Mirco Gluch 🐽

Piggyback

- Building team structures, strategies, and workflows for successful marketing and social media management
- Optimization of content output, engagements, reach and follower numbers through tried and tested tactics
Selected clients: Zalando, Trade Republic, N26, foodspring, Getsafe and many smaller brands

Agency Founder - Social Media Advisor, Consultant, Workshop Host, and Interim Head of Social Media

Getsafe

- 15,000 new followers, grew organic reach by 10x , and content pieces per week by 5x
- Team, workflow and strategy development for the social media presence of Getsafe
- Launch of TikTok as a new channel
- Development of over 10 regular content formats
- Campaign development and execution of the #failmoments campaign
- Main responsible and initiator of cross-functional 360° content marketing project

Interim Head of Social Media

Trade Republic

- 120,000 new followers across the different social media platforms
- Recruiting and setup of the social media team
- Launch of 3 new markets and their respective channels (Spain, Italy and Netherlands)

Interim Social Media Lead

foodspring

- Responsible for 400,000 new Instagram followers and 85,000 new YouTube subscribers
- Leading, building and developing a team of 12 social media and community managers
- Won 3rd most engaging FMCG food brand Instagram account award in Germany by socialbakers
- Managing the social media team and the channels through global pandemic and rebranding
- Conception, creating and managing of social first campaigns such as #mynewnormal
- Improving the team's content creation output in terms of quantity and quality
- Establishing a follower first and test&learn mindset among the team

(Interim) Head of Social Media

Peek & Cloppenburg KG Düsseldorf

- Overseeing the organic social media channels, paid social advertising and display campaigns for Peek & Cloppenburg, Jake*s, Review and Ansons
- Content strategy updates for the individual brands and their channels, resulting in significantly better social metrics such as followers, reach, CPM and CPC
- Establishment of new marketing approaches such as influencer road trips and events, meet&greets, instore workouts, Instastories as a channel and Instastory-takeovers
- Budget allocation, budget controlling and budget planning for the year ahead
- Campaign analytics and media plan optimisation for future campaigns based on learnings

Head of Social Media

Zalando Media Solutions

- Executing successful launch, brand positioning and corporate design definition of Collabary - Zalando‘s influencer marketing platform, fast becoming Europe‘s number one workflow tool
- Social media and content marketing management of Collabary across various channels
- Leading the acquisition team towards signing up 2000 high quality social media influencers
- Driving influencer related tech-development, such as influencer categorisation, influencer-brand-fit definition, and influencer profile facelift

Sr. Influencer Marketing Strategist

imk, Institut für Marketing und Kommunikation

- Teaching brand strategy, brand positioning, brand management seminars
- Highly practical and hands on tutoring

Tutor for Brand Strategy

Multiple Clients

- Supervision of the corporate design relaunch of a footwear eCommerce
- Interim Head of Marketing for Mirapodo
- Art direction and photo production for campaigns across various online and offline media 
- Organisation of brand management, content and fashion inspiration workshops for various clients

Freelance Fashion Marketing Consultant

zLabels GmbH

-	Brand conceptualisation and brand positioning of Zalando Collection
-	Visual brand development – corporate design, corporate identity and 
	picture language
-	From strategy to market entry – launch event & pop up store in Berlin Mitte
-	Negotiation, planning and execution of marketing campaigns throughout online and offline Zalando channels
-	Marketing management of designer collaborations with Kaviar Gauche and Penkov
-	Creative lead and execution of seasonal campaign photo productions
-	Managerial responsibility for interns and some junior brand managers
-	Analysis of CRM data and market research results
-	Monthly representation of zLabels on Zalando‘s New Hire Day

Brand Manager - Zalando Collection

-	Collaborative effort in developing 20 private labels’ names, logos, corporate designs, and briefing of the individual product ranges
-	Negotiation, planning and execution of the entire marketing mix
-	Analysis of marketing relevant sales and customer data

Brand Performance Manager

-	Business development and calculation of cases for future potential private labels
-	Sales Controlling of the first private labels and the overall Zalando performance
-	Fashion trend forecasts for Zalando’s buying department
-	Website development for private labels

Project Manager Private Labels

envain

-	Created T-shirt brand whilst at university, including naming, creative, product, sourcing and trademarking

Founder of Fashion Label: Gamble for your t-shirt

💭 Imagine your brand's social media channels are growing with ease, your community is expanding and you’re even having fun doing it.
This is what collaborating with Piggyback looks like. 🐽

I’m Mirco, Founder of the Social Media Accelerator, Piggyback.

I’ve worked with some of the fastest growing companies and best marketing teams in the world including Zalando, Trade Republic, N26, foodspring, Wholey, vly, Getsafe, Nike, CLARK, and many startups.

At Piggyback, we help you ditch average, upskill with cutting-edge tactics and escape the competition through workshops, mentoring and our hands-on team accelerator program.

How can I help your company?
🚀 Grow your brand's social media channels with powerful strategies for high reach and high engagement content.
🚀 Upskill your team and help them get processes in place that take them from overwhelm to success with ease.
🚀 Keep learning, innovating and growing with fresh industry best-practice and tools.

Want to work with me? 🤝
1. Bespoke workshops to drive instant results
2. Bespoke social media strategy to get you to your goals
3. Mentoring to supercharge and support your team 
4. Accelerator program where we roll our sleeves up and get your socials thriving

I’m passionate about fitness, healthy food & beverages, A.I., clean energy and climate, mindfulness, wellness, innovation and longevity.

Ready to take your social media channels to the next level?
⚡️ DM me with the word "CALL" to set up a chat and take the first step towards transforming your social media marketing.

Still reading? Wow! 
Make sure you’ve got the 7 day crash course to supercharge your social media.
⚡️ Link in bio to get free growth hacks, proven workflows, community boosting, free tools and much more.

Not 👏 all 👏 social 👏 media 👏 managers 👏 are 👏 content 👏 creators.

Now say it ten times.

Yes, your social media manager can nail a content plan, post witty replies in the comments, and create the most beautiful excel sheets you've ever seen.

But they might not want to, and don’t have to, shoot, edit, and star in every single TikTok until the end of the time.

And that’s perfectly fine.

Because, once again, not all social media managers are content creators.

In social, we have a bad habit of cramming seven roles into one.

And while it’s getting better, it has to stop. And quicker.

It’s killing creativity and burning people out.

Are you seeing less 'combined' roles these days? Yes or no?

Mirco Gluch

Social Media Accelerator for Startups to Unicorns ⚡️ Ditch average content, upskill your team & supercharge your social channels | AI & Social Media Workshops, Strategy & Team Extension 🐽

Choose your (least favourite) fighter 👇

Or comment with one that beats them all!

Sentences That Every Social Media Consultant Knows

Our social accounts with only 300 followers is making waves.

Here's how we broke the internet:

(Or instead, impressed a few people).

Check it out below and don't forget to:

Post the damn thing. ⬇️

Post The Damn Thing

I finally met one of our clients after 5 months of working together.

Last week, I was invited by Jens to go to Bielefeld to finally meet the (extended) Academy (© coolmobility GmbH) team.

We had a packed day, which started with a lovely dinner before we jumped into workshop mode. 

We began with a workshop on Performance Marketing, where I handed over my responsibilities to Arthur Wall and Konstantin Lamm.

I then got to meet two people we’ve worked with so closely since collaborating with them:

Tina Paschetag, who is responsible for the amazing rebranding and the static images and ads for Academy with her agency.

Levi Tiberio Boenke, the videographer behind the videos at Academy — both organic and paid.

After that, we managed to film some content, shot by Levi, for our very own Piggyback social media with Jens (who was a great actor!).

On the way home, I bumped into some of the kids in the train station and thought, “I know them from Instagram.” 

Turns out it was some of the kids we usually film with for our content!

Thanks to the entire team for having me – it was so great to finally meet you all, and I’ll be back sometime soon!

We have a 10/10 team satisfaction rate.

(And no, I didn’t ask them while drinking sangria at our off-site.)

This is the actual response from my team after I asked each of them, weeks earlier, to evaluate how they feel about working at Piggyback.

This means just as much to me as our client satisfaction score, but in a completely different way.

Of course, I want our clients to be beyond satisfied.

I want our work to be of the highest standard.

I want them to recommend us to everyone they know (I can dream).

But I don’t want a burnt-out team in the process.

That’s why, for the last 2 years, I’ve tried to create an environment where my entire team is clear on their goals, is motivated to push forward, but above all else, feels supported in their work.

I do this by empowering my team to tell me when things are getting too much and how we can share the workload.

I do this by encouraging my team to openly share their feedback and concerns.

And lastly, I do this by always trying to lead from the heart – by being a human at work, not just a founder or businessman.

Thank you, Piggyback team, for your work, dedication, and trust in me. It means so much!

Which one are you? 🙃

(No wrong answers!)

I’ve traded L.A. for Heilbronn, Bonn and Düsseldorf – and I couldn’t be happier.

In my old job, I used to fly all over the world, to places like L.A. and London, to work on productions with top models.

This picture is from 2015, when we shot with the then Model of the Year, Anna Ewers in Hollywood.

Now, years later, I’m hopping on a train to cities in Germany like Stuttgart to run workshops with my clients.

And guess what?

I’m just as happy as I’ve ever been.

Don’t get me wrong, those trips were so exciting, and I loved every minute of that chapter in my life.

But I also love what I’m doing now.

I get to work with amazing clients, an incredibly supportive team, and build a business I’m truly proud of.

It just goes to show that flashy places and big-budget campaigns aren’t necessarily the thing that’s going to make you happy at work.

Happiness is finding little bits of joy in what you do each day, growing as a person, and surrounding yourself with people you genuinely love and respect.

Fun fact: your best-performing social posts will probably never mention your product at all ↴

We just had a viral post with Academy reach 127k views from an account with just short of 10k followers. 

All with the product just sitting in the background.

Since partnering with Academy, we wanted to transform their socials from a sea of infographics packed with endless product information, into a solid mix of storytelling content, from both the brand and the kids and families invested in it.

And that’s exactly what we did.

With the kids, we decided to focus on content that really appeals to anyone and everyone: the fun nature of kids being kids. 

From overheard conversations, vlogs, reading comments, to “what’s in my bag” and more, this content has really made the channel shine and consistently kept the engagement high.

(Thanks to Jens Wiesehöfer, who knows many kids and families eager and excited to get involved in our content!)

On the other side, there’s content featuring the brand/Academy team, which includes office content, bike tips and tricks, story times, and BTS footage from our warehouses and product team.

From this content, we've been able to build the brand and promote its products to parents in a way that feels natural.

Of course, we still have the occasional posts focused solely on product, but these have become a very minimal part of the content now.

Since our partnership, we’ve achieved a high creative hit rate, consistently cracking 10k views on Instagram (that's one of my favourite KPIs to optimise for).

Big thanks to Levi Tiberio Boenke and team for all your videography support, and to Tina Paschetag and team for all your design support – we couldn't have done it without you!

Our biggest takeaway from Academy? 

On organic social, focus on winning hearts and minds before going for people’s wallets.

Lead with storytelling and entertainment, not hollow product pushes, and watch your content soar.

Do you think content that focuses too much on the product is always destined to fail?

We don’t leave any room for mistakes with this one thing on social.

And we’re pretty ruthless about it.

I’m talking about our 'best practice' brand list.

Take inspiration from how we select the right brands (and avoid referencing the same two old examples), learn when it’s time to part ways with them, and more.

Who’s on your list? And have you dropped any brands recently? 👇

How We Select Best Practice Brands

LinkedIn is dead.


How did you feel after reading that?

Annoyed? Frustrated? Maybe you rolled your eyes?

Sure, you probably remember a piece of content that shared some outrageous take or an opinion you couldn’t stand.

But it usually doesn’t leave you feeling great.

Then you start to wonder: Was this even real? Or were they just rage-baiting me into engaging with their content?

And that just makes you feel even more annoyed.

I could probably get way more engagement if I leaned into rage-bait.

In fact, LinkedIn has dropped my impressions by 1/3 lately.

But I don’t care.

I don’t want to aggravate people just for clicks — it just doesn’t sit right with me.

Instead, I’ve chosen to post high-impact content that adds value to my community here, that I stand by, and (hopefully) that entertains!

At the end of the day, I’d rather make a few people smile than make a lot of people angry.

Social is everyone’s first impression of you.

Stop putting it last on the agenda.

Since we started working with Academy (© coolmobility GmbH) in March, we’ve completely overhauled their social presence.

They used to be a brand that posted repetitive, static product infographics with no real strategy.

Now, they have a sharp content mix and a clear, focused approach to social, telling authentic stories and truly understanding their audience.

And others are now starting to take notice.

Since their social rebrand, their team has been hearing things at conferences and industry events they’ve never heard before:

(All coming from people outside social.)

“We love the direction of the brand.”
“You’re doing really cool things on social.”
“Your content is great.”

Social isn’t just cute videos and funny memes.

It’s one of the most powerful (and cost-effective) ways to build your brand.

Just because you can’t always tie it to a clear ROI doesn’t mean it’s not working.

This is the proof.

I wouldn’t have gotten through last week without doing this.

And it’s something I think everyone should learn to do for themselves ⤵️

Take a step back and reframe.

Last week, I hit a wall.

After a few days packed full of meetings, shoots, and personal commitments, I reached a point where it was just all too much.

I’d stretched myself too thin, and I was really feeling it.

But by mid-week, I caught myself reframing it all in just a few seconds.

In that moment, I said to myself:

“I’m so lucky and grateful that I get to build the life I want.”

And it really helped ground me and realise that, even though everything felt like too much, I’m incredibly fortunate to be in the position that I am.

Next time you feel like you have as many thoughts in your brain as I have sticky notes on this board, give it a try and see if it works for you.

Has reframing genuinely helped you before?

Seeing social teams fall apart broke my heart.

Here’s what happened:

A few years ago, I worked as an Interim Head of Social for various brands.
Essentially, I stepped in, managed teams, and gave them a sense of stability.

Sometimes I stayed for a few months, mostly for half a year or longer, depending on how long it took to ramp up the channels.

My main aim was always to set any team up for success before moving on.

Often, after they found a Head of Social and I left, I would hear the same thing:

The team had completely fallen apart.

And this happened more than once.

To be honest, I could usually see it coming.

Many of these teams were thrown into complete chaos through no fault of their own.

If it wasn’t a new CEO with a fresh but doomed vision for social, it was micromanagement, projects getting canceled, and so on.

Eventually, people just got fed up, and I understood why.

They were burnt out from bad processes, poor direction, and downright bad leadership.

This is a big part of what motivated me to grow my team at Piggyback.

I was so tired of seeing talented people wasted in the wrong hands and feeling helpless about it all.

I want to be a leader for those who were let down before.

Today, I’m no longer focused on just providing stability during a transition; I want to create an environment where my team feels consistently supported and championed for the long haul.

(P.S. If you’re looking to step out of chaos, we still have open positions.)

9.7/10 is a number our team are incredibly proud of. 

It might seem oddly specific, but there’s a reason behind it:

It’s our most recent client satisfaction score.

We received it after asking our clients:

“How would you rate your experience working with Piggyback?”

The result was a 9.7/10 – a score we’re very proud of.

But this isn’t just from one-off projects; it’s from partners we’ve worked with for 3 months or more – proof that our team is dedicated and committed for the long haul.

If you want to work with a team that has your best interests at heart and who’s in it for the long run, get in touch.

Plus, you can help us keep our 9.7/10 score!

When we first begin working with our partners, one of the first questions they ask us is:

“Which days are you available?”

The short answer? All of them.

At Piggyback, we don’t work with set days of the week anymore.

Instead, we focus on the deliverables and scope of work we’ve been given and manage them in the way we see best.

So, if our job is to manage a brand’s TikTok and Instagram accounts, we’ll do that consistently throughout the week, not just on certain days.

Why? Because social media doesn’t just run two days a week.

We all know that feeling of waiting on an asset that won’t be ready until Friday while a trend is blowing up on Tuesday or scrambling to tackle a community management crisis when there’s no one around to deal with it.

We want to limit the impact of those situations for our partners.

Our way of working means we can be as responsive as possible to their needs and give them the very best support we can.

After all, in social media, you truly never know what’s around the corner…

Taplio

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