Capturing the attention of Gymshark
With one piece of content I captured the attention of billion dollar company: Gymshark. 1.3million impressions later and I spent the day with Ben Francis at Gymshark HQ.
Here’s how I did it…
I thought it would be cool to capture Gymshark’s attention. Not only do I love the brand and product but their social content has always been inspirational to me. Given how renowned they are for their creative use of social media and the fact I work in socials - it made sense to capture their attention through content.
I follow a philosophy of taking risks and experimenting with my socials and content. As a result, I wanted to try something bold and push the limits of what LinkedIn had previously seen by being completely original. Taking on a brand like this with my own ‘campaign stunt’ was a LinkedIn first.
I took this core idea and started to create a piece of content around it. The successful Gymshark’s birthday ‘Happy Birthday Jim Shark’ campaign had stuck in my memory and thought I would be able to creatively play with the core concept in my own style.
I then needed to ensure my post was optimised for success on LinkedIn. This meant a creative visual with short piece of text. I wanted to visualise ‘Jim Shark’ so got a massive cuddly toy shark and shot the campaign in the gym playing on Jim the Shark at Gymshark. The image works well as the shark stands out from the plainer background. I also kitted out in Gymshark gear - the details really matter when the post is getting viewed by millions.
The visual I created is ultimately a scroll-stopping attention-grabbing hook to the full post.
I believe that in order to create engaging content, you have to enjoy the process of creating content and have fun. Your audience and community is more likely to engage in a positive way if you add good vibes to their feed. So I took multiple fun action shots in different gym poses and chose the best ones for the post itself. This humour element added to the share-ability of the post and brought the idea to life more.
I also followed my proof of work theory… that you need to do something interesting in the real world in order to earn engagement. I set up this unique photo shot which required props, an interesting location, and as a result viewers saw the effort and became invested in the post and also engaged with it.
For the posts copy, I wanted to be as succinct as possible. The opening lines calls out one of the biggest brands and says ‘I want to make a deal with you’ which is then followed up by my offer in as few words as possible. It was bold yet playful and caught attention.
I completed the post by showing that I am committed to doing good with my profile & community so made a personal donation to Charity that helps safeguard the future of sharks, in line with the overall theme of the post.
This main post itself went completely viral, taking over LinkedIn for the 48 hour post life, getting over 1.3 million impressions and 12,000 likes.
Gymshark agreed to the deal within minutes of the post going live. So I got to hang out with Noel Mack (Head of Brand), Elfried Samba (Head of Social) and Ben Francis (Co-Founder and CEO) and took Jim to create some really cool content at Gymshark HQ. And followed up with a post from the day ‘Jim the Shark at Gymshark’ which Ben Francis commented on. Alongside creating some cool iconic video content you can check out here.
I also created a series of other posts around the main stunt to share more of the story and build some suspense. I wanted to bring everyone in my community and to all those that liked the post along the journey with me and make them feel like a part of the overall experience. From a thank you to my community following the viral post which featured Jim and a champagne bottle. Sharing more about the charity I donated to. To a teaser to the day at Gymshark HQ itself. The total reach of all posts exceeded 1.5 million impressions.
There you have it. The behind the scenes process of how I captured one of the biggest brands attention through my own content. And got to visit and hang out with their top team.
Here are some key takeaways for your own content:
Have fun with your content - the more you enjoy it, the more your community will enjoy it
Do something interesting in the real world to earn engagement (proof of work theory)
Be bold and experiment. Push the limits of what social platforms have seen.
Give your post the best possible chance of success - a creative visual + punchy copy
Think bigger - crazy ideas are the best ones - execute on them.
If you want to work together, ping me an email on matt@mattswain.co.uk and we can get a discovery call booked in!
