Meet Grace Thorne

Today we’d like to introduce you to Grace Thorne.

Grace, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My journey actually started with a completely different business. I started an online homeware brand just before the pandemic hit, which obviously did really well during that time. I grew and marketed it primarily using social media. At the time, I would get a lot of questions from people asking how I was growing so quickly, how I created content, and how they could do the same.

I realised I knew how to answer those questions, so I decided to start Soaring Bird Social. It began as a tips-based platform where I would share advice on how to grow on Instagram, how to create content, and how to market a business. Over time, I realised I should be charging for this expertise, so I started offering coaching calls, audits, and other services.

The business got so busy I decided to take a step back from the homeware brand and retire it.

Four and a half years later, Soaring Bird Social has become a creative and strategic business where I work with brands, small business owners, and creatives on their social media strategy and content creation. I also now create user-generated content for brands too.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It hasn’t been a smooth road. Growth isn’t linear, especially when you’re growing on social media and the digital landscape is constantly evolving, and quite rapidly as well. You have to keep up with that.

The challenges I’ve faced stem from the fact that my job is to show people how to grow, how to succeed online, how to create effective marketing strategies, how to brand themselves well, and how to sell online. At some points, I would find that this wasn’t happening for me, and I would feel a great deal of imposter syndrome. A lot of self-doubt creeps in: am I not good enough for this? If I can’t do it myself, how am I supposed to do it for others, and how are people supposed to trust me to know what I’m talking about? I’d say that’s quite normal, though.

Also, with the current climate we’ve been in over the last year or two, the way people spend money has definitely changed. It’s forced me to adapt, which is exactly why I am where I am in my business today.

I tend to work primarily with brands, but I would love to be able to help more small business owners. Unfortunately, the number of small businesses closing because of the current climate means that what money they do have, they aren’t spending on social media support, especially because there is so much free information out there now.

So, I’d say it’s a lot of adapting and jumping over hurdles, but I always find myself just about landing back on my feet.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I work as a social media strategist and content creator, specialising specifically in brand-first social media strategy.

When we think about social media strategy, we often think about content, pillars, business marketing, goal roadmapping, and so on. But what sets me apart I think is that I work brand-first. I look at the full, cohesive ecosystem of how a brand should be showing up on social media.

That starts with the brand itself: its substance, positioning, visual identity, and tone of voice, essentially what we know as a brand strategy. From there, I move into the content strategy: how to market the business, communicate the brand, establish content pillars, manage a content schedule and plan, and lay out roadmaps for goals. Together, that collectively forms the social media strategy.

What I am most proud of is seeing the clients I work with win on a regular basis. Seeing them hit their goals, accomplish what they set out to do when working with me, and seeing how happy and accomplished they feel is truly what I am most proud of. It is how I thrive and why I do what I do.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I definitely see a huge AI influence in my industry already, and I think that’s only going to increase. There’s going to be a shift in the way people create content more regularly, and people will have to adapt. It feels a lot like we are fighting it at the moment.

I do think we are potentially going to see a pendulum swing back towards more raw, vulnerable content (less polished, less about the endpoint, and more about the journey). People are genuinely invested in people now more than ever.

At the same time as AI grows, people’s relationships with other people will grow alongside it. It will happen in tandem: the more AI there is, the more people will look for human connection.

So the way we create content needs to be one or the other. We either need to lean fully into AI, or lean towards more human creation and raw, vulnerable content. That is going to be the biggest thing. We are already starting to see it, but it will become even more prominent over the next 5 to 10 years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stan.store/soaringbirdsocial
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soaringbirdsocial/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-thorne-20655a310/