Giselle Elsom: Leading Social-First

Justin Levinson (00:01.346)‍

Hey everybody, welcome to the Agency Side Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Levinson, and I'm excited today to be here with Giselle Elsome, who is the managing director of Truffle Social, a really great social first social media agency with roots in New York and London. Thanks so much for being here today, Giselle.

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Giselle Elsom (00:21.115)‍

No worries, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It's exciting, thanks for having me.

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Justin Levinson (00:26.69)‍

Yeah, well my first question for you is just so the viewers can get an understanding about what you guys do at Truffle. Maybe you can just give us a brief intro on what you guys are doing over there.

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Giselle Elsom (00:40.559)‍

Yeah, definitely. So as you said, we're a social first agency. everything we do is with social media at mind. We do all four social strategy, social media management, content creation, paid social. But essentially we always start off with a strategy so we can figure out exactly what each client needs because it is all completely different because there's a million platforms now and they're ever growing.

So yeah, essentially we do everything that is social media focused and social first for all our clients.

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Justin Levinson (01:17.004)‍

Awesome, very cool. And in terms of your own personal story, how did you get into this particular space? I was looking at your LinkedIn page and I had noticed that you sort of, you worked a lot in this space, you kind of got freelance for a while and then you've really seemed to have spread your wings here. How did this all come to be?

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Giselle Elsom (01:43.279)‍

Yeah, well I started off working in, well I actually went to music university to start with. Yeah, I actually went to university and did music and production. So very different. But actually I really enjoyed the marketing side of things of a musician. So a lot of the time I was in a band at uni and I would want to sort out all the social side of things, like try and do like marketing of how we could get more gigs and...

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Justin Levinson (01:48.738)‍

Really?

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Giselle Elsom (02:12.249)‍

I kind of really enjoyed that aspect of it. So I knew it was something I was going to, you know, kind of want to progress in. I then worked at a PR agency for a while, went into influence marketing, and then decided to take myself off to be trained in paid social and performance metrics. So I went and did that for a little while. And I was practicing that.

whilst doing account direction freelance as well for quite a different agencies and brands. I did some stuff in LA as well for that and New York, so I working all hours. And then after that, I very much wanted to go full time again. And then I literally bumped into Ellie, who is the CEO of Truffle in the lift and...

There was a position going at that company, so I went ahead and interviewed for them.

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Justin Levinson (03:10.862)‍

So you met in a Lyft just coincidentally and started to just talk and how did that like turn into a...

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Giselle Elsom (03:14.225)‍

Yeah.

Well, the

Yeah, so I actually, one of the companies I was freelancing for was in the same building that she, her office was in. And I saw their ad go live and I was like, that looks really cool. Like, I'd love to do that, you know, kind of looking to go back into full time and it's my account director role that I'd been doing for quite a long time. And then I saw, they were always like,

There was loads of girls, like really glam. I was like running around and looking exhausted and not so glam. And I saw the wall in the lift and I was like, this must be them. And I had like followed Ellie on Lake 10. And then I just sent her a quick email and was like, I'd love to, I'm literally a few floors above. I'd love to come down and like meet you for a coffee and to chat through the world. And we did. And then from that moment on, we've come and be working together, which has been really lovely.

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Justin Levinson (04:13.294)‍

That is super cool. Yeah, I mean, obviously I come with all my music stuff in the back. I come from a musical background as well and sort of got into this particular space as well. It's kind of interesting. And PR, you know, I feel like, well, for me, PR was great too, because I got a lot of practice sort of pitching myself. So eventually when it came to pitching other people and other people's ideas and other people's ideas,

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Giselle Elsom (04:38.544)‍

Mm.

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Justin Levinson (04:42.668)‍

I think that kind of gave me some ability there. But I'm curious, what kind of music have you been doing and are you still performing or writing?

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Giselle Elsom (04:52.625)‍

No, no time for performing these days. But yeah, I did a lot of it during uni. And then I worked on a couple of different DJ tracks. So just singing and songwriting for a lot of that. But yeah, I kind of wanted to just keep it as something almost as like a side thing to enjoy rather than, you know, it's tough out there for musicians.

And you have to really, really want to do it to kind of push yourself forward for it. So I think I just had more of a love for it than really wanting to kind of push it as a career. I knew that kind of marketing was more where I wanted to go.

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Justin Levinson (05:37.71)‍

Yeah, do you feel like it's sort of like a superpower for you though, because you, you know, you are, you know, a creator of music as well. You can probably speak with creative people pretty, pretty well. And I, you know, obviously there's such a parallel, know, some music is so part, such a part of marketing that I imagine that you still get to kind of flex some of that, those muscles there.

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Giselle Elsom (06:01.361)‍

Yeah, I would say probably one of the main things I use is I guess the like stage presence. I learned a lot of that, a lot of confidence of like speaking, you know, to like large groups of people because I would have been on stage like singing in front of those people. And when I was really young, that actually terrified me, like standing up and speaking to like a whole group of people. And now,

I'm very comfortable doing it. We do a lot of conferences and there's still bit of imposter syndrome that comes through sometimes. When I'm like, I look very young and I'm like, God, all these people are staring at me like, is she? But I think that that is natural and a lot of people do feel that. But I'd say having music as a bit of a background and doing performances every week really did build up my confidence in being able to stand on stage and speak about.

know, stuff that we're actually experts in now with enough confidence and no stress anymore.

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Justin Levinson (07:01.934)‍

Yeah, totally. Yeah, it takes guts to get up there on a stage and talk to people. And I can really relate to that as well. I mean, I get nervous pretty much doing everything. Everything I do. Even doing a podcast, I'm like, oh man. Yeah, and I mean, it's good to have that, you know, sometimes it can work to your favor. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about, you know,

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Giselle Elsom (07:12.273)‍

I think everyone does. Yeah, everyone has that.

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Justin Levinson (07:29.39)‍

You know, obviously you guys work with a lot of really big brands. was like looking through through the H &M and like, you know, you know, Rolls Royce, Mary I've seen a bunch of really cool things. I guess are there any maybe highlight campaigns or things that you've worked on recently that you would be interested in discussing?

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Giselle Elsom (07:51.555)‍

Yeah, I guess most recently we've really tapped into AI content a lot more, which I'm sure everyone has said to you, kind of in our space. It's an exciting time for us as an agency because it means that we're able to kind of push the boundaries of our content a little bit more. I would also say a lot of the campaigns we're working on, like we work with Hotel Chocolat in the UK, who's also now in the US.

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Justin Levinson (07:58.861)‍

and

Yeah.

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Giselle Elsom (08:20.545)‍

We have helped them creatively kind of think outside the box a little bit when it comes to using AI or kind of styles that they never would have thought to use before. And I think that that's kind of a bit of a pattern that we're seeing is brands used to be a little bit less comfortable with the idea of pushing themselves out there and being a bit more like challenging themselves and

being a little bit more, I guess, out there with their content. And AI has almost shown them that they can be, and they kind of need to jump on that of being a little bit more experimental, I guess, with their content instead of just being safe. A lot of the big brands, like we see all the time, are doing that. And I think it's encouraging the smaller and the other ones to jump on as well and just experiment a bit more.

So I'd say like for us, it's actually been a really, really exciting time at the moment because we're able to push those boundaries a little bit more, which we've been trying to do for years, but there's always been a lot of red tape with a lot of clients. But yeah, it feels like we've got a bit more freedom these days.

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Justin Levinson (09:34.67)‍

Yeah. how do you see that? you? How is the AI being used? You know, exactly. Is it, you know, is it just, you know, just creative prompting in GPT or using any specific like how is that looking inside of your in your company?

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Giselle Elsom (09:56.729)‍

I guess it's more for deeper levels of research. It's been really helpful for more from a senior perspective, I would say. Just so that we're able to really dive into different aspects for different, we work across so many different industries like finance, food and beverage, hotels. So a lot of the time we have to be experts in all of these different spaces.

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Justin Levinson (10:03.118)‍

Hmm.

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Giselle Elsom (10:21.169)‍

So it is quite helpful in that sense where it's like we're able to have a deeper understanding of these brands without constantly going to the client and asking for more and more information on them. But from a creative perspective, we are coming up with the ideas ourselves creatively, because that's a big part of what we love doing. And it is literally the whole point is to be creative ourselves. But then we're working with

amazing designers and artists who we work with across all our brands that have got the ability to kind of bring stuff to life using artificial intelligence a little bit more. So we did a lovely piece of content for instance for Hotel Chocolat which was their Christmas campaign and it was bringing their Regent Street store alive but it was like making it look like it was a chocolate, whole store made of chocolate with all their products and then that was kind of our like main

tactic to use to basically sell through their Christmas range. So it's like thinking of different ways that we never would have been able to do, you know, five years ago. And it's a yeah, it's an exciting time for us to be able to kind of dive into a little bit more and use AI, I guess, in the right way and making sure we're setting boundaries with it as well.

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Justin Levinson (11:36.054)‍

Yeah, that is super fascinating. It didn't even jump to my mind in the beginning of just having research on the client you're working with and getting quick information and being an expert in quickly. But yeah, that's crazy how it's really working on both sides to sort of speed up the process and make everything come together. That's really fascinating. Is that one of the biggest changes that you've seen?

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Giselle Elsom (11:47.493)‍

Yeah.

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Giselle Elsom (11:51.013)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (12:02.7)‍

You know, have there been other changes to the industry since you first began in it outside of AI?

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Giselle Elsom (12:09.221)‍

Gosh, there's been a lot. I think in social media, we are constantly chopping and changing, having to be strategic, you know, rethinking our entire strategy plans a lot for clients. Like I would say, no day is ever the same, which I'm sure many people within our industry would say to you. We do something every morning where the whole team does trend search for

15 to 20 minutes and that's not just you know looking up TikTok trends and that's definitely part of it but a lot of it is also looking at social media news and what's changed overnight like any algorithm changes or any shifts within the algorithm and the team will look all of that up add it to a Slack channel and then they jump on a call at 9 30 in the morning and run through it all so

So much has changed, it changes daily. And yeah, we just try and stay on top of it for our clients and also for ourselves to make sure that we are strategically planning everything in the most effective way for our clients because you know, we don't want to roll with something when we then hear that it's not really working and it's not going to work because the algorithm's changed.

Yeah, our team are very, we put it in the diary as like a structured thing that everyone does every day just because it is really valuable to us at every single level.

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Justin Levinson (13:33.806)‍

What is, I guess, you know, when you've, what is success to you in terms of like working with a client? Like if you have a successful, yeah, if you work for the brand and what you've done is successful, what does that mean to you?

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Giselle Elsom (13:53.009)‍

I think it is a few different things. First of all, obviously, we set KPIs with them. And you know, we want to exceed on all of those. So we do our monthly reporting and make sure that we're exceeding on all those KPIs for our clients. So, you know, that is a success metric in itself, where we will look at that and make sure we're monitoring that daily. So that's like one boxed hit. I'd say like,

Another really key one is like building those relationships with our clients and making sure that we have long partnerships with them. It's not a quick partnership. We want to build relationships with them. want to strategically work with them over time where we can help them progress, whether it's sales and they're like a new brand who's started up or whether they've been going for like 100 years and they want to relaunch or shift and target a new generation.

We've got multiple different avenues and KPIs where we work with clients. Like, and you know, like you said, some very large clients that have got a full brand positioning set up and have been going for a very long time. And then some smaller ones that literally come to us and say, we have no idea what to do. This is our brand. We're launching in two months, like help. So it's, I say like it is, it's different.

But that relationship building and really nurturing our clients is a massive thing that I always try and make sure the team are doing as well. I think it's really valuable to have real honest conversations with your clients. This isn't working. We need to shift this or this is done so, so well. Let's put some pay social behind it and really reach a much larger audience with it. Just have very honest conversations with clients on a daily basis and that's what.

we try and do a truffle. We're not like, we're quite a young team. And I think everyone is like really an expert on social and really loves it. And that's why they're working in it. And I think that does really come across because when you build those relationships, you're able to kind of like just jump in and chat to them and everyone feels excited about it anyway, because they enjoy working in what they're doing.

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Justin Levinson (16:07.372)‍

Yeah, I really love that relationship approach, especially it can get lost with you know, with technology getting so, you know, so fast and to not have that sort of transactional approach and to have like the long term relationship and have that like, be able to have honesty and but accountability and all that stuff is really great. And I try to follow suit there as well. Do you, are you very client facing? Is that a big part of your position?

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Giselle Elsom (16:16.101)‍

Yeah.

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Giselle Elsom (16:38.641)‍

Yeah, I would say slightly less now. I'm more kind of focused around running the business and a new business as well. And then I would say our account director team, senior account management team are more client facing. They have the weekly calls, they're checking in with the clients, we've got WhatsApp groups with all our clients as well for any trending reactive content that needs to be done. So everyone in the team has constant communication with our clients.

which sounds probably like a lot to some people, but I think in our industry, you kind of have to, be honest, like there's so much that chops and changes. I mean, look at TikTok for an example, with that going down in the U S like we had to do totally new strategies for our clients that are based in the U S, to figure out what other platforms they could go on or, know, how we could re shift the content structures.

And the team had to get on that quickly, communicate with the clients, get that signed off as well. And then obviously it was fine, came back after 12 hours, but no work is wasted. But yeah, so I'd say like we have that really strong relationship with them because there is always just so much to talk about in our industry, which is a blessing as well at the same

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Justin Levinson (17:44.248)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (17:59.842)‍

Yeah, man, that's like red alert. That's like for the recruiter of their LinkedIn page going down. That's like, that seems pretty, pretty wild. Yeah, in terms of business development, I'm curious, do you guys focus on like, just kind of getting new business to come inbound just organically? Or do you guys as an agency to have a real like outbound?

strategy if you could speak to that at all if you can't that's okay as well.

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Giselle Elsom (18:32.305)‍

No, that's fine. We actually are kind of looking at this in the moment because we do touch wood. We're very lucky. We have a huge amount of inbounds because we've been going for 15 years and we were one of the first social agencies to ever start in London. So we've got that credibility. We've been going for a long time. Our SEO and Google is really strong. We're number one on Google still. And I think that that helps.

And so out in bounds have been very, very strong and they do allow us to kind of just keep kind of the flow of new business. But we are going to be outreaching into other locations, but can't really talk about that. We are kind of like, yeah, approaching other markets and other locations that's been going really well. And that's been more of an outbound approach. And we've seen some great success from that already, which is exciting for this year.

But yeah, we are very lucky we do get a constant stream of inbounds. It's just about kind of like monitoring them. And yeah, it's that's the job in itself.

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Justin Levinson (19:40.268)‍

Yeah, do you guys are you like, do you sort of pick and choose the work too, sometimes like, is there sometimes where like a brand will come to you and be like, not really feeling this brand and turn down business? Is that part of the gig too?

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Giselle Elsom (19:57.431)‍

Yeah, definitely. I mean, we do get a lot of inbounds that aren't quite relevant or the budget's not quite right or, you know, they might be better off having a like smaller agency working for them. We definitely, yeah, we definitely do. We have like a system where we score any inbound lead coming in, just to make sure that it's, you know, going to be right for us, but also right for them. You know, we don't want them to be.

asked to bring them on and then ask the team and all of us not feel passionate about working for it because there's kind of no point for them either.

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Justin Levinson (20:35.054)‍

Yeah, I love that approach, sort of having a scorecard and seeing if it's going to be a right fit for both parties. Yeah, we do that too a little bit on the recruiting side of the coin, which we do in this creative space. We do that for people on their roles. We rate them based on how good their role is. they're like, wait, you're giving us a C for this role? Like, well, you know, working with some other recruiters and the pay isn't quite as high as it should be. And yeah, I don't know if I'm going to do this one. But sometimes

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Giselle Elsom (20:39.626)‍

Yeah.

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Giselle Elsom (20:56.224)‍

Hehehehe

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Giselle Elsom (21:03.665)‍

Yeah, I think it's important. Yeah, I think it's important. mean, a lot of the time we have a call with people like I'm, I'm very like, I like to get on a call. I like to meet people face to face. I'm old school in that sense. So I think, for me, you know, if I was to have a call with every single person or meet every single person for a coffee, it would just be, you know, there's not enough hours. So we have to be like a little bit careful in that sense as well.

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Justin Levinson (21:07.586)‍

Yeah.

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Giselle Elsom (21:31.853)‍

And again, like I said, you we don't want someone to take time out of their day to come and meet me for a coffee or jump in a pool room. We know it's not going to be quite right for them either.

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Justin Levinson (21:40.556)‍

Yeah, I appreciate that. Is there like a I guess just maybe it could be a personal thing too, like which is there any any brands that you would be like would be a dream for you to work with that if you could partner with with anybody that you'd be like, wow, I'd be really happy to do in this this gig.

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Giselle Elsom (22:02.671)‍

I mean, me personally, I absolutely love streetwear. So New Balance would be my absolute dream. But they are nailing it, the whole marketing they're nailing it. So that's probably why I love them. But yeah, I'd say lot. Well, I've got many trainers. I'm definitely one of their prime candidates. But yeah, I would say

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Justin Levinson (22:17.038)‍

Don't film that. You gotta move in.

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Giselle Elsom (22:32.561)‍

New Balance, I just love how they remarketed themselves as well. They took like such a change and shift and came out of nowhere again into the street where I've seen. So yeah, I always find that really fascinating when brands kind of like relaunch themselves as like the cool brand again. So yeah, that would be a dream for me. lot of we actually do a dream list in our new biz Excel.

And the girls like feed in, they all put into it what they, who their dream client would be. And then we sometimes like send off little campaign ideas to those clients. if we ever get an inbound from any of them, then we would have that person working on the account. And it's just quite nice because it just means it's not, you know, all coming from me or the CEO. It's coming from, yeah, the whole team at every single level.

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Justin Levinson (23:22.83)‍

Yeah, I love that the dream 100 that's that's brilliant. What's your what's your style as a leader? mean, I saw that you you were like an account director then sort of client service director. Now you're managing directors you keep on keep on moving up there. What is your like what's your leadership style? What do you feel is like, you know, sort of sort of defines your success there?

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Giselle Elsom (23:25.892)‍

Yeah.

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Giselle Elsom (23:53.425)‍

I would say, hopefully everyone would agree, the team would agree with this. But I would say I'm quite nurturing when it comes to leading. I'm also very aware that I don't know everything. And I think that that's something I feel quite strongly about. We've got our team because they're all individually experts in what they do. I know I can go to, know, Navina and our team is amazing on insights and analytics, like,

I can ask her and say like, what's this, what's happening right now on this algorithm shift? Like, how can, can you explain this to me in quite a lot of detail? And she would just thoroughly go through it. And I think like being a leader is understanding that you don't know it all. And it's just like nurturing the people that do and learning from them as well. I think, you know, the learning and the educating never ends. mean, especially in our industry, it's just continuously.

changing and shifting as I said. I think it's nurturing the team to make sure that they feel comfortable as well to approach you and to go through things with you. And I hope that I do take that approach. I really enjoy doing my mentorships and things like that, which I've done quite a lot of and just like any leadership talks and things like that talking about experience in the industry.

We're an all female agency as well. So we're like, you know, trying to kind of encourage the team and all the team members to feel powerful and strong enough to have a seat at the table wherever they go and to just kind of raise their voices when needed, when they want to be heard. So I'd say like, yeah, I try and be very like, open to listening to other people and

just creating like a very like warm environment for the team to be in.

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Justin Levinson (25:49.078)‍

Yeah, I dig that. I got two little girls, so I love that.

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Justin Levinson (25:58.222)‍

agency that's that's super cool. Yeah, I think that's it is that sort of being nurturing can kind of bring out the most creativity in anybody too because it's like you got to feel like like creativity is it's like I don't know I feel like you can be like if you're like really stifled and like you know you just you can't you're not going like speaking your mind and you're not going to do a good job if you feel like that.

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Giselle Elsom (26:20.015)‍

Yeah.

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Giselle Elsom (26:24.409)‍

No.

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Justin Levinson (26:27.278)‍

So it's good to have a good like good working environment like that. I can really appreciate it

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Giselle Elsom (26:34.021)‍

Yeah, definitely. think it like, you know, it comes, it comes down to a lot of experience. I think like, I try and explain to the team that in my experiences that I've learned over time, like there are many times when, you know, haven't been given the opportunity to like say what I want or give my like creative angle on something, but I would always just shout it forward and push it forward and push myself forward in the past. And I do feel like things are getting a little bit

better in industries now, especially with like hierarchy and so on. I guess everything I've learned in the past and where I've seen things I didn't like or changes that I would have made myself, like I've tried to now implement that in an agency so that, you know, no one kind of feels like they have to go through certain things as well.

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Justin Levinson (27:26.382)‍

That's brilliant. What are some challenges that you feel are happening in your industry right now? I guess maybe you could speak to some of those issues.

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Giselle Elsom (27:39.471)‍

Yeah, I guess probably one of the big challenges is during COVID, lot of small agencies popped up. you know, like freelance, smaller agencies popped up. And I guess like, we very much separate ourselves from that because you know, how long we've been going and so on. But it's like creating, it's educating people, like educating new business on

the value of social media. It's still and also the value of having the expertise of people that have been doing it for such a long time. And I think that every, probably every agency that's been going for a while feels this as well. There is like such a challenge to educate people and, and there are, you know, these larger companies now do have people that are a little bit more aware of social media and like why it's needed and you know, how it can actually support with your sales with

like really larger like marketing goals. Whereas I think, yeah, I'd say the challenges have been in the past, just really trying to like, educate people on why they need it before we've even started working with them is probably a really big challenge for us as an industry, because we're not, you know, it's a service, it's not like a direct product. So it can be a lot harder.

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Justin Levinson (29:04.408)‍

What do you think the like the the hesitancy can be maybe do you think they're just not gonna get enough return on investment? Do you think it's gonna be like do think it's gonna be too expensive? Do they just like not are they actively like too old school to be involved in social media and they just say like that's not the new thing or what what sort of are the roadblocks there?

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Giselle Elsom (29:25.869)‍

I guess it's a bit different. So sometimes, you know, there'll be someone that's very senior in the company that's just very anti social media and might be a little bit older, but also just really not very anti it doesn't really understand the, you know, the ins and outs of it because they're not educated in it, which is also fine because you know, we are, I guess we our like, biggest thing is just to really send over detailed ROI.

And like, you know, we'll say, if you're doing a paid campaign, this is roughly the ROI that you will make. And this is what we estimate. So we try and make things as clear as possible when it comes to KPIs and results. And we are very, very results driven at Truffle. So I think that does help us in a little way because we've got the stats to back it up based on other campaigns that we've done. So, you know, we'll share like four ad examples of other clients with the ROI percentage that we got for them. So we've got that to back us up.

which obviously does help us in the bigger picture, but people are always going to question whether social media is actually helping with things or, you know, I think it's still a very like new industry, even though we've been doing it 15 years, like there's new platforms, like TikTok hasn't been around for 15 years. Like there's stuff that's been, you know, chopping and changing over so many years that it doesn't feel like a consistent industry that people, I guess, fully trust.

And for us, know, TikTok shop, for instance, we really pushed some clients to do that because we could just see like how strong the return was on some of our other clients and how well it was doing. I think people when like brands are a bit nervous, I think especially the ones that are, you know, a little bit more senior, like haven't really dived into or don't even have TikTok themselves, like don't really understand it yet. And we're like, can you put...

the majority of your marketing budget into this TikTok shop, please. You know, I get it. And I think that's why I try and have those face-to-face conversations with people, explaining it, really like, again, nurture that relationship with the clients so that they do understand like, what we're trying to do is coming from a better place because we always want to just get the best results for them. And then yeah, a lot of those clients now are very happy because they see a very large return.

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Giselle Elsom (31:49.297)‍

on there but yeah not everyone is willing to kind of take the risk I guess.

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Justin Levinson (31:55.414)‍

Yeah, I mean, it's like you can't put anybody in a box based on like their age or what their interests are, anything like that. But I wonder if does that does the it does it lend brands to being able to appeal to a bit of a younger audience? Do think in general, if they're more open minded to those things? Like TikTok and all that stuff.

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Giselle Elsom (32:02.865)‍

No.

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Giselle Elsom (32:15.057)‍

I think it depends. I TikTok is, you know, every age is on there now, to be honest. And I think that that's kind of our argument is we're trying to say like, yes, your audience might be slightly older, that's actually purchasing your product. But that doesn't mean they're not going to be on TikTok. And I think that that's what we're trying to say, like the parenting community is massive on TikTok. Like parenting influences are huge on there.

So we work with, you know, like some really nice luxury hotels or we work with interior brands and we would say, you know, like this is a prime target audience for them. They're on TikTok, they're searching videos all the time. We can just send them ads of, you know, interiors or like homeware. Like they're definitely going to be on there. That's like parenting, you know, people within that age range is increasing on TikTok. So I think

they're purchasing on there. So I think that that's kind of what we're trying to do. We're trying to like, back ourselves up as much as possible with the case studies and the creds to kind of showcase that it isn't just for a younger audience, there is such a large audience on there now. And essentially, if you want mass reach, that is the place for it.

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Justin Levinson (33:32.918)‍

Yeah. Wow. I feel like a dinosaur. Cause I was like, remember when my space was like the, with Tom and his thumbs up.

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Giselle Elsom (33:38.46)‍

I remember Myspace. that was always, that was the best. And Bebo. I loved Bebo, but I don't know what happened to that.

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Justin Levinson (33:46.286)‍

I never used that, I never used that, but for Myspace, remember like, for music, that was sort of like, that time period was like the peak of my success because it was just like, you know, you would have a band page and it was like immediately like your music would pop up and you could like, you know, friend people that were followers of bands or that you sounded like. yeah, I mean, and people at that same point time.

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Giselle Elsom (33:53.861)‍

That was Dylan.

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Giselle Elsom (34:04.474)‍

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (34:13.826)‍

That was such a lead gen tool for people to end up buying your music on like iTunes when actually would buy it, even though was only 99 cents, you know, I'm dating myself here. But I felt that was a whole.

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Giselle Elsom (34:21.527)‍

Yeah, I know. No, I remember. Yeah, I mean, that was the start. It was it's just been ever growing, hasn't it? And I think that that's what's quite exciting. I think it's what like keeps the team really excited as well as, you know, we literally never know. Like tomorrow could be a brand new platform that's, you know, everyone wants to be on. And then we have to be experts in it within 24 hours. I mean, we'll literally have clients straight away being like,

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Justin Levinson (34:26.626)‍

half.

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Justin Levinson (34:37.516)‍

Yeah.

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Giselle Elsom (34:51.437)‍

should we be on this? And we're like, my gosh, it's only just launched. So we're like quickly getting an understanding of what it is, like whether it's going to be beneficial for them. So yeah, I say it's like, mean, I know our team find it pretty exciting, just that anything can happen, anything can change as well. And we just like have to be pretty agile for whatever's going to come our way.

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Justin Levinson (35:18.872)‍

Do you have any inside knowledge of anything else that's coming out soon that's going to change the world that I should jump on?

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Giselle Elsom (35:23.793)‍

No, but I will let you know. Hopefully we'll hear about it first. Yeah, I will. Yeah, no, definitely.

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Justin Levinson (35:28.118)‍

send me a message because I don't want to be the last to know. When you guys do social media management, social advertising, management strategy, content production, I even saw that you guys are doing events. So you guys are doing all kinds of stuff. I'm just kind of curious from what it looks like on your end. I guess with social media management, you

literally like you guys just like admins into the accounts and you're just full speed ahead getting approval but you're sort of just really like guys I got it is that kind of how it looks.

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Giselle Elsom (36:09.145)‍

Yeah, exactly. So we tend to start with a strategy just so that we're really clear on what the next six to 12 months essentially needs to look like. Obviously things chop and change, but that's the guide. And then we'll have like, we'll do our copywriter, we'll make sure the copywriting and tone of voice and everything is all signed off, content pillars and everything signed off as well. And then we go ahead and do our photo shoots, our content creation shoots.

with our team and then we build out the content calendars and that way we just have a really seamless approach of our clients. They just jump onto a platform, they just write a comment if they want to change anything on it and then or they just click approve and then it all just goes out live and then we optimize it once all the posts are live and then we do two stories a day for majority of our clients, two or three.

and they'll be designed by our team as well and then carried out. yeah, it is full social media management and community management is a really big part of what we do as well. community management and proactive engagement. So finding people to practically engage with whilst doing the community management. So we have someone that solely does community management for our clients because it is such a big part of building organic engagement.

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Justin Levinson (37:27.278)‍

And so you have content creators in your that are I'm sorry, like production people that are working for you guys and you guys part with other you do. And what do do if they're like like in Los Angeles or or you know or somewhere else? How does that work?

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Giselle Elsom (37:34.563)‍

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Giselle Elsom (37:45.265)‍

Yeah, so we work with people all over. We have our set people that we work with in London, and that's our kind of like London team that we work with. And then we have, so we have a videographer, photographer, and then UGC creator. So like someone that's a bit more like UGC focused, more iPhone style. And then in New York, we work with different content creators, LA, we've got a client based in Trinidad. So we're literally, yeah, globally, we've got people on the ground.

of support and they are more freelance content creators but we've done work with them before and test shoots with them before to make sure we're happy with everything.

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Justin Levinson (38:23.0)‍

That's cool. And how long do you, how long typically will it run? Like if you're taking over brands socials, like how, how long could that go for?

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Giselle Elsom (38:33.437)‍

I mean, we've been doing it for six years for some clients. Yeah, we, yeah, we'd be with normally just consistently on like a rolling yearly contract. So yeah, we have like a three month minimum with clients just because we have a month to kind of do the shoots and so on and get everything together on strategy. But yeah, I'd say we're pretty consistent with just continuing with most we do projects as well, which is strategy projects or

‍

Justin Levinson (38:37.55)‍

you

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Giselle Elsom (39:02.831)‍

might be a larger shoot or we do events as well like London Fashion Week, instance, with designers and that will be like a project because it's only for the period of London Fashion Week. So yeah, it's, I'd say no client retainer is the same. Everyone is completely different. Everyone wants different platforms, different requirements. So yeah, we make everything bespoke for all clients.

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Justin Levinson (39:27.938)‍

That's crazy, giving you some chance to travel a little bit.

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Giselle Elsom (39:31.717)‍

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'd say New York were there all the time because we've got client work over there. Trinidad, went to Trinidad to see the client last year and had to speak at their conference, which was amazing. That was an experience they did the most amazing time for us. And I spoke at their conference about their social strategy. And yeah, Dubai as well. Travel over there and do bits over there.

Yeah, it's, it's fun. We it's a lot of traveling. But it's more I'd say they're more kind of senior people within the company travel a bit more. But yeah, there's always opportunities if people kind of put them forth.

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Justin Levinson (40:14.83)‍

Cool. Well, we just got a couple more minutes left. So maybe I'll give you a couple of rapid fire questions. What's your favorite band? you have a favorite artist or do you have any favorite music artist?

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Giselle Elsom (40:21.393)‍

Cool.

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Giselle Elsom (40:26.449)‍

Yes, they do. I'd say Little Sims is probably my favourite artist, especially at the moment. I saw her at Glastonbury last year and she was just incredible. was, yeah, she was amazing. I love her like whole stage presence, how she doesn't have to have like a massive show performance on. She just like purely herself was so, great.

So yeah, and say she's one of my favorites. I'm a big festival goer. Glastonbury I've been going to since I was really, really young. So yeah, think music's always been a massive part of my parents' life. So I've always been fully embedded in it, which I'm very grateful for.

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Justin Levinson (41:12.236)‍

Yeah, that's great. And any any books that you really have enjoyed?

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Giselle Elsom (41:19.567)‍

Yes, we're actually going to start a book club at Truffle because all of us are obsessed with reading, which says something about our lovely team. But yeah, we all love reading. So yeah, we're actually going to set up a book club and start sharing notes with each other. I actually read American Marriage, which was an amazing book recently. And I'm currently reading a lot of

‍

Justin Levinson (41:23.2)‍

Hi.

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Giselle Elsom (41:48.219)‍

books around being a female leader and kind of seeing other people's experiences and how they've navigated it. Yeah, learning a lot from different people. But yeah, I will have to give you a little update on our book club when it launches.

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Justin Levinson (42:06.926)‍

That's a great thing. I've tried to read more as of late. I wouldn't say I'm an avid reader, but I do find it much more relaxing at an evening time, especially if I'm trying to go to bed and I can just read something and just use my imagination and sort of fall asleep. But if I get kind of pulled into the social media or the news or other things, sometimes I'm like, will be up late with my eyes wide open at the ceiling being like, I shouldn't have watched that show.

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Giselle Elsom (42:21.412)‍

Yeah.

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Giselle Elsom (42:34.833)‍

Yeah. Yeah. I think in London, we're all traveling on the tube all the time. We're rushing around on different trains. And I think it's nice to have a bit of a break. know every team member is on technology all the time. That's the nature of our industry. So I think it's quite important.

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Justin Levinson (42:36.424)‍

read that article. So, yeah, but reading is just... Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

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Giselle Elsom (43:03.793)‍

to have those like tech breaks as well and just to like read. I mean, I've always loved reading anyway, but I'm pleased the rest of the team are also. I'm also really interested in it and also enjoy taking that little, you know, detox from social media every now and then.

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Justin Levinson (43:20.93)‍

Yeah, totally. I gotta put my phone down. getting like, I have to have like hand surgery next week. and it's just from like doing this all the time, you know, I gotta like, I gotta put it down and experience like some, know, it's a great thing. I mean, I'm, you know, we wouldn't be talking if I wasn't excited about social media marketing and all this stuff, but think balance is super important, you know, and I really have enjoyed speaking with you definitely really, especially about like, you know,

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Giselle Elsom (43:30.831)‍

Yeah, take a break.

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Giselle Elsom (43:45.349)‍

Yeah, for sure.

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Justin Levinson (43:51.342)‍

having strong relationships and not being so transactional. I thought that was a really interesting part of our conversation. love that you guys are female-owned, that you guys are doing reading, a lot of really cool stuff that you guys are doing over there. yeah, thanks so much for speaking with me today and offering some insights. And I'm sure the will be super excited.

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Giselle Elsom (44:11.6)‍

No worries.

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Giselle Elsom (44:16.057)‍

Yeah, no worries. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been great. Been great chatting to you. Thanks.

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Justin Levinson (44:20.014)‍

Awesome, so have a great rest of your day. Appreciate it.

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Giselle Elsom (44:24.369)‍

Thanks, bye.

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Justin Levinson (44:25.538)‍

Bye.