Introducing Grace Andrews, Head of Content for Steven Bartlett and The Diary of a CEO. Find her managing and sourcing content across social platforms in order to develop and build Steven's personal brand, as well as Europe's number one podcast .
Grace creates strategies for rapid growth across 8 platforms. She curates creative campaigns, often in collaboration with high profile brands, whilst managing a team of 4 and helping them to develop into the best versions of themselves.
Here, she talks about how she got into this position of leadership for a world wide brand, having started by freelancing whilst working in a pub and doing pro-bono work.
Thank you so much for joining us on the Favourite Positions site, Grace. What an honour! Please tell us what you do for work and what you love most about it.
I’m Head Of Content for Steven Bartlett’s personal brand and The Diary Of A CEO, which is Europe’s number one podcast with a cross channel following of nearly 10 million and weekly reach of 30 million.
What does this mean in practice? I lead a team of 4 creating content across 9 marketing channels, including your traditional organic, paid, OOH, email and community.
From day one I’ve loved the autonomy, trust and limitless thinking that we encompass at Team DOAC. From day one I’ve been given the space to experiment and learn every single day, no 2 week sign off period, no strict processes, just creative freedom which is an essential in a fast paced marketing role in 2023.
Wow, that's a really impressive role. How did you get into the position you're in?
I used to say it was luck, or right place at the right time - which certainly do play into it. But like everything in life, it’s a combination of hard work, right timing and a little bit of luck and I hadn’t given myself enough credit for getting myself to a position where I was the perfect candidate. Before this role I was freelancing as a social media manager / consultant for a range of businesses.
When I started, to build up my portfolio, I was doing a lot of pro-Bono work between working shifts in the pub. People don’t often like to hear that you need to put some hard graft in, but I don’t think any successful guest we’ve had on the podcast would tell you they wouldn’t credit part of their success to some serious hard work.
What are the challenges you face in your line of work?
The landscape changes every single day. From trends to platform updates, the speed of change is only getting faster and faster, so keeping up in order to stay ahead is probably the greatest challenge.
What advice would you give to someone looking to get into this industry?
Start to build up your portfolio as your proof. CV’s are fairly ineffective in this industry. If that means some free clients to start practicing with, then offer a couple of free sessions for you both to benefit from. Sign up to all the newsletters and google alerts to stay ahead of the trends. You want to position yourself as the social media / content expert to the teams who don’t have time to keep up.
How do you prevent yourself from burning out?
It’s all about setting your own boundaries, because online hours could quite easily be every hour of the day. No one is going to set them for you.
My thought process is that I want to be operating at 100% when I’m working, which means I need to turn 100% off to get the balance right. I’ve started implementing social media free weekends once a month for example. It means getting ahead of yourself and making sure someone from the team can be present at all times, but having a team really helps with that.
We couldn't love your answers any more if we tried, Grace. You're a huge inspiration to us at Favourite Positions for your down to earth attitude towards getting into widely coveted position. Your advice on how to become an expert is applicable to any industry really, as is your stance on avoiding burn out. We wanted to end this post with an extract of something you put up on LinkedIn not too long ago as it's exactly what we stand for here. Thank you for proving to us that combining with consistency with big goals is a recipe for success.
'To my 21 year old self, fresh out of uni, back in my childhood bedroom, overwhelmed with rejection emails and spirally to a lonely, dark place. Forget about everyone else & forget about the path you’ve been told to follow.
You’re on your own path somewhere very exciting fuelled by your desire to do things a little differently. And in 5 years time, you’re going to be talking to an overflowing room of 500+ female graduates about what you’ve learnt, and everything you’re still learning along the way. Not only that, but you’ll be on a stage with some of the women you admire the most. Africa Brooke, Grace Beverley, Chessie King. No, seriously. We’re still processing it all too 🤯
And you’re going to look back after this specific event and realise just how far you’ve come, and feel a little bit proud. But you’re going to be very excited for whatever the next year, let alone 5, has in store too.
To everyone that came, listened, asked questions and connected - you took me right back & reminded me how daunting those early career steps can be. But you guys are the future and it’s looking very very bright ☀️' - Grace Andrews
You can get in touch with Grace directly via LinkedIn or email if you want to ask for her advice about getting into content. We also recommend you follow her on LI and Insta where she talks about leadership, team culture and values, as well as all things social media. Join her community and in her own words, 'hopefully we can learn together'!
This guide forms part of the Stripped Back series which have been designed to provide open, honest and encouraging information. They're a chance for you to understand the real ups and downs those being featured have experienced in their journeys to date. The aim is to demystify entry points to certain industries, as well as outline tangible advice for those looking to get into a new area of work. We hope you enjoyed this guide by Grace Andrews.