13 lessons I have learned from working on Graza's social media

goooood morning and a very happy thursday! i cannot believe that next time we chat it will be October. where is this year going?!

i hope you had a fab weekend as always. i spent some time in chicago to celebrate one of my best friend’s weddings (hi Caroline) and lost my voice screaming at the band to play “love in this club” at the reception. can we all agree that song is a hit? i also indulged in some italian beef (as one does) and of course had to stop by the only open Foxtrot location to take photos of anything and everything.

i’m currently writing this after getting back from a yankee game and am gearing up to spend the day listening to one of my really smart best friends, Nik Sharma, at his Q4 Summit today in NYC. if you’re going to be there, let me know. i’ll be boppin’ around.

with Q4 just days away, i want to make sure these newsletters are not only tactical for you across your social, creator, and influencer needs, but that they are written and based off real questions asked BY you.

if you have 5 seconds, hit the “reply” and braindump a few questions (no fancy intro needed) that you want answers to so that I can make sure these next editions are doing their job.

this week, we’re chatting and celebrating a huge milestone: Graza’s IG has officially hit 100,000 followers. so, it only feels right to share 13 takeaways over the last (almost) three years of being part of such an amazing brand.

BUT BEFORE WE GET INTO IT…

Guys, today’s newsletter is brought to you by a company I have been keeping a secret from everyone for the last 6 months. It’s the company that has been a key player in helping clients of mine like Graza get into the hands of creators and produce over 100+ million views across TikTok and Instagram to help in our quick growth.

With that said, today’s newsletter is brought to you by my mastermind friends at AdFairy!

If you’re a brand that is tight on bandwidth but wants to work with TikTok and Instagram creators at scale to build organic brand and retail awareness monthly, AdFairy for Brands is your answer.

How do they do it, you ask? Truthfully, they make my life EASIER. 

AdFairy for Brands focuses on working with emerging creators, allowing your brand to work with new incredible talent month over month and keep activating those that keep working well, too. The process is also seamless for the creators you want to work with, which we sometimes forget is essential when getting someone to work with you.

Creators can complete an ad via the AdFairy iOS app for creators in 3 simple steps without ever needing to send another email again via the platform that AdFairy has spent so much time building. 

You tell the team the campaign you want to run. For example, maybe you had a new product launch available nationwide in retailers. AdFairy for Brands will generate a list of creators ranging in size and reach. You approve and leave feedback if needed. The rest is handled. The content comes in for approval. You approve in less than 60 seconds, and it’s posted online in a snap.

I have loved working with the AdFairy team to bring brand and retail awareness concepts to life for Graza. Some examples are having Graza become a regular condiment in videos, normalizing how ice cream and olive oil are a great combo, and just doubling down on even more cooking videos to reach a different audience.

So, if brand and retail awareness is on your mind, especially having creators talk about your brand on platforms like TikTok heading into the busiest time of the year, or if you’re looking for new additions for next year, you can learn more about AdFairy for Brands HERE and talk to them to get started.

13 THINGS ANY BRAND CAN LEARN FROM GRAZA’S SOCIAL SUCCESS

On November 10th, 2021, I pressed “upload” on the first Graza brand teaser went live on social with a simple little green box with the notable logo. Little did I know that helping to manage and strategize on this account would fully change my life and my career.

From team structure to content to influencer marketing, I am going to share a few lessons I have learned as someone who has been able to see this brand go from a team of two founder + two consultants (hi Grace Clarke) to now a full time team of over 16 over the last 3 years.

1. A great product + great looking product + great marketing = great results, when done correctly. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. If you do not have a good product, but your marketing is good, the product will catch up eventually. Good marketing can only get you so far. Don’t rush to the market if you know it might shoot you in the foot. Take your time. Pressure may make diamonds, as I like to say, but feeling pressured to launch when it’s not ready can also destroy you.

2. Start earlier than you think. You’ll thank yourself later. We started building the strategy and testing in October of 2021. We launched in January 2022. Q4 was our prep for something bigger than we ever could have thought. This time was spent testing creative concepts, finding folks to help in our creative journey (design), putting together a photoshoot (which ended up being the only one we had to do for a full year), sending product to creators and restaurants early, and making sure all launch creative was set.

3. A one person team can only work for so long. I know it’s hard to hire a full team from day one and i toooootally understand that. When it comes to social, it was just me for a while with support and inout from the founder, Andrew and Allen. Andrew and Allen wanted to learn about social, what was working and what’s not, and their dedication to learning allowed them to become great thought partners when it came to brainstorms, especially with Andrew’s creativity and understanding of the community we were building which led to videos like this and this or this.

4. A great graphic designer and creative producer can change the game for your brand. When we started, we had support from our branding agency who helped create easy templates and an Adobe file that I could work off of. In January, we finally brought on a designer, who helped change the absolute game and unlock more engagement that we knew we were capable of. Fast forward, the next hire came in 2023 where the internal team hired a creative producer. Once again, this helped give time back to focusing on strategy, partnerships, and more now that there was someone to execute the daily and long term creative needs from photoshoots to filming tiktok videos.

5. No idea is ever dumb, stupid, or looked down upon. Graza brainstorms are a wild and fun place. The people you’re surrounded by matter. No matter how crazy and “out there” an idea or concept might be, no one ever feels like the need to hold back and that’s where a lot of the best concepts, partnerships, have come from.

6. Brand awareness matters. Invest in it. Not everything in this world needs to make you money. Create FOMO, if you have a product that can be easily sent out and easily enjoyed, send it. Invest in sending product if that’s where you need to start and then as scale happens you can start bringing on partners like AdFairy to help you gain 20M+ views and insane reach to keep you showing up on platforms where you might not be putting most of your efforts or where folks post you a lot.

7. Focus on two platforms and get reaaaaally good at them. You do not need to be going 110% on every single platform. Find your 2 (or even 1!) figure out what’s working, create the systems to help with success, build on those, and then add another to the list. We focused on IG and TT and the main channels, but with support though Twitter given the love happening within the DTC community.

8. Outbound community management is extremely underrated. I want to scream this one off a building. Get off your own account, please.

9. Celebrate the wins, big or small. Whether we were hitting 6K or 66k, it was celebrated. Whether we landed a cool content partnership, but the content didn’t do as well as we hoped, it was celebrated. If someone made something happen, it was celebrated. It’s just about the perspective.

10. You can do a lot with a little. Whether it’s the team size or the budget, you can do a lot if you find a way to get scrappy. Scrappiness will always be an underrated trait.

11. Your community is everything. Take care of them. Respond to them, engage with them, surprise them. Whether they are a customer or an influencer, community management deserves a full time role as a brand scales. Graza’s community manager has now become friendly with folks through our SMS, social, and more. When it comes to influencers, support them where you can and always offer. Be friends!!! To many folks in this world, fake it. Be a human. If you get along with that person then get to know them! We have been able to support cookbook launches, private events, parties, and more.

12. See something, say something. Whether it was a creator using another olive oil or someone, like Dua Lipa, who we know loooooves olive oil, especially on ice cream. Act on it! Whether it’s introducing them to your brand or sending them a custom label like our team did for Dua Lipa who posted the custom label and bottle almost 8 months later here, take action!

13. Have fun…and have a team that allows you to do so. Simple enough.

There’s probably so many more, but that’s all I have for right now.

It’s been such a wild journey to get here and I am forever grateful to the team and the founders for letting me be part of it. Heading into 2025, my main focus will shift into managing our paid creator partnerships and activations so stay tuned.

BRAND OF THE WEEK: SEVEN SUNDAYS

BOTW is when I pick a brand I love or enjoy, tell you about it and that’s pretty much it. It might be because I love their approach online or because i cannot stop inhaling it or using it. This week, it is: Seven Sundays.

If you have never eaten this cereal, you need to walk to your local Whole Foods and get a bag of the Chocolate and the Maple Sea Salt NOW. I eat it literally every single day in a big a** bowl of yogurt usually mixed with a scoop of protein powder, berries, and PB2 for a little extra crunch.

If you’re someone who likes to pay attention to ingredients, well, look no further because this is a peeeerfect option and if you’re gluten-free, you’re also in luck.

I have yet to try them, but they also granola, oatmeal, and more. I haven’t tried them yet, but if you have lmk.

LOGGING OFF

That’s it for this week! As always, thank you for letting me steal a spot in your inbox.

Next week, we’re chatting about Tiktok Shop. If you have questions about it, please hit "REPLY” and send them as I am hoping to interview someone to contribute!

In the meantime, if you enjoyed this or know someone who would, it would mean so much if you could share this newsletter with them. You can simply send them this link to sign up and have them join the party: https://kendalldickieson.beehiiv.com/subscribe

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See you next week!

Peace, love, and KPIs

-KD

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