Real businesses. Real numbers.

St Andrews Hotel is a family-run pub in Fitzroy with a genuinely strong offering: good food, good beer and a room people enjoy being in. What it didn't have was a social presence that reflected any of that. Posting was reactive, offers weren't designed with platforms in mind, and earlier marketing support had focused more on activity than impact.

They didn't need more content. They needed the right content.

Like a lot of hospitality venues, the team were sceptical that entertaining content could actually translate into people walking through the door. That was the real starting point: not effort, but trust that social could drive foot traffic rather than just vanity metrics.

Together we rebuilt the social presence around a social-first strategy. That meant designing content specifically for platforms rather than repurposing ads or menus, leading with entertaining, culture-led videos to build familiarity and reach, talking through the why behind every decision, and using performance data to refine constantly rather than setting and forgetting.

Once reach and familiarity were established, I tested what would happen if offers were built with social in mind from the start. The first was a Sunday Roast, launched and positioned entirely through social media. It took off quickly, and every Sunday began filling out consistently. That's when it clicked that this wasn't a one-off, it was repeatable.

From there I began intentionally designing specials for culture, timing and shareability. A Croatian ćevapi night followed. Multiple videos passed hundreds of thousands of views organically. Wednesday nights filled out. New customers travelled in from across Melbourne. A small, family-run pub in Fitzroy became a midweek destination.

This wasn't about posting more. It was about building content with intent.

When I started working with The Butcher Club, the business itself was already strong. Great product, loyal customers, solid reputation. But their social media told a completely different story. The account functioned almost entirely as a bottom-of-funnel noticeboard: weekly specials, recipe cards, repetitive formats, stock imagery. Little reach, no growth, no brand personality.

Social wasn't helping the business. It was just filling space. The goal from day one wasn't sales, it was brand recognition. They wanted people to understand who they were, what they stood for, and why they were different.

I didn't flip everything overnight. Instead I transitioned the brand carefully, first modernising what already existed with better visuals, clearer messaging and more platform-native execution. From there I widened the lens: educational content about meat, cuts and process, positioning the brand as knowledgeable rather than salesy. At the same time I introduced TikTok from scratch, opening the brand to a platform it had never used before.

People weren't just interested in buying meat. They were interested in learning about it.

As momentum grew, The Butcher Club became an official sponsor of the Melbourne Vixens, giving me access to talent, filming time and a new audience at scale. I planned and executed a structured campaign around the partnership, a multi-episode series where the Vixens stepped into the butcher environment. The campaign brought in hundreds of thousands of views and introduced the brand to a much wider demographic.

But the biggest engagement shift came straight after. The strongest performing content wasn't the athletes or the high-profile names. It was the staff: apprentices explaining cuts, team members working through processes, in-store moments that felt real, unpolished and human.

The people inside the business were the story.

From that point on I leaned heavily into staff-led content alongside strategic partnerships (including collaborations with Ian Botham and Dermot Brereton, used to add reach rather than carry the brand). The result: a recognisable, human brand that people felt connected to. Customers began referencing videos in store. Staff became familiar faces. The Butcher Club shifted from "a good butcher" to a brand people actively talked about.