The Marketing Millennials Ep. 370

Growing an Engaged Audience of 600,000 on Social Media with Sophie Miller, Pretty Little Marketer (From Marketingland 2025)

Date: November 28, 2025
Guest: Sophie Miller, Founder, Pretty Little Marketer
Host: Daniel Murray

Episode Overview

This episode, recorded live at the Brand Land Track at Marketland Festival 2025, features Sophie Miller—founder of Pretty Little Marketer—who breaks down how she went from zero to 600,000 highly engaged followers across Instagram and LinkedIn. Sophie offers no-BS, tactical advice for growing and nurturing a social media audience organically, emphasizing the power of shareability, reverse engineering for discoverability, social SEO, and treating followers as more than just vanity metrics. Her approach centers on real community-building, actionable strategy, and meeting your audience where they are.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Sophie's Origin Story and Audience Growth Journey

• Started in June 2020 as a university student overwhelmed by the lack of clear resources and connections in marketing.
• Created Pretty Little Marketer on Instagram, posting every day for a year.
• Emphasized vulnerability and relatability: candidly admitted her first follower was herself ([03:00]).
• Grew rapidly: 1,000 followers in one week, 60,000 in six months.
• Built the community she wished she had—one focused on active connection, advocacy, and not passive following.

Quote:
"I started this half a decade ago… I cried the second I hit the submit button [of her assignment]… I have no idea what I want to do... I'm a pandemic student, so I'm home alone... In that moment, I felt so alone. And I felt like it was just me."
—Sophie Miller ([03:40])

Followers Aren't a Vanity Metric—If You Treat Them Right

• Challenged the idea that “follower count is a vanity metric” ([08:30]).
• Stressed that followers are potential advocates and amplifiers—they share, buy, and trust recommendations.

Quote:
"I'm proud of is that these are followers, advocates, community members that are still here… What I'm proud of is that they're not just 600,000 passive followers."
—Sophie Miller ([07:50])

• The real magic begins after someone follows you: it's about nurturing, providing value, and building trust.

Solving the Visibility Problem: Strategic Discovery

• Visibility is about strategically choosing your “doorways”—the targeted, intentional ways new followers discover you ([10:30]).
• Not every platform needs equal effort; play to their unique strengths.

Quote:
"The key isn't to be everywhere. The key is to be strategic about which doors you walk through and how you show up when you do."
—Sophie Miller ([11:40])

• Avoid defaulting to the algorithm as the reason for low reach; instead, tailor strategy.
• For Sophie, Instagram and LinkedIn are the core platforms, each with a distinct plan.

Crafting Shareable, Visible Content (Shareability Science)

• Always start by reverse engineering content: where do you want it to land? (Stories, Explore page, DMs, TikTok repost, etc.) ([14:10])
• Carousels with broad, trending topics and strong visual/text hooks perform best for her Instagram growth.
• Example of viral post: "Are we over influencers?" carousel with Alex Arle, designed to intrigue a wide audience ([15:40]).

Quote:
"I knew that front cover slide would be interesting to a broad audience. So they would click. I'd hopefully capture their interest as they're scrolling through and then they would find it valuable enough to… hopefully follow."
—Sophie Miller ([16:30])

• Shareable content is intentional, not accidental—design triggers high-arousal emotions and resonance.
• People share content to:
  • Signal expertise or taste
  • Show alignment with current trends (“being in the know”)
  • Help others or share practical value

Quote:
"Shareable content is not accidental, it is created by design. It is high-arousal emotions that trigger sharing behavior. Anything neutral rarely spreads."
—Sophie Miller ([17:30])

• "Useful content gets shared significantly more often... People want to be heroes by providing solutions" ([19:10]).

Hidden Growth Lever: Social SEO

• Social platforms as search engines: Social SEO is now as critical as shares ([20:45]).
• Optimize posts with strategic keywords, answer niche questions people actually search for—on Google, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn.
• Recognize platform-specific search behaviors (e.g., Instagram for official pages, TikTok for peer reviews).
• LinkedIn is rapidly improving as a discovery platform through social SEO.

Quote:
"Our ideal followers are already looking for what we offer. They just don't know about us yet. So optimizing for search on every platform… is really key."
—Sophie Miller ([21:10])

Remove Barriers: Make Following You a No-Brainer

• Once users land on your profile, what's their experience? ([24:30])
• Ensure the bio is crystal clear.
• Use “thin content”—bite-sized, simple, instantly relatable or funny posts/memes to draw people in.
• Decrease all friction between discovery and decision to follow.
• Challenge yourself: Don’t just ask “how do I get more followers?" but “how do I create content worth following?”

Quote:
"The harder you make it to understand what you are about, the less likely someone is to follow you."
—Sophie Miller ([25:45])

The Human-First, Algorithm-Savvy Mindset

• Growth is strategic and intentional, not dependent solely on algorithms ([26:45]).
• Regularly audit your process and challenge old patterns.

Quote:
"Visibility is intentional and it doesn't happen by accident."
—Sophie Miller ([27:10])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I will proudly pout and shout about our 600,000-large community, our audience of whom I love very, very much. But it wasn't always 600,000, it started at zero. Well, actually... it was one."
  —Sophie Miller ([04:00])

• "We are selfish scrollers... When I follow you, do I get a bigger opportunity to share my opinion? Am I being given the opportunity to connect with like minded people?... Do you give me all the information I need to do xyz?"
  —Sophie Miller ([25:10])

Important Timestamps

• [02:10] — Sophie’s personal intro and story behind PLM
• [07:50] — Audience composition: followers as advocates, not vanity metrics
• [10:30] — Defining and solving the visibility problem
• [14:10] — The science behind shareable content: reverse engineering for platform success
• [17:30] — Emotional triggers as drivers for sharing, real-life example
• [20:45] — Social SEO: the new, underestimated growth lever
• [24:30] — Profile optimization and “thin content” for effortless following
• [25:45] — The selfish scroller concept and content value audit
• [27:10] — Final thoughts: visibility is intentional

Recap Takeaways

• Community over passive following—advocacy turns followers into true amplifiers.
• Visibility is strategic—choose your platforms, formats, and topics deliberately.
• Design for discovery and sharing—reverse engineer everything to the platform and audience you want to reach.
• Embrace social SEO—opportunities for being found via search on all platforms are only increasing.
• Reduce friction—make it easy and obvious for people to understand you and want to join your community.
• Stay human-first but algorithm-aware—use insights, not just hacks or trends.

"Visibility is intentional and it doesn't happen by accident."
—Sophie Miller ([27:10])

This episode is especially useful for marketers looking for tactical, actionable ways to increase audience and community engagement across Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social platforms in 2025 and beyond.