Social Chain of Success: How Two University Dropouts Built a £200m Company
Social Chain: founders Bartlett (left) and McGregor. Image: campaignlive.co.uk
By Heather Roy
Social Chain is, for want of a better word, an absolute humdinger of a success story. (..maybe I didn’t want a better word.)
Not only is this award-winning social media marketing agency hugely successful, it also has a collective reach of over 200 million people across their platforms and a claimed owned media reach of more than two billion views a month.
Founded in 2014 by university dropouts Steve Bartlett and Dom McGregor, the company has grown exponentially and is now one of Europe’s largest and most influential marketing agencies. With a global client portfolio made up of notable brands such as Apple, BBC, Spotify and Disney, and generating revenues of around £200 million, the success speaks for itself.
From humble beginnings in Manchester, and with a staff of only 6, the global growth of Social Chain is likely envied by its competitors. By 2018, four years after its founding, the company employed over 300 people and now has around 750 employees in five offices in Manchester, London, Berlin (now its HQ), New York and Munich.
Social Chain merged with German online retailer Lumaland in 2019 - allowing it to develop its social media and social commerce offering - and made its largest acquisition in the young company’s history by taking a 51% stake in A4D, a Californian digital performance marketing agency, in May this year.
With such a level of accomplishment, then, comes a sense of responsibility, and Social Chain uses its platform to promote and draw attention to social causes.
Its 2019 #NoFilterNoFuture collaboration with water-filter company Brita encouraged consumers to purchase Brita’s reusable water bottles, whilst taking an environmental stance by discouraging single use plastic. The innovative campaign worked with Instagram influencers whose photos warn of a not so distant future where the environments are far from “Insta-ready”. Social Chain believes that the best campaigns “understand culture and lean on creativity,” and their collaboration with Brita last year epitomises these principles.
Image: @jamienkidd on Instagram as part of the Brita #NoFilterNoFuture campaign
CEO and co-founder Steve Bartlett is at the centre of the company’s success. At only 28 years old, Bartlett has built his marketing empire from the ground up. It seems as though his stance on the importance of adaptability and innovation are the key building blocks in establishing the foundation of Social Chain and in maintaining the speed of its growth.
In an interview with Evening Standard back in 2017 Bartlett explained that “We’ve embraced the fact that everything is shifting, and we can’t be complacent, or precious, or romantic about how we made our money last year because we’ll die if we do.”
Bartlett’s route to success clearly inspires other young entrepreneurs, as his podcast “The Diary of a CEO” is the No. 1 UK Business podcast. His Twitter followers sit at 87,000, and his Instagram at 1million. Bartlett explains that “self-confidence is the key to taking charge of your life and making the necessary changes to achieve greater success.”
It seems to be a combination of both Bartlett’s personal drive and the hyper-paced innovation of the company as a whole that has led to its success.
Despite a challenging year, Social Chain’s rapid rate of growth and success show no signs of slowing down, with Bartlett being named on Forbes 30 Under 30 List for Media and Marketing in 2020.
Yet at the height of all this good news, Bartlett and McGregor took the decision to step down from the business in August this year.
McGregor signed off with: “Social Chain is a very special company. The growth we've seen over the past six years has been quite frankly phenomenal, we recently posted record numbers, and based on some of the exciting things I've seen over the last year, the future promises to be even brighter than the past.”
While Bartlett penned the following as he rounded off his six years with the company: "As I write this, at 27, we have more than 700 Social Chainers around the world, a world-beating team, we went public last year, we are the best at what we do, and we've just posted record numbers. The company is showing unbelievable momentum and I remain Social Chain's biggest fan, supporter, and believer.
"I owe an unpayable debt of gratitude to my team, past and present. If it wasn't for you (and mum and dad), I would be nothing. As a fairly public CEO, I've unavoidably taken an unfair amount of credit for what we achieved together."
The entrepreneur and investor, Wanja S Oberhof, now serves as Social Chain’s CEO. He looks set to keep Social Chain’s momentum going with a forecasted increase in company revenues for 2020 (impressive, bearing in mind the year we’ve just had…) and a recent acquisition of a German retailer.