Build an Award-Winning Agency: Jack Shepherd on SEO, Social Growth, and Global Expansion with The Social Shepherd

Hey everyone, welcome to Hack to the Future with Kyle Roof. I am Kyle Roof and today I'm very excited. I have Jack Shepherd, who's the co founder of The Social Shepherd. Jack, thanks for being here.

Lovely to be here as well. Thanks, Kyle.

Jack first of all, you get bonus points for a good pun. The Social Shepherd. That is a fantastic name. When you were putting the agency name together, like, how many did you go through? Did you just immediately land on the Social Shepard?

I never want people to think that I named after myself, even though it is after my surname. My wife, who's my co founder, I shared with you earlier. She actually came up with it because her surname was Stevenson and she was like, The Social Stevenson. Doesn't have the same ring to it.

Nah. The Social Stevenson doesn't have the same ring.

She accepted it. And I said in my wedding speech, I said, you've planned to have my surname all those years anyway, so one day you could actually be a shepherd too. So it worked out for her as well.

And she kept you after that one.

Yes.

That's great. How long have you been married, by the way?

Only since August.

Only since August? Well, because, so your, I guess now wife is the co founder in your company. Did you think that relationships were too easy and you just had to add in one thing to the mix?

More complex. To be fair like I'm a big believer in having a co founder and I think the balance of what me and her have, we have completely different skill sets but also like ultimate trust in each other that, you know, Zelly, crack on. Like I don't need to know really, you know, bounce stuff off me, but I don't need to know exactly what you're doing. Just crack on. I've got complete trust and vice versa. So actually I think it's been like our, like our superpower. Over the last six years, has been that balance for both of us, to be fair.

What do you do in a situation where you have to yell at her? Or she has to yell at you.

I'm a very calm person. I'm not a confrontational person, at all. So, arguments never happen. More bickering.

Is he delegating to somebody else to tell her? Or is she delegating to somebody else to give you a message?

Honestly, it works. It works great. And I think that’s been the number one thing for me, in terms of like, the success of what we've been able to build is that and having a co founder, whether it was her or maybe someone else, I think, I don't, I don't think I necessarily would have got to where it is today on my own.

I would have, I would agree. I also have a co founder and now we have a third business partner as well. And when we started the company myself and my business partner Andy, we kind of naturally fell into our roles. Of Andy being on the operation side and the marketing side and then myself on more of the product lead side. And more of like the face of the company. Did you have something similar where you just kind of naturally fit into the roles that were, you know.

Yeah, kind of similar.

Got, you got your best, the best out of you and the best out of her.

Yeah, I was more, I've historically been more like the growth sides in marketing, new biz, so I'm not biz development. And then she was very good at sort of like the social as a craft, the creative sides and also, but also very strong operationally. Like from a leader perspective as well and guiding and nurturing the team.

So the Social Shepherd is a social first digital marketing agency. Is that a fair, way to?

That's right. Yeah.

What kind of prompted that angle, if you will, of where we're putting this agency together? And was it always that way? I mean, obviously social is in the name, so I have a feeling. Yeah, that was the direction you were going from the start, but how did that all come together?

Yeah, so previous to the agency, going back from 2013 to 2017, I had an events business and I started that when I was 21, finished when I was sort of like 25 ish, and through having to sell tickets. You know, we printed loads of flyers, I remember in the early days we printed loads of flyers and then we also do marketing on Facebook and Facebook, even Facebook groups and building communities and building social pages. And then after the end of the event, we had sold it out and we still had all the flyers that we never once distributed any of them because like social had done so well. So throughout those years, I think I really learnt how to navigate social, how to drive traffic, build hype, build anticipation, build demand for a product, which my product at that time obviously was this sort of event ticket. And then that translated into the first few clients that ended up being venues and bars and nightclubs. But very much yeah, we always set out to be a social agency, but I think most agency owners can maybe attest to this as well. It was very scrappy in the early days. I built Shopify websites for brands because they just asked for it and we did email marketing because, you know, you just need to make the cash to pay yourself and live, basically, and that was very much the start for, like, the first 12 months was just scrappy. We do anything. Social is our focus, but if someone's willing to pay us, I will find a way basically in those early days.

When speaking of those early days I remember with my, with my partner, with my wife, yeah, I had a lot of support in that. And I was like, I've got this weird idea where I'm going to open up an agency. What are you going to sell exactly? I don't know. And the only way to see what I do is you have to look through this magic window and go online to see any work that I may or may not have done. When you, like, who came up with the idea first? Like, let's do this agency. And then was everybody immediately on board?

Zoe had always said to me, like, after I finished that event stuff, I wanted to move on from that. She was always like, sort of pushing that, like, I really think you should start, because she had worked in agencies herself after graduating uni, she worked in two different agencies. So she knew that sort of like loose, you know, very junior, I guess she was only 21, 22, 23, but understood that business model. I was like, you, you know, social Jack, why don't you just start an agency? So I had a few clients as freelance clients effectively. At the beginning, just like that happened organically, and then while she was working at that, that agency, she picked up a few freelance clients on the side and then we were like, well, let's, we were together at that point already, so we're like, let's join together and, and try and make something of this.

Very, very cool. Within the social side of things, when you're putting a campaign together, or, say a six month sprint something like that, is it very, like, funnel based? When you're kind of looking at like, we've got this product and we want to do kind of certain levels of promotion to get people to a particular place, or how does that kind of go? Or how does a typical project look as you're putting something together?

I think it can depend on how we're supporting with them on social. And actually from like a paid social perspective, it definitely is more, it follows probably more of a traditional funnel sort of structure in terms of how we think about it. Paid advertising is changing lots anyway. And whereas before it was even more so a funnel structure now with, you know, every social platform search, everything coming out with these very automated campaign types, even, you know, we did a session the other day in the office about Pinterest's new you know, advantage plus shopping campaign equivalent on Pinterest. And it can do AI generation generated. Assets for you to run the ads and then in terms of how it distributes that it's very like machine learning basis So the traditional funnels definitely change in that sense from a paid perspective I guess I'm looking at more of the organic social side. We still Think of it in terms of a funnel And the different formats of content that you can use, you know stories reels static posts carousels Ads You know, across YouTube shorts, Snapchat, Twitter, we think about each piece of content to ensure it has a purpose. And then we would, you know, look at it across, is this more of a top of funnel piece of content that actually is a bit more you know, mass market brand awareness driven piece of creative. That's not necessarily going to convert anyone, but it's at least going to introduce the brand to those people. And then we might produce. A piece of content that is more educational, which we might consider sort of more middle of funnel and sort of nurturing that and building trust and with that audience. And then you might have an Instagram story that is, you know, directing site traffic to the site on more of an offer based piece of content. So there's definitely like that sort of way of thinking about it, we still consider.

What kind of KPIs do you talk about with clients when you're doing, say. Like a top or middle of the funnel. Are you just, is it impressions? Is it some sort of share of voice KPI? How do you, how do you put that together?

Yeah, it definitely swings in the more of like, follower growth, awareness you know, video views to help us build that sort of middle of funnel audience. When that's on the page, that page retargeting perspective, we want to bring in those, you know, lots of views to, you know, bring them down and nurture them further. That's definitely something we track at Top of Funnel. But we do also track like social sentiment across social for our clients as well and how people are also. Seeing that piece of content and then talking about that brand, you know, even across like channels like Reddit or, you know, Twitter. How are they communicating about that and what's their perception of that brand as well?

So you've had phenomenal growth. Your agency is six, almost seven years, I think, old.

It was six in September. Yeah.

Okay. Six and a hook. And in that time, I believe you've taken on 70 employees. That is a lot of people to manage. Do you think, is it that the social side of things is very human intensive? When you're putting these types of things together? That you need a large staff to handle these types of projects?

Yeah, like, I know other agencies, maybe not social, but in other verticals of digital, might go a lot more productized in how they think about their service. Unfortunately, Social is definitely not cannot be productized, or at least how we position and sell it because every client has

Are most things very bespoke?

It's very bespoke. Yeah, in terms of strategy. The output required, the channels, the type of creative we're producing the way we're talking about that, you know, the tone of voice of that brand. There's so many different considerations when doing it. I think naturally still, we might, there might be a few brands that we do a very similar thing for. Like we might be there, more of their content production, part of the social partner. And they have a social team in house, but they actually come to us for, you know, that short form video content. So we might, the scope of work might look very similar, but in terms of the way of thinking then it's pretty bespoke to then the actual final output and delivery.

Okay, now we're at the part of the show where we're gonna play Marry Shag Kill. Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter. Marry Shag Kill.

So it's Pinterest, Twitter, and what was the other one, sorry?

Instagram.

Instagram. Ooh, I kind of wanna, in a weird kind of way, shag Twitter. Cause it's just absolute chaos. I have a soft spot for both Instagram and Pinterest. But, I'll kill Instagram and marry Pinterest. I don't know why. Yeah.

So like if you had to do the long term relationship it would be with Pinterest?

Pinterest. I feel like it's got that sort of like slightly softer touch and to it.

That's good Intel That's good Intel. Yeah. You have an amazing client list when I was going through, looking at your site some of the companies that you've worked for are very impressive. What was the first company that you could tell your parents? And like, oh, they knew that company.

It would be Premier Inn. Which people in the UK would, you know, it's a household name type of thing. Maybe, not so much anywhere else.

The hotel company.

Hotel chain, yeah. Like hundreds of sites across the UK.

I stayed at a few.

Yeah, there you go. Publicly traded company.

I got trapped in one the day the UK closed for Covid.

Okay. Wow. That's an experience.

Yeah. It was actually a pretty nutty time. I was flying into the UK and the US closed their border. While I was in the air. And then, things were closing, closing, closing, and then I got stuck at a premiere inn. Because it was the only one that would take me, because a lot of, a lot of places wouldn't take me because I didn't have a, a UK passport. I have a distinct memory of running to the McDonald's because the McDonald's was gonna close. And then there was an off license right next to the McDonald's, so I think I got 40 chicken nuggets. And then, like, a bottle of Southern Comfort, and then went back to the Premier Inn. And had a pretty interesting three days.

Well, I'm here for a while, so.

So that's my experience with Premier Inn.

We call it the Purple Palace here at the Central Shepherd.

Have you ever been kind of starstruck? By a particular brand. Like, I can't believe we're working with these people. Like, this is such a, such a, you know, household name type brand or such a thing that, like, this is really impressive.

I think I probably get that quite a lot, to be honest. Because we've come from a place in the early days of literally doing, you know, the equivalent of 500 retainers to helping anyone and everyone. You know, I know some agency owners have Being in the industry for 10, 20 years, they've worked in agencies all the whole life. They've built huge connections and their first client is someone massive and they've worked with massive clients already. But I think, I, I just, you know, I get excited every day, basically by who's coming in the door. And I don't think it's always necessarily the name. Sometimes it's also like the challenge and what they're looking to achieve. That gets me, like, super excited on what we can achieve with them on that journey.

Oh, very cool. I like that a lot. As you've grown within the U.K., you've now branched out and you're growing in the U.S. as well. If you want to do, like, a multinational agency like that, what was kind of the first step to get that ball rolling in order to get a presence, I guess, in the U. S. to get things established?

Yeah, so we're, we're very fortunate in that perspective. One of the clients that we have that we're their European social agency. We, we now work with them in the U S and that was sort of our first, that was our client that enabled us to launch there. And that came off the back of just, you know, consistent, great work with a European team. Zoe my co founder reached out to the procurement team there that she'd built a relationship with and said, look, we actually have one team member that's actually moving to the US. It kind of happened all at the same time. And she said that we'd love to see if there's any opportunity to help you guys in the US. And they were like, Good timing because there is basically and sat enabled us to you know Get a footing it would build a start a starting team like a founding team out in New York And then from now that we've gone on to one Win a few other clients since then and continuously sort of pitching for the new piece of work and retainers out there So yes, it's happened very organically, which is which is great because I know Comparably, you know, New York Probably to the rest of the U S is expensive, but compared to the UK again, in terms of like salary is pretty mind boggling. You kind of have to, we've had to shift our perception of what a dollar me or a pound means. Like it's just like probably double, you know, a retainer size, just bigger. And you can't get like daunted by that perspective. You kind of have to go in with confidence again. This is what it costs. So this is how it works.

Are there, are there companies that are looking for an agency that just specializes in social? Like they're really looking for something that's niching down into that. Or do you have to pitch that a little bit? Like we focus on this so we don't get distracted by the other stuff.

A hundred percent. It's like, they are just purely looking for a social agency. And that's like, I guess, somewhat of a competitive advantage for us, again, if we pitch against a full service digital agency, we will 90 percent chance win against that because we can go in, we're social specialists, this is what we do, this is what we love, this is what we're passionate about. This is why the team members join our team as well, because a lot of them have actually come from other digital agencies that have a small social team and aren't really learning. They want to learn. So, so cause we're so engrossed in it, learning takes place faster and ultimately delivers better outcomes for clients as well.

And it's gotta be a lot more fun to think about, like, you know, my background is in an SEO agency and that can get pretty boring pretty quick.

I love SEO.

I do too. But it's gotta be a lot more fun.

It's my guilty pleasure.

Like a social campaign together. There's gotta be a lot more fun just in the in the creative.

Especially if you are like, yeah, a creative individual for sure.

Can you do you have a crystal ball for the future? You know, 2024 was a tough year for a lot of SEO agencies and like the affiliate market got smacked. That hurt a lot of providers who were providing to affiliate. I think the economy was in a weird spot. I think some budgets were tightened and that hurt agencies as well. Did you feel the same thing on the social side?

Yeah. I'd say so. I think it's just like uncertainty. It pauses decision making. They know they still want to do it, but, and it will happen at some point. I think people just need an answer. Either way, it's like TikTok at the moment, will it get banned? Won't it get banned?

I'm downloading all the videos I can. To save them.

That's it, and I think what we've seen in the U. S. in terms of lead volume, we're getting it through, we're still getting loads through, but I'd say it's ever so slightly halted, just because the uncertainty of like, Are we going to be investing in tiktok? Are we not? And then that's like pausing that whole decision making across and talk like social as a whole. I can see that. And then we obviously had, yeah, last year elections in both UK, us, which cause, you know, and then there was the whole budget that they do in the UK as well, and changing taxes and things like that. So businesses, yeah, are very cautious until they have an answer one way or the other. And then they can move forward with confidence. But I feel 2025 will turn a bit of a corner.

I was really hoping you were going to go the other way and say like, nah, we don't, we're not worried about updates. Things are great over here on the social side.

Yeah, we're still, we were still able to grow like 30 percent year on year. Which is, which we're happy with. But we were anticipating more than that. And, you know, we had like one client go into administration. We had a, another client that we won and then, you know, people got made redundant the day after including our point of contact. So it wasn't, it was a bit tricky. It was tricky for that, for that reason as well.

It's a lot of money to pitch. That's not a cheap thing to be like, Oh, well.

And it's the senior team members who do it which costs more, they’re spending, a huge amount of time. Yeah. It's a massive, massive cost to business.

I'm seeing though I think a lot of agencies that I talked to at the end of 2024 kind of saw a turnaround. I'm a bit removed from the agency stuff right now, but I'm seeing things more from the software side. There was an uptick and I think that's going to continue. Do you think 2025 is going to be all right?

Yeah, I'm very optimistic about 2025. We've already, we've delivered like four or five pitches in January already. And that's from like starting in December. And then we've got two more that we're delivering next week. As well as pitching ones. We're doing like three next week. And then we've got like another one or two the following week. So it's been a heavy sort of pitching period for us.

What is your typical lead time? From like, kind of a start to finish once you decide to pitch a company.

I would say from, like, inquiry to close is on average two to three months.

Eh, it's not too bad. It's not too bad at all. Could be worse. Could be better.

Our longest has probably been about nine months, I reckon.

I've found that the higher the ticket, the longer the sales cycle is, but then the less churn. So like, it might take six months to land them, but then you've got them for two and a half years, three years.

Yeah. And it's cause like the, because the scope of work is so big, to change what, to change and remove you to do something else is a huge amount of internal work.

It's more worth it for you to do an okay job.

We still need some pre value for sure.

But I mean, just doing it like, alright, is better than them jumping around. But yeah, they do take a long time to land sometimes. Well, Jack, this has been fantastic. I really, I really enjoyed this a lot. If people want to get in touch with you how can they do that?

Yeah, absolutely. So thesocialshepherd.com we have silver shepherd YouTube channel as well, which we have our own podcasts that we do have like a weekly podcast on all things, social, digital, what's happening. You have a newsletter that goes out every Monday as well. If you want to keep in touch with what's going on in the social space you know, we send out to like 10,000 people and so, yeah, or myself, Jack Shepherd on LinkedIn as well. You can find me.

Yeah. It's something that I realized that I think a lot of people don't grasp is that when you've got an agency that's as successful as yours, I sign up for those newsletters so I can swipe them. Like, like you're obviously good at what you're doing. And like I'll sign up for like the email campaign or for the for the video campaign. Just so I can swipe them like, you clearly know what you're doing.

I'm similar.

There it is.

Yeah. And we, we've had people that have referenced all those things in recruitment and pitching. You know, I signed up to your newsletter like six months ago. So, you know, we've sort of been nurturing them over that period. We've had people from, you know, agencies in the local area to us that just sign up and then they share it to all their other agency colleagues. Thanks. And eventually they're like, Oh, I actually kind of want to work there and learn more about what they do. And then it's helped us as well. So yeah, huge benefits.

Back channel advertising. Yeah, that's perfect. Well, Jack, thanks so much. And thanks everyone for listening to hack to the future and we'll talk to you next time. Thanks so much.

Thanks Kyle. Thanks guys.