Ingrained Digital

🧡 Building reputations for impact-driven individuals and businesses via social media.

Founder

WOAW

Having worked at WOAW since 2020, I took over as CEO in April 2023. My main focus was to build on our position as an industry leading personal branding agency while exploring and pursuing growth opportunities. Left to start my own business (and WOAW subsequently collapsed).

Chief Executive Officer

Self employed journalist

Producing multimedia sports content for national and international media outlets. In particular, I have focused on interviews; all of which are planned, organised and conducted by myself. Key skills gained and enhanced include: writing (print and online), reporting, copy-editing, live blogging, interviewing, transcribing, social media.

Freelance Sports Journalist

All of the responsibilities listed in 'Account Manager', plus:

• Management of my own team, as well as another account management team (6 people in total)

• Management of internal budgets

• Management of the hiring process for a variety of roles

Senior Account Manager

Building personal brands for founders and CEOs, including some of the most renowned UK businesspeople.

Responsibilities

• Account Management: Liaising directly with clients, interviewing them for content sessions, maintain a high quality of work and ensure they're happy with our service

• Devising and implementing new strategies in order to streamline the business' day-to-day processes

• Content Review: Review photos, videos, graphic design and copywriting to ensure it’s up to our standards. This includes proof-reading and editing copy

• Content Execution: Responsible for creating content briefs for our freelancers and ensuring the content is created on time

• Scheduling and Posting Content

• Reporting: Liaising with freelancers to create monthly analytics reports for our clients

• Community Management

• Admin and Research: This can include liaising with clients for the projects, researching new social media strategies for their personal brand, and other ad-hoc jobs

Account Manager

Social Buzzing

A remote position to bridge the gap between full-time employment during the Coronavirus pandemic.

- Managing the social media channels for various companies working with the agency (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, Google My Business), including in international markets

- Gaining experience in growing social channels for a variety of B2B and B2C clients in wide-ranging fields, including pet food, e-auctions, financial services, travel and entertainment, FOREX and more

- Compiling weekly reports to share with the client and agency to outline campaign performance and detail strategy. Being the point of contact between the client and agency

- Regularly participating in calls with the client and agency to provide ideas for future content and strategy

- Creating content calendars to juggle various projects simultaneously. Posting and scheduling

Social Media Account Manager

Ladbrokes Coral

Contributing to the day-to-day running of all of Ladbrokes’ social media channels under the GVC Group umbrella - the largest sports betting and gaming brand in the world. Producing proactive content ahead of key sporting events, as well as reactive content during and after them. Liaising with the wider business to combine social media with areas such as PR, retail, sponsorship and partnerships. Producing content around sponsored events. Reporting on successes, areas for improvement and plans for upcoming events to the wider business. Running paid ad campaigns

Social Media Community Manager

LiveWireSport

Working on a freelance basis on varied projects, including providing live blog coverage for World Rugby as well as content management for the launch of Chelsea FC’s beta-website. Key skills gained and enhanced include: live blogging, learning and adapting to new CMS’, editing, copywriting, social media.

Freelancer

Self-Employed

I started my own tuition business in 2014 and have since taught over 30 students from ages 8-18. This has massively developed my leadership and organisational skills, as well as my understanding of marketing and branding, having produced and distributed all of my own advertising materials.

Private Tutor - English language & literature

Amnesty International (2Evolve)

- Short term, full time position whilst based in Sydney

- Acquiring signatures on a high profile human rights petition based on strict demographic KPI’s
 
- Key skills demonstrated include public speaking, marketing, influencing, communication

Field Marketer

The Guardian Newspaper

Week long work experience placement on The Guardian’s sports desk.

Sports Desk - Work Experience

🧡 Our MO at Ingrained is simple: build audiences (for impact driven entrepreneurs, leaders & businesses) that they can actually mobilise.

If you're an entrepreneur - or you know one - who wants to do any of the following things, reach out!

• Drive revenue to your business
• Become a thought leader in your space
• Pivot your reputation
• Build a reputation in a new sector
• Secure investment
• Exit your business
• Build brand advocacy
• Get your team posting on LinkedIn

(Book a call via the link in my profile or send me a message)

It’s 2025 and companies are still insisting on posting from their company page.
Meanwhile, the numbers prove it’s a waste of time.

Here’s what the data shows:

🔻 Company pages reach ~1.6% of followers. A page with 10,000 followers? That’s about 160 views per post.

🔻 Even when seen, engagement averages ~5%.

💥 Now compare that to employees. 10 people with ~5,000 connections each = 50,000 connections combined. And because LinkedIn prioritizes personal posts, their actual reach is at least 10× bigger than the company page. Often way more.

So here’s my absolute guarantee (you can hold me to this).

1. Put one leader’s post against your company page this month.

2. If the page wins, I’ll shut up.

3. If the person wins (they will), it’s time to stop wasting effort and start investing in your people.

These facts are exactly why we run personal branding workshops for companies.

— Delivered by Alicia from The Hype Department 📣, who brings 15+ years of corporate experience at SAP, Gartner, Mastercard and LinkedIn itself!

— Tailored for the needs of your team(s).

— Trusted by the likes of Samsung Electronics and FedEx.

When employees build their presence, the company earns influence it could never buy.

I'm not saying your business page should be dormant.

But your people should be your main strategy.

And company content content should be a simple showcase of your culture and important updates, ready for prospects to stumble across when they find your company as a result of the visibility of the people who work there.

——

🚨 I know the LinkedIn algorithm throws up a lotttt of questions for people. Happy to answer them in the comments or by DM.

💬 If you want to talk about a workshop for your team, hit me up!

Freddie Paxton

Founder, Ingrained Digital 🧡 | Award-winning Personal Branding agency turning human-first content into revenue

Holy sh*t. We won!

Business Awards UK have named us Winners of “Excellence in Audience Engagement” in the Media & Entertainment 2025 category 🙌

(And finalists of the Best Media Company award).

That means we’ve been recognised nationally for helping leaders transform their online visibility into influence, advocacy, and real business growth.

Let me take you back to the start…
It may make more sense as to why this is so significant for me.

I started Ingrained Digital a year and a half ago.

I walked away from a well paying role as CEO of another personal branding agency to do my own thing.

Running someone else’s business comes with a lot of red tape and politics.
Once I sensed that my vision wasn’t going to be possible to execute there, I knew it was time.

I was convinced there was a better way.

So, I quit.

No more guaranteed income. Nobody else to hold me accountable.

I had a lot of support from those around me. Nobody more-so than my partner Maya, who also quit her job to work with me. 

“I know you will make this a success, and I want to help you get there.”

So we got to work.

Me with the commercial and creative stuff.
Maya handling the operations.

And what a year and a half it’s been.

🌴 We travel the world, running the business from wherever we choose to base ourselves seasonally.

🌍 We work with industry leaders all over the globe, in so many different industries and niches.

🤗 We’ve grown our team, utilising best in class contributors to help us scale.

🧡 We’ve expanded our offering, and have worked with global powerhouses like Samsung and FedEx.

🏆 And now, we’re recognised on a national stage for the exceptional results we’re generating for our clients.

Thanks also to everyone who has supported us along the way!


——————

- Any questions about how we’ve grown the agency?

- Want to discuss running a remote business?

- Want to explore our personal branding retainers, or a workshop for your wider team?

Just shoot me a message!

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We’ve been shortlisted for a national award.

Not in the ‘employee of the month when there’s only three of you’ sense.

Actually shortlisted.
Business Awards UK.
Media & Entertainment 2025.

I definitely didn't start this business to win awards.
But recognition like this tells us we’re doing the right work with the right people.

Other people (who don’t owe us anything) think what we do matters.
I will take that all day long.

Let's see what happens next!
Now that we're nominated I'd be an absolute liar if I said I didn't want to win it 👀


Also:
If you want to join the leaders and household name brands who trust us with their content...
Reach out!

Ingrained Digital

Personal branding has gone mainstream.
And with it comes a problem nobody’s talking about.

When any sector grows fast, two groups show up:
• Those who’ve put in the years
• Those who just arrived yesterday

(Ooh, look at me. “I was here first.” Forgive me for going full hipster here 😬)

I’m not trying to drag anyone.
Never going to knock well-intentioned people for backing themselves and trying to make a living.

But here’s the question: how does someone just sprout up and claim they know how to manage reputations?

Or drive revenue from words?

Where did they learn those things?

These are not easy skills.
They take time and experience.
I know it firsthand.

A lot of people can blag it. But those blaggers are untested.

And I’ve seen it have really bad consequences for some people.

The part that bothers me even more is that to some of these operators, you’re not a client.
It was never a long-term thing for them.

You’re a contract.
A short-term cash grab.
They’ll happily take the money, knowing you’ll move on once you realise there’s no depth behind it.

They don’t care, because you’ve paid.
That’s literally their business model.

Reputation is sacred.

Once it slips… see ya.

Is that worth the £ you saved on a cheap service?

The smart investment in personal branding isn’t just posts to publish.

It’s a process that grows you.
That you learn something from.
That you can implement in the future yourself.

That’s what lasts.

And that way, you’re not just paying for an illusion.

Literally anyone can set up shop overnight.
The proof is always in the outcomes.

You get what you pay for.

October is OCD awareness month.
This is the time to highlight some crucial things.

OCD is a silent killer.
It’s not about being neat & tidy, or disliking germs.
We’re not “all a bit OCD”.

It’s a serious mental health condition which debilitates its sufferers.

It’s painfully misunderstood and misdiagnosed.

It, undoubtedly, has been the cause of a massive number of suicides…without doctors ever knowing.

I know firsthand how far it can push a person.
For years, I had ‘this thing’ that my mind was prone to doing.

A fixation on intrusive thoughts.
Physical compulsions to get rid of them.

The thoughts were overwhelming and often too taboo to share with anyone.

The thing about OCD is that it attacks the things that mean the most to you
and the principles you hold dearest.

That's what makes it so painful.
That's what can convince a person they don't even know themselves.

Over time, I became convinced that I was abnormal, or just inherently a bad person.

I went through waves of crippling anxiety and depression.
I hid it as best as I could from family, friends and colleagues.

At times I questioned how I could possibly continue without a solution.

Through lots of digging, I was eventually assessed in 2024 and diagnosed with OCD so severe that the psychiatrist told me he was ‘shocked’ I’d lived a fulfilling life up to that point.

Hearing that was upsetting.
It was probably the first time I’d felt any sympathy for myself in a long time.

But I was also encouraged that I’d got to the bottom of the issue.

Since that point, I’ve been able to get the right support,
including medication I take daily, which has totally changed my life.

These days, my brain functions more how it should.

Intrusive thoughts arrive - as they do for everyone - and generally they disappear.

My emotions are more stable, I can think more clearly, and I am happier.
(Understatement).

The point of this post is pretty simple.

1: if there’s anyone reading this that finds what I’m describing familiar, please reach out to me without fear of judgment.

2: if you ever find yourself about to use OCD in a trivial sense, please do your best not to. It’s setting us back.

Team social to Thailand, here we come!


Sort of. 😬

I always imagined starting my own business for a bunch of reasons.
A key one was the freedom it gives you.

I find you actually get less leeway on the granular stuff…
You have to show up every day and do the things you dislike.

But when it comes to choosing where you work from,
that’s one decision I’m very grateful to have full control over.

Last winter, Maya and I decided to try working from Asia.
We swapped the cold and dark for warmer climes.

There were a few key things to assess:

1️⃣ What would the timezone difference be like?
(Turns out being 7/8hrs ahead and having a whole day BEFORE
the UK workday is good for productivity. Plus, I personally do my
best work in the evening).

2️⃣ Would the feeling of being ‘on holiday’ negatively impact our work?
(We actually just found that our physical and mental health was
better, we felt more productive, and enjoyed growing the
business from a new place).

3️⃣ Would the physical distance from most of our clients matter?
(Video calls mean you can still get ‘face time’. Most of our clients are so busy that they prefer not to have their calendar cluttered with in-person
meetings that could just be done online).

So, the experiment proved worth it.
And now we’re doing it again.
Tomorrow.

For the foreseeable, we’ll be based in Asia.
The business will run as usual.
Including our in-person workshops offering.

Geographical location should not matter to digital businesses in 2025.


Anyone else running a business and tempted to do it from abroad?
My advice would obviously be: do it!!

Someone I watched playing for my boyhood club is now vouching for my business.
It's mad when I think about it like that 😂

Ironically, it was on here that I first got in touch with Gaël Clichy.

I saw he dipped in & out of posting stuff.
I knew we could do great things with his platform.

So I reached out to see if he'd considered properly working on his personal brand.

Like all of the top minds I'm lucky enough to speak to, Gaël was open to learning more.

He's not naturally a social media influencer.
But he IS a credible leader who has lived high performance for his whole adult life.

I knew he'd have genuinely insightful and valuable things to share,
and that it would be a great way to further his shift into football education and coaching.

So he agreed that we should work together.

Over recent months, we've:

✅ Showcased Gaël's expertise via effective storytelling
✅ Earned him a LinkedIn Top Voice badge
✅ Facilitated an appearance on one of football's biggest podcasts
✅ Furthered his connections with other credible people in football & high performance

And on a personal note, I've built a great working relationship with someone I grew up watching play for Arsenal.

I'm on WhatsApp with an Invincible! 😂

__________

Working with public figures is amazing, but it's not *all* we do.

We primarily work with CEOs, founders, entrepreneurs & other leaders who want to achieve commercial success via their personal brand.

If that's you, drop me a DM!

Something big is happening inside boardrooms.
Companies are now hiring EXPENSIVE full-time storytellers for their CEOs.
It’s a signal you’d be crazy to ignore.

Virio are offering up to $1.5 MILLION a year(!)
to create thought leadership content for execs.

PayPal recently listed a Head of CEO Content role.
Salary range: $143K to $285K.

Chobani hired an Executive Ghostwriter for its founder.
That one pays between $185K and $278K.

The ‘testing’ phase is over.
This is happening, and it’s the new infrastructure of influence.

At the same time, Unilever’s CEO Fernando Fernandez is rethinking what marketing even means.

He’s moving around 50 percent of Unilever’s marketing budget into creator and influencer channels.

He knows that people don’t trust corporations.
They trust…other people.

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭:

📊 73% of decision-makers say thought leadership is more trustworthy than marketing materials (Edelman + LinkedIn, 2024)
📊 60% say good thought leadership makes them willing to pay a premium (Edelman + LinkedIn, 2024)
📊 Visible CEOs saw roughly 80% higher annual share price growth vs peers (Golin, 2024)
📊 Multiple studies show leadership visibility strongly correlates with higher trust among employees and customers (various industry reports, 2023–2024)

Visibility pays.
This isn’t optional anymore.

The smartest teams are building around people, not logos.

Narrative is becoming part of the business architecture.

Leaders are becoming media channels.

Every brand’s future depends on one thing:
People who can make others believe.

Are you going to listen to the data, or ignore it? 😬

__________

If you’re new to my profile:
I’m Freddie, founder of award-winning personal branding agency Ingrained Digital.

We are the storytellers behind the leaders and brands you consume content from.
🔖 Save this post so you can come back to it
♻️ Give it a repost if you found it valuable
➕ Follow me for more marketing insight

And, of course, reach out if you want to know more about what we offer 👍

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