We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Susan George. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Susan below.

Susan, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

About 10 years ago, I was a full-time musician in Seattle and realized to move the needle of my career, I needed to get serious about personal branding and social media marketing. I started working with brands as a micro-influencer and when the pandemic hit, went even harder on socials. My husband built a stage in our living room and I would do live stream shows every week on Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok. I found a new committed and kind community on tiktok which led to giving other creators advice about brand deals, then managing them, and brokering campaigns with companies like New Balance, Costco, and Netflix. Now, Mediary Marketing helps amplify the voices of creators and brands, with influencer management, product development, organic and paid campaigns, content creation, and more recently, scaling products on Tiktok Shop.

What made me the most excited was getting women paid for being authentically themselves online, knowing that their content is making a positive impact on their viewers. When it came to paid ads, I had found that most media buyers weren’t as concerned with the creative, which in my opinion, is the most important place to start. We would take videos that did well organically and use those in ad campaigns, which resulted in amazing results.

With Tiktok Shop, they are growing so fast that the journey to getting your own shop and selling can be met with multiple frustrating obstacles. I wanted our agency’s store, The Viral Collection, to be a plug and play option for brands, as well as house the products we make for our creators. The goal is that is the go-to spot on Tiktok for trendy products that make your life better, with an emphasis on women-owned and minority-owned brands.

More generally though, what I love about most about social media is that it gives an artist or business owner the option to take their career into their own hands. As opposed to having record labels or giant corporations be the gate keeper of what’s popular, the artist has the control and can build an audience that allows them to have a successful career. It can serve as a great equalizer and a springboard for opportunity if you’re willing to put your story out there.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Susan George, the CEO/Founder of Mediary Marketing and a Seattle-based pop recording artist. Mediary Marketing helps amplify the voices of creators and brands through influencer management, product development, organic and paid campaigns, content creation, consulting, and more recently, scaling products on Tiktok Shop.

What sets me apart is that fact that I’m an artist and creator first, so I can uniquely understand and identify with content creators on their level, as well as be able to pinpoint when someone is “up and coming” and has the capability to monetize what they’re doing. The foundation of all of this is story-telling, which I’m very passionate about. I majored in creative writing in college, and wrote lifestyle articles for Seattle Refined, a local KOMO run publication for over a decade. Those articles started turning into content and allow me to look at short form content as condensed stories.

When I got married, I gained a bonus child (my step-son) and had my youngest 5 years ago. At that point, I made the decision to showcase my goal of being a present mom AND still chase big dreams. It can be challenging at times, but I refuse to believe that in 2024, women aren’t capable of pursuing all their professional and personal goals, and be a mom. So I try to showcase all aspects of my life on socials to not only be relatable to people following along, but hopefully inspire others while we commiserate about how that reality can be exhausting, but very worth it. It helps to have a solid and supportive husband who also enjoys dream chasing. Who in fact, happens to now be one of the creators I manage since he’s now surpassed over 100K+ followers talking about cannabis education on socials. We’ve also scaled his brand, Suncliff, to over a million dollars in sales on Tiktok Shop alone – which is something we’re very proud of. Working on projects with him is such a unique gift and we genuinely push each other in the best ways.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In social media, being wiling to pivot is imperative. The most challenging part of being in this industry is dealing with all the unknowns. Especially with social media marketing, change is not only constant, but is happening fast and all the time. I’ve had to continue to work to overcome self-doubt and learn to trust my instincts. The fact that if something isn’t working or there’s an issue, it’s fully my responsibility to address it and find new avenues that work, while dropping the ones that don’t anymore.

My most significant pivot points come from trying things. When I see a need, I try to fill it and sometimes that sticks and leads to a solid revenue stream, and sometimes it fizzles out. For example, I started a program that only ran for a few months. It was supposed to be an interactive zoom format where I could address questions and educate in a collaborative way. But I’d find that most people were just watching the play back and I kept getting the same questions. So, I took those questions and made a digital resource, our Social Media Starter Kit, where people who need help learning where to even start with their social media content, can get the basics there first.

I learned that if I didn’t run that program, and realize how much time I could save by putting what we were talking about into a resource to sell, I wouldn’t have been able to expand the other areas of my business, while still addressing those needs.

I am certain that every “failure” is just ping-ponging me down the path I’m supposed to walk down. In the wise words of Queen Oprah, “there’s no such thing as failure really, because failure is just that thing [God] trying to move you in another direction.”

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I’ve grown my social media audience slowly over time, by being consistent and instagram stories have been the easiest for me to update daily. In regards to building your presence and what I’ve learned from managing creators who’ve achieved millions of followers and tens of millions of views, is the following:

1) Be Authentic. Authenticity has been measured as the most powerful human emotion in regards to connection. People can tell if you’re being real or not and as long as you come across genuine, people will buy in.

2) Tell Your Story: Everyone has a story to tell that others can relate to. If you’re willing to document what you’re working on, show people the process, the struggles, the journey to get somewhere, they’ll be much more invested in the final product.

3) Give Value: Everyone is an expert in something. Whatever you post, it should do one of three things: educate, entertain, or inspire. If you share what you know, not asking for anything in return, you’ll be surprised how many clients you can attract just be sharing your expertise.

4) Think of socials as your portfolio and an opportunity, as opposed to do a burden. What do you say to clients every day? What’s the most common question you get asked? What problems are you facing in respective industries? Sharing those things will connect you and allow the right people to find you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mediarymarketing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susangofficial/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susan.galbraith.777
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susangofficial/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SusanGMusic
• Other: Tiktok: @susangofficial
  IG & Tiktok: @mediarymarketing
  Tiktok: @TheViralCollection

Image Credits

Image of white blazer in main article image: @karlykreative