#74 - Mia Skelson - Seep [Social Media & Community Manager]

0:00Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to Young Founders. Today I am joined by the wonderful Mia Skelson, who is the social media and community manager at Seat. Now Seat is an all-natural cleaning brand. They do everything from eco-sponges to gloves and I absolutely adore the brand. I think it's great to see a sustainable player in this space. We know about sustainable cleaning products, but actually the sponges that you use every day, they're those green and yellow ones, full of plastics and microplastics, not good for the planet, and there's a much better way to do it. Seat brand, they're doing some great things on social.

0:30campaigns chasing Elton John, trying to get him using their products, to Mia and the reason we connected with her trying to date 100 different brand managers. I think it was a really fun conversation. Mia is super passionate. We dig into the weeds of socials, what her role looks like. If you work in social media and marketing, you need to give us a listen and even hit Mia up to go on a date yourself with her. So without further ado, let's dig into the episode. We all know that brand is important, right? But what if I told you it can impact growth and customer acquisition costs by up to 50%. Against Ordinary are a brand agency who help founders, marketing departments, scaling teams ensure their brand is the most powerful tool for growth.

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1:37hello and welcome back to young founders today i'm joined by the wonderful mia skelson so mia can you please let everyone know where you work and what your role is there yeah of course so i'm mia and i'm social and community manager at seep and i cover a range of not just social but But also brand campaigns, influencers, cross-channel partnerships, email, TikTok shop. The list is endless. How long have you been there now? I've actually only been there about four months. So it's been quite full on and so much has happened since, which is super exciting. But yeah, we've been going from like strength to strength since I've joined.

2:12So that's really great. I love that. Now, I know Seep. I've known Laura and the brand for a while. But for those who have never kind of heard of Seep, give us the brand spiel. Like, who are you guys? What do you do? what makes you guys special like give me all the good stuff yeah of course so Laura always has this sort of story ingrained in my head since I joined and it's quite a fun one it's she basically was simply sort of wandering around the supermarket as you do and she you know she always had this sort of classic I feel like here actually green and yellow sponge which obviously is ugly it's so packed with plastic and she sort of realized that there were so many options in terms of like the sprays the disinfectants for eco-cleaning but there was not that sort of option for a sponge or like a tool in terms of the eco-cleaning options she also realized that like microplastics were a growing issue year on year it wasn't it was becoming not just like an environmental issue it's becoming like a health issue in some ways research is starting to come out that people are inhaling like over 60 ,000 microplastic particles a day.

3:16So she's colonized this issue early on. And then obviously saw that sort of gap in the market, that there wasn't the tools, there was only the sprays, and decided here's an untucked category. Like why don't she bring out the first deco sponge? So I've got it here as well. This is our little CP code sponge. Got it in my sink right now. Brilliant. and also I think it was a case of the in the FMCG space there's so many brands that are have been tapped obviously food has been hugely tapped into in terms of those challenger disruptive brands but cleaning is often sort of seen as that like kind of unsexy boring category that it hasn't really been tapped into and she felt there was a real opportunity to bring some disruption to the category and bring in not just a great product but also just a disruptive brand too yeah no I think you guys do it really really well and partly that's how we connected i saw what you were doing on your socials um i thought this is brilliant i need to get you on because i've been a huge fan of seep like i've been vegan nearly 10 years and it's for me the sustainability point like people think of sustainability it's very easy to think i'm not going to drive or i'm going to cycle or i can do this and that but there's some simple things that people do every day like cleaning that can have a really big impact and i think what you you're doing in that space is just absolutely fantastic same with Ocean Saver when it comes to the other side of the cleaning and other brands in the area who are tackling that and I think having it from a gloves and cleaning and all these things is absolutely brilliant from a seat perspective how big is the team now obviously you've only been there a few months but do you have an office you work remote what's the setup in the business yeah of course so there's actually only eight of us and some of us are even part-time so not a huge team and then we work three days in the office in Hammersmith which is really nice i think that's so important to have that in-person time also along like so it's like a shared office space alongside other sme challenges like wild things all dressed up i think like a salad dressing but i think it's just nice having that environment amongst people who are sort of in that same mission as you it's quite motivating and like you're all kind of got the same little challenges as well brilliant and what was it about seep for you you were like i can see myself working there this is a brand that i want to get involved with because it's it's a very niche industry and it's as you said it's not always seen as the sexiest thing so how do you end up going yeah this is me this is my calling yeah so I actually was already in the FMC challenger world I was a baby food brand piccolo and once I'd entered the FMCG space I was like wow I love this whole new untapped world you can be super creative and disruptive and I think I when I was sort of prior that I'd seen like you know the fun socials that some of these brands were doing that weren't like huge corporate brands I was like that'd be so cool to be doing that um but you know you don't obviously think it's realistic until you join and then in terms of when I moved across the seat I hadn't actually like confession I hadn't actually heard of seat prior joining but like what really pushed me to want it was to be honest it was Laura initially I thought sort of seeing her like passion and like love for this what some people would think oh my god it's just a sponge it was like so like amazing it also just felt great to join a business for a change that was like not just a meaningless plastic packed big corporate brand it was like purpose driven and she was really doing something to help the environment and help people make that small change I also sort of as I started realizing besides from obviously loving the whole purpose driven side of it I realized that the actual brand had so much potential I think because Laura was sort of telling me about how it is sort of that untapped category and also like you said earlier that literally everyone cleans like you know it's something everyone does and it's something that people don't really talk about but actually it's quite a mood related activity like for a lot of people it's maybe like a bit of a de-stress or it can make them feel good after a long day but then also there's the side that's a bit relatable and funny that's like I don't want to do all this cleaning so I think there was just a lot of untapped disruptive content that I just my ideas started buzzing and I was like there's so many things that we can do here and we can create such a sense of relatability through the brand and that just really got sort of got my passion driving to want to work there.

7:37I love that from your perspective in terms of a day-to-day what are you doing when it comes to social and content have you got your calendar of like these are things you want to shoot or are you a bit more flexible going what's in the news today how can we react to this what's your approach because I think social and contents you can get into the weeds of like okay this is exactly how we're going to try and operate but then the ideas that you can just kind of do offhand can be the ones that go super viral so i mean you're doing all sorts of fun things but yeah i'd love to know what's a typical kind of week look like for you yeah of course i mean obviously being in social like it varies so much it's i think you know we have our sort of set out strategy and that sort of gets reviewed every now and then like we're trying to adjust what's upcoming with our target audience and like what's trending but then it's also a case of like I think it's so important to not be stuck in your strategy and be a bit reactive with the content.

8:26And that's something that you, yes, you might have planned out all these posts for that month. But then it's like, okay, at the start of the week, I'm looking at, right, is there anything we can jump on? Because at the end of the day, I feel like social is like a brand awareness thing. And you need to make a bit of noise, especially as a challenger brand. So it's, for example, we saw this sort of Elton piece. And basically, we spotted Elton doing literally just cleaning, which is quite, again, the whole thing is all a bit humorous. because it's just cleaning and he basically had a really dirty oven and then he got all these comments saying like why have you got a dirty oven like that's disgusting and so he his socials team did a good job and they basically posted him cleaning his oven Laura thankfully spotted it and then we were like okay let's jump on this how about we create a sort of mission for our community and yeah we basically just started this reactive piece of like can you help us get seep into Elton in John's hands and it was brilliant really I didn't we didn't expect the response from our community like we didn't expect people to care so much but I think it really showed us that like our community is so engaged and that's so important to us to have that sort of that highly engaged community and um I mean yeah for that moment it was it was a bit wild we got like considering it was off the cuff we got like over 55 ,000 organic views engagement and comments were like doubling comments I feel like is such a huge thing for that community piece um and like Trini and Deborah obviously investors in to see but also like Susanna who's Trini's best mate was getting involved and then she was best mates with Elson so it was all sort of going a bit out of going a bit more out of hand than we expected and people were like messaging me on LinkedIn saying they've seen it yeah that was a wild moment but in terms of other things that I do sort of day-to-day or on a week by week basis outside of the strand content the reactive content obviously filming editing all that and ideation I'm looking at like a brand campaign so for example if we've got new products coming out like what's the angle there how are we going to get as much talk about it and if there's any brand moments we want to highlight so we've got a really exciting campaign coming up in January so stay tuned for that and that's just a highlight a bit of brand messaging and then also sort of influencers affiliates trying to do like a regular gifting reach out to any any sort of I like to call them brand loyal influencers who I really like to keep track of any influencers that are following us um that have quite a large following or engaging to engage with our content on a regular basis and I sort of track that all in the next sell sheet to make sure that we're gifting the people that actually love us already not like just trying to go for people who don't even really care and then also alongside that like brand partnerships community management and any other like packaging and things like that just helping out things like that yeah that's brilliant i saw the elton thing and i thought it was absolutely fantastic in fact you do have like deborah and trini investing from the dragon's den days i think that's again to see the brand kind of go through that dragon's den journey was amazing and i feel like have have you got it into elton's hand did you manage to do it yet is it still a fight so we got very very close I would say we had three well this is what I said on my LinkedIn post we had three potential candidates we had um so Susanna apparently Elton is her best mate so we were like well that's a pretty good option um and then we had a I can't actually name the answer I've been told but we had like a bit of a very close contact he worked with Elton and that was like you know potential but he actually told us that he he was strictly serving gucci with the gloves so i don't think that was the right time for us but um and then when i did a random sort of asking people in the street if they knew elton someone claimed that they went for a drink with him but you know i'm pretty sure that one was probably slightly false uh but it was great it really drove a bit of hype and buzz for for the brand i think it's so important as a challenger to like jump on those reactive moments to make noise that's that's what i see social is all about at the end of the day yeah and speaking of social that's obviously i touched on it briefly when we started but the way i kind of discovered your linkedin and what you were doing there was this mission to speed date hundreds of social media managers i thought it was such a cool concept and i was like right you're coming on the podcast to dig into this and so at time of recording it we're just about to go into christmas but this is going to come out probably february so if you're doing one a week we're going to be racking the numbers up let everyone know about this challenge if they haven't seen it yet if you haven't go and check it out because it's brilliant but um yeah what what drove you to go i've got this idea i want to do it yeah of course so well it all kind of if i go right back it started when when i joined seat i sort of recognized having a personal brand and like upping my linkedin game was super super important you know like taking inspo from like the whole perfect head team they do it really well and you know it's really valuable in terms of like for for like brands like for seed but also for like myself and to grow my network and if we want to work with people so it's just I feel like all in all growing your own personal LinkedIn it's just great anyway and I just started posting generally a lot about like microplastics and trying to raise awareness for that issue and then started to bring a few more personal things into it and I sort of you know there's a lot of webinars and talks where you can go and they'll say they'll teach you everything you need to know about social but often it's people who actually aren't in the grit of social and they're not actually a social media manager they could be like an agency founder or someone who maybe worked in social for a little bit a long time ago but it's sort of changed the dynamics of how it is now and so I realized that the best way was literally just to talk to other people in space so I thought okay I'll do a post about it I was like I'll make it a bit fun I like being a bit creative so I was like I'll do something a bit weird and turn it into a dating series because you know if you've got to stand out on LinkedIn these days and um yeah I was just like completely taken aback by I was a bit like nervous to post it as well because I thought you know no one messages me this is a bit awkward um I was so taken aback by the response I've now had like over a hundred just like direct messages asking to like go on a date and um like the some of the posts have done insanely well I had uh Will on from boundless and that had like over 17 000 impressions 400 interactions like it's it it's a bit wild um considering it's it's almost like not an overly complex um topic or like format um and i think it just made me realize that like so many people in social feel the same and there are actually it's quite an untapped space of social media managers wanting to do this but maybe people have just not pushed themselves to do it yet and then i was never even planning to document it so it was almost just I was going to do that first post and then sort of leave it there and actually just go on the coffee dates but then there were so many people I was like I can't leave I can't if I can't go on with coffee with everyone straight away I need to like share these insights so I just turned it into this sort of dating series which yeah making it a bit public and yeah in terms of from the dates I have a few key learnings if you want me to share yeah absolutely I think that's why I liked the format because it was kind of like a here's who they are here's what we spoke about here were the key lessons and things that I got from them and I think it's people love these kind of like I mean I started doing like a frozen food roundup every Friday and it's just I know not just from like the frozen community but people are oh yeah what is going on in frozen or suddenly buyers are looking at it and it's like you never know who's going to see that content from these conversations and when you can make them actually these are really helpful or these are great insights like everyone wants to be a master of marketing no matter what you're doing like personal brand is marketing there's all these things so there's any time you can pick up little tips is fantastic and so by speaking to 100 people and doing all of this I think the way you're summarizing and documenting it is really great yeah currently to where you you're at with all the dates you've had what are some of like the key learnings or findings that you've discovered yeah so I would say I would kind of split it in like general learnings and then more like what's actually upcoming in social that might be more useful for like other people in social but generally from like meeting people I think I've really realized that people who are really in the grit of like the day-to-day of social and like our social media managers running the social channels is that actually in the people outside external to social there's quite a lack of understanding of like how important social is for brand building and like what's actually important in social like what metrics are super valuable because I feel like often it is it's one of those things that isn't always tapped into a lot and that there's sort of this dark social where people don't know if someone's seen you on Instagram and then they've seen your website and then they've seen you somewhere else they're then going to purchase they don't actually realize that there's all these sort of connections and it's not always super trackable like you can't always expect people to click on the link in the bio and go through the UTM tag like it's not it's not super predictable or trackable and then I would also say another one is a lot of social media managers are aware that like going viral is not the key to success like it is it is quite a vanity metric and I think a lot of people outside of social think going viral is like the key to success they think it's like the the godsend to everything and you know if you're if you've gone viral that's that's brilliant but actually the most important metrics are having that sort of highly engaged community so like with the elton john piece our community want to get involved they love our brand they're they're messaging us tagging elton in every single post like they're so dedicated i mean if you step back and think like if i think about the amount of times that i've commented on brands posts probably not much maybe that's because i work in social but like if you think back about okay what brands do i actually comment on you must really love that brand to be commenting on that post or trying to help them out with something because you're actually so far away from who they actually are um I also feel like yeah that hub that community piece is a lot more important a lot of viral content also is not actually on brand so I'd say like honestly like 99 % of viral content is never on brand and I think that's a huge thing that people get so excited yes it's good for a bit of brand awareness but actually it's probably the whole wrong audience because it's probably you throwing something on the floor and it breaking and it goes viral so I think yeah it's trying to create a bit more awareness for people who aren't in social that yes the numbers look great but actually I think engagement metrics are far more important than say your impressions sometimes yeah I think it's very easy to go oh I just want those big posts those big numbers I look at my LinkedIn sometimes I'll have a post that will do kind of like 40 50 ,000 impressions I'm like this is amazing and then the next day it'll be like a thousand but it's irrelevant to me like for me being consistent being reliable being someone that is actually sharing stuff that's useful is way more important than actually having those posts that random LinkedIn audience are going to see obviously it's nice when you're like wow they're supposed to go massive um but ultimately that's not the be-all and end-all I think as you said especially from a brand community and getting them involved is the most important and you said going into 2026 you also had some other yeah I was also going to say on the LinkedIn piece um you know when you go to events and you're like say it's like a retailer event and people like oh I've seen you on LinkedIn and they say it to Laura and they and you go really I think there is just that you have no idea the amount of people that are actually seeing your content they're not always going to like it they might just view it and and that's it but it's I think it's just so important to keep going with it I think I was I was currently uh recently referred to as a loud LinkedIn personality and it was like I'll take it uh I go to events and it is exactly that like I'm pretty sure I follow you on LinkedIn or I've seen your stuff I'm like good that means you're seeing the brand and what I'm talking about and it's it all comes back to sales and marketing yeah it's honestly it's dark social so yeah upcoming in socials 2026 so what I've learned from from other social media managers and just what I've found generally I would say that um things upcoming in 2026 are firstly as we were just talking about LinkedIn like leveraging LinkedIn not just like all the challenges which I feel like already are kind of tapping into that leveraging LinkedIn as a crucial platform.

20:50I think we'll sort of start to see a shift towards even maybe some more corporate brands, like maybe like MS, starting to leverage LinkedIn as a more crucial platform to push out EGC. I mean, I would love to see like people from M &S doing that and like building their team as brand ambassadors. Because I feel like traditionally, you know, we focus a lot on like our core consumer, like Instagram, TikTok, but actually LinkedIn, people are still consumers on LinkedIn. It's just a different consumer. And then the second thing I would say is really upcoming for socials is sort of episodic like super hi-fi series style content so when I think about this the first thing that always comes to mind is Jamie Lang's Candy Kittens like CCTV series where he really combines like TV with social and you know it's very entertainment first I think that is so like it's super valuable we've seen other brands like midday squares do it um and i think it just brings it back to what social is really about it's about we want to entertain people it is quite a brand awareness platform no one wants like product just shoved in their face it's bringing a lot of value to content being entertainment first and then also i'd say my third learning about what's upcoming is community just being like over everything and like being the most valuable thing ever i think you know we're seeing a lot more covid was ages ago i feel like everyone references covid but you know in-person events are so much more important again empowering people in your community that aren't just the influencers who have the large following but like doing community events with like one of your most engaged followers or you know showing up in the right place at the right time for those people that actually love your brand to the to their core i've seen this with like your sport they did a bit of a campaign where they were cheering runners on at the sidelines of marathon track or just like just random people that he was spotting on a run or like Tala collabed with these girls who run, which is like actually quite a small run club.

22:51They could have partnered with such a bigger run club, but they chose to do that because it was such a brand fit and it was like really empowering that smaller run club with all those girls. And then my final one for what's upcoming in 2026 is I feel like we'll see, obviously this kind of aligns with like egc content and like employees being brand masters which we're already seeing but also influencers working in-house for brands or brands kind of wanting to empower whether it's their socials manager or someone else in the marketing team to grow their personal brand a lot more i think we've seen this a lot with izzy hill at runner who she's obviously kind of an influencer before she joined but then her career has grown a bit more.

23:32And I think it's kind of a win-win. Obviously, it's very dependent on if the person wants to do that, but we might see maybe a shift towards them hiring more people who already have that following because it's kind of a leveraging tactic both ways. I'm totally aligned on that one. Like for me, that's one of my biggest sales strengths is my personal brand. Actually having the network, being able to talk about anything and everything with interest and giving, and it's helped me win some great sales opportunities just because people have seen the post and seen the content. So I'm always actively like right guys everyone needs to post like alex our founder i'm like come on like you're the founder like let's build your personal brand let's do this he's like no that's fine like you'll do it i'm like right i'm packed like that's it but yeah it's so important i think that there is some brands like you said perfect ted do it well bold bean like bold bean like the whole team whether you're in operations or finance everyone's getting involved and i think that's amazing to see like even mns mns and waitrose yes it is very i mean they're normally too busy actually working i've had a few ops people on the podcast and i always joke that i'm like yeah it's normally marketing and sales because we're the ones that like to talk you guys are always actually too busy doing the real work yeah but yeah no i think looking at socials and building personal brand i think it is something that we'll continue to see because ultimately people do like to know who they're buying from especially when it's a sustainability thing if you passionately care about sustainability you're also like but who is it that's running it like for me plant-based and and vegan brands i'm always like interested to know if actually our founders vegan because sometimes it's like well is it just a corporate thing and they've gone oh there's a gap here i'm gonna go for this or is it like i believe in this i've been vegan this many years and this is why we do it like joe and mike at one planet pizza great examples like mike's been vegan 30 plus years joe's probably again 10 years vegan and they're making a great vegan pizza brand so these are people you really get involved with their journey and their support um because you feel like you know them more yeah no that makes so much more sense I think it's so important that like I said Laura like I just knew that she was so passionate about what she did and the whole thing was super purpose-driven so I knew it was right from the start like you can't have someone who just doesn't even like their own product it makes no sense so now let's go right the way back to your your journey your career your education like how did you end up in this sustainable cleaning company um I can imagine that was never on the cards when you were at university so yeah what did you study what like and how did you get to where you are yeah of course I mean I've gone pretty niche because I've gone baby food to cleaning so I don't know how more I mean you need both if you're using baby food you're gonna need to clean as a parent I can very much vouch for that they do go hand in hand true true but yeah going even more niche so I actually started with a undergraduate degree in criminology which yeah it's a bit wild that I started there honestly when I was younger, I wanted to be a detective.

26:20And I'm obviously not doing that now. But I basically I think when you're younger, there's so many fields of business that you just don't know exist until someone introduces you to it. So when I was actually doing that degree, I had a part time job helping out with a bit of events marketing. And you know, they were kind of getting me doing like boards in the uni and like laying out with different designs and helping like promote these events in creative ways. And I realized that there's an opportunity for this, like you can be a bit because I did an art I did a lot of art school so I realized I can still be a bit creative but in a different way so following on from that I then thought okay I want to like divert from criminology and I did a master's in management at the University of Bath which gave me an overarching perspective of everything business related so we did like a module on accounting HR finance and then also like marketing which I focused on more I then absolutely loved it I had a great time there and did some really cool marketing events and things like that and then I thought okay I want to move to London do the classic thing and I actually ended up in a fintech business and it was a startup so I like the whole small team dynamic but I think I realized the b2b marketing I couldn't be super super creative and I wanted to like step outside like I've got such a creative brain and I need to let it loose and let those ideas buzz around so um I feel like okay I want to be that socials girl, you know, for one of those cool brands I've seen online.

27:49And yeah, so discovered the FMCG world and managed to get a role at Piccolo. And that was really fun. Learned so much there. And then decided it was time to move and discovered Seat. And then obviously discovered Laura and the whole brand and just loved it. And I think, you know, I never expected the path I went on. But I think when you're at university, you only know so much and there's so much pressure to know exactly what you want to do from day dot. But you never will know. And you just learn and learn and learn about more aspects of the business. There are probably still so many roles that I don't even know exist.

28:26But yeah, it was. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. For me, I was very much when I was younger, I was like, right, I want to grow up to be an engineer. Then I started studying maths and physics. And I was like, I hate this. And went kind of the sporty route, went into coaching. and then was like actually I really enjoy this I'm gonna do that then I started doing the food thing and then just got into the food world it was like never part of my plan but you learn so much along the way and I think everything from just knowing how to research how to study when you're going okay what's going on actually be able to read data and all these things there's so many tangible skills that transfer between wherever you are I think that's why I love speaking to people on the podcast is just understanding and showing that look everyone's journey is different but everyone's journey is valid because you're learning as you go from all these experiences is there any kind of like lessons like say at piccolo or in the fintech company you're like i really like how they did this and i it's i still like this is how i do my to-do list or schedule my day or like if there's any like little things you're like i picked this up from here as in um what things that i've learned over time yeah just more like a like a tangible lesson like some it's like well in a big like unilever business they were really good at promoting internally so when I'm working with my team I can then say hey like you're you're great at this like why don't we put you over here and do that um or if it's just like we would always do a Monday morning call and I love this like if there's anything like that I've got one thing I don't know if it's like a personal thing but as someone who I'm quite a creative person and you know I need that space for like ideas and things like that something I've realized is that you know everyone thinks quite differently some people are quite good on the spot they can think can brainstorm in a room some people need time to mull over ideas and I think if you're if you've got that sort of creative brain where you know ideas might come to you in the shower or when you're on a walk or maybe you're on holiday and you've got 10 more ideas than you did when you were stuck in a meeting room I think it's so important to like track your ideas and like I literally have an idea tracker so I log all my ideas so then when I've got campaign coming up or it might be like okay we've got a new product what's the angle what we're going to do I can look back at that from when my creative brain was buzzing and think okay that's I'm going to take a spin of that and that's going to be like my big big moment or my big PR stunt so I think it's just like playing into your strengths understanding the way you work best and when you're when you're the most creative and then just like yeah trying to play into that and like keep your ideas sort of all in one tracker no love that that's perfect um I think for me if I'm cooped up indoors for too long I need to move we've got a trampoline clearly for my daughter but I'm like no it's actually for me like bouncing on that five minutes suddenly oh cool like deprocess like everything comes to me or go go for a little walk I find if I walk and talk with someone your brain just works like I think it's the rhythm of the walking I just find for me it's an absolute leveler in terms of like you're stuck in the weeds again oh I need to get through this thing and as soon as you walk like oh it's really obvious now like I think that's so important to know what that is for people yeah I think just everyone works so differently and it's trying to understand that as a team and then just play into those strengths now completely going the other end what's been like a really tough day for you or what's an example of something that didn't go to plan that you're like this is what happened but we learned from it yeah I mean it might be a bit too general but I think this is something that like a lot of people in social would relate to is that often you can sort of brainstorm a whole idea, sit down, you know, smash out quite a long edit.

31:54And then the algorithm completely throws you off and you've got about two likes and no views. And I think in social, there's that battle. It's kind of a hard pill to swallow because you can put a lot of effort into a piece. Maybe it's like something that I find takes quite a while. It's like a storytelling piece. So it might be a bit about from where the founder started to the end journey now. and that can be quite a lot of editing. But you have to remember that like the algorithm is completely unpredictable and whether a lot of people claim to know what's going to happen with the algorithm, what's not, actually it's completely unpredictable.

32:26No one knows. And that piece that you thought was going to go really well might flop. You know, it's also social is quite a lot of platforms are quite sensitive as well. So you could use a slight bit of copyright and it will flop. And I think it's just remembering that like effort isn't always rewarded. and you know that so I did a video with um we basically got a cake for our fifth birthday I smashed it up with a sponge and I think got like 50k views like from one post and I was like that took me about five minutes so I think it's it's trying to just remember when you work in social that you know even if something doesn't go to plan the algorithm doesn't favor it and you don't get all those views or likes that you're hoping for that you just need to keep pushing through it because something will and it's I guess just about testing those different things but that's that's always a tough one yeah I've had that from a few people who do socials who've come on the podcast saying very similar things in terms of like even nice wine who do amazing stunts and they have the super viral videos they do have some that flop and people don't see them or they don't go to plan and they're like oh we thought that was gonna be a really big one but it isn't so I think it's just going okay that's part of the journey you're gonna have those roller coaster moments but that doesn't mean to stop it's like okay the next one could be it and it could be the one that you just kind of go oh I've got this little idea like let's go for it it's the same with LinkedIn it's exactly the same where sometimes I'll put a load of effort into how it looks how it's formatted all of that and then it just no one sees it and then I'll have like a two minute thought before the train arrives post it and it just goes crazy so yeah it's like just just know it's all part of the ride um the algorithm is one to just be just just keep going with it yeah just keep going Now, for anyone who's listening going, oh, I'd love to get into the food and drink space or the FMCG world, like what would your top advice be to anyone who is thinking, oh, how do I do it?

34:16Or what should I do? Yeah, of course. So I actually love this question because I think, I mean, it probably sounds a bit basic to start with, but you 100 % need to stand out. I think it's as someone who came from fintech into that FMCG space, I was so unsure of like, are they going to want me because I'm not even from this world. so I think even more so I needed to stand out in my case and every time I've done an application for anything in FMCG I've always tried to really go above and beyond so something I picked up from it was Grace Beverly's podcast sponsor she always said if you ever want a job like just do the job for them like show them exactly how to do the job like don't just sit there and write your cover letter if you work in socials make a video like do something super creative if that's the role And I think that was just like great advice.

35:10So with every job I've ever done, I've done something a bit weird or wild. I had one role, which I literally held a sign on Westminster Bridge. And it basically was like acting the company. And everyone was staring at me thinking, what on earth is that girl doing? But I was like, I need to just do something wacky. yeah stood on Westminster Bridge with this huge sign and then I went around asking people on the bridge why this company should hire me so I basically got people to like give the reasons for me and then I gave them the product of the company I was applying to so I think yeah it's just doing something super wacky and standing out that they literally can't look away they can't ignore your application even if they're going to doubt your CV they literally can't ignore that video you've just sent yeah no I am totally on board with that every job I've applied for I've always customized my name into their products their logo whatever it is those little things just make you stand out from everyone else I mean as time of speaking like I'm hiring and then when I'm looking for who do I want to be working with if I'm hiring for a sales role like you need to sell yourself to me what are you doing that makes you stand out from everyone else as well as your experience obviously track record's great contacts are great like knowing how to do the actual role is great but ultimately all the other parts is all it needs to come together yeah I was also going to say I've got another small tip but it's just I've always made my so like when I didn't have like a I wasn't really working on my personal brand in terms of a LinkedIn sense I kind of had a personal brand when I was applying for jobs so I had a email signature and then my CV and my cover letter were all visually the same so they were all like pink and I feel like just having that like recognizable oh that's the girl with the pink CV instantly they remember you and it is about kind of personal brand in that sense as well.

36:56So I think actually so many people don't realize that a lot of people don't actually try with their CVs and they don't do anything different. They're just black and white. And I think even just adding a splash of color or I know some people that do it in the company's colors whenever they apply, it just makes such a huge difference. Yeah. Yeah. The easy apply on LinkedIn is not the best way to go about it. So anyone applying for jobs, if you see it, they're normally always an email, like go the email route, give your personality, give some color to it yeah for sure um now final couple of questions before we wrap up um absolutely loved it um this is the music one so what what song are we going for like what best represents your startup experience yeah of course so um i'm going to stick with the elton john theme because elton if you're out there i'm still looking for you it's probably it might sound a bit negative but i'm going to go with i'm still standing and not for the negative reasons basically i think a lot of people outside of the SME world think that like I mean some people have like said to me like oh I couldn't do what you do or like that like I couldn't work in the startup world it's a bit chaotic and that was probably me before I came into it but then actually it's the best decision I ever made you're you're kind of pushed to your limits creatively and you can do so much more than you realized and I think that's just amazing so I would say like in terms of the Elson John lyrics It's like I'm still standing better than I ever did because it's just almost that surprise of this is so much better than I ever thought.

38:22And I think people don't realize that until they're in it. Yeah. And I think if you're in a challenger brand and you're still standing when you're being hit with inflation and everything else that's going on in the world, I think that that resonates to everyone. So, yeah, I think it's a great choice. Now, for anyone who wants to connect with you or find out more, is LinkedIn the best place? Where's the best place to speak to you? Or if they want to find out more about Seep and where they can buy it, where are those places? Yeah, of course. So if you're after me or you want a date, then feel free to slide into my LinkedIn DMs because I'm still on a mission to date 100 social media managers.

38:57So whether you work in socials or around socials, because I know a lot of people can dabble in it in different roles, then feel free to reach out. And then if you're interested in Seat, there it is. I'm also looking for some brand partnerships for 2026. So feel free to message me on that. We're very open to anything crazy and wacky and creative. So definitely message us. And if you want to buy the products, we're in Tesco, Cardo, Whole Foods, Planet Organic and on our D2C website. Amazing. Yeah, I can highly recommend if you are listening and you still have those plastic sponges in your sink, just go, maybe there is a better way and give it a go.

39:37Get rid of this green and yellow manky ugly sponge. Get yourself a seep sponge. It's a lot sexier. Yeah, and I can vouch. They feel nice. They look nice. They're better for the planet. Win-win all around. So no, this has been absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for your time and sharing so openly. I hope everyone stuck around to the end. Yeah, it's been brilliant. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I love this podcast. It's great. Thank you. and to everyone we will see you on the next episode goodbye bye