just check your lighting get the right microphones if you're the kind of company that can invest invest in microphones that don't sound tinny it's a real bugbear when I hear that like tinny when they just have the mini mics and like just spend whatever it is 50 quid more to get good microphones like please there are so many brands out there i'm so tempted to just drop them a dm with the link and be like there you go thank me later just get see if you i mean another one is just kind of like getting having or trying to convince so if if they weren't convinced before uh hopefully this convinces them but get your founders involved um especially if it's at the size that a founder is involved they are the face of the brand at the end of the day along with uh I guess the social team do become slight faces and characters of the brand.

37:40But just kind of helping build their online identity and who they are. And I guess third would just be have fun. Social is very fun and it's not serious. People don't want polished content. They want human and they want human interactions. You've got to think, I always think before I post something, I think, would I share this to my story? I know it sounds so silly but would I feel not embarrassed but would I feel proud of the kind of content I put out there even if it's like hilarious or if it's whatever always think about kind of would you want other people to see your work and if not then why the hell are you posting it but have fun with it just enjoy it it's such a creative space learn follow other creators and yeah just have fun great advice Alex the founder of Pat I keep telling him you need to get more involved need to get more involved i think we're finally roping him in but uh martha who's our new brand manager she's doing an amazing job you'll see her appearing on our ads recently so uh keep an eye out on martha cropping up on our socials doing very much that role and smashing it yeah final couple of questions then this is the song one so i ask this to every guest what is one song that best represents your working experience oh good one it's actually pretty good timing so I'm actually going to go see her on Thursday with my family.

39:00But I grew up listening to Amy McDonald. She is a great artist and I'm very excited to go see her with my family. Anyway, she has this song called Mr. Rock and Roll. And it's a song I grew up listening to driving to school, dad driving me to school, obviously. But it's about just being yourself. And if you're not yourself, things don't work out. And I think that's so true for the social world and community. If you're not authentic, it really shows so just be true to yourself and you'll find your own form in social love that i will get that added to our playlist which again if you still haven't checked out uh get on spotify search unfounders playlist it's getting pretty wild there's all sorts on there and a lot of them you're like how does this relate but there's a story behind all of them so yeah i will get that one added but um for those who aren't following ollies yet um where can we find you every social platform?