Mirco Gluch 🐽

Most brands aren't maximizing their social media potential.
→ We change that. With our Social Media Accelerator and expert consulting, we transform your channels into measurable growth across Organic, Paid and Influencer Marketing. 🐽

ABOUT ME
I'm Mirco Gluch, founder of Piggyback. I've worked with some of the fastest growing companies like Zalando, Trade Republic, N26, Maniko Nails, foodspring and CLARK. 
But honestly, I'm just as passionate about helping ambitious startups and SMEs that want to actually move the needle on social media.

WHAT WE DO
We build your social channels from zero or level up what's already working. With solid strategies, real channel knowledge and social-first content production (video, statics, carousels).

WHAT SETS US APART
We roll up our sleeves from day one and make ourselves obsolete. After 6-18 months, your social media works smoothly without us. We think like your audience, test relentlessly, and your team is set up for success.

OUR SERVICES
🐽 Social Media Accelerator (6-18 months intensive partnership)
Full hands-on execution across Organic, Paid & Influencer Marketing. Content creation, social management, community building and analytics - everything you need to scale.
Brands like Maniko Nails, foodspring, Wholey and Academy Bikes transformed their social growth with us.

🐽 Social Media Strategy & Customer Research
We build strategies that actually work for your brand. Deep research through real follower interviews, audience mapping and competitive analysis. Foundation for everything else.

🐽 Expert Consulting
Need help with specific challenges? Internationalization, team restructuring, AI implementation, C-level strategy. We jump in and figure it out with you.

🐽 Workshops & Mentoring
Upskill your team on what actually matters: AI, channel strategy (e.g. for Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube), content workflows, how to think like social first.

🐽 Inhousing & Team Building
Recruiting support, workflow setup and ongoing mentoring so your team can run social independently. The natural next step after the Accelerator.

READY TO START?
⚡️ DM me with "CALL" — let's talk about what's possible for your brand. 🐽

Agency Founder - Social Media Advisor, Consultant, Workshop Host, and Interim Head of Social Media

- Building team structures, strategies, and workflows for successful marketing and social media management
- Optimization of content output, engagements, reach and follower numbers through tried and tested tactics
Selected clients: Zalando, Trade Republic, N26, foodspring, Getsafe and many smaller brands

Mirco Gluch

Berlin used to be the startup capital of Europe.
What happened?

I applied for a €50.000 government innovation grant in January 2024.
The Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) GründungsBONUS. 
Berlin's flagship program to fund innovative startups.

I just received my answer: Rejected!
In March 2026.
Over two years later!

My business plan described building AI-powered operating systems for marketing teams.

Early 2024. Before any of this was mainstream.
I had already done workshops on this topic for RTL, Peek&Cloppenburg and ImmoScout24.
Real clients showed real interest.

The IBB's verdict: not innovative enough because I would be using existing tools.
The plan was to build these workflow systems with Make, Zapier, AirTable and Buffer.
(Keep in mind, that was over two years ago, so well ahead of the time.)

Here is what I did to earn that rejection:
Wrote a business plan from scratch. 
That was 15 hours of work.
Got asked to rewrite it. 
I did that too.
Uploaded a dozen documents into their outdated portal.
Wrote dozens of emails back and forth with their team.
Kept my hopes up the entire time.
26 months of that. 
For a rejection that could have come in week two.

Meanwhile the rest of the world spent those two years proving why that my approach IS the future.
Claude Cowork. Lovable. n8n. Vibe Coding.

I would assume a committee that rejected my business plan from two years ago this week would be aware of that.

Even the most innovative AI-companies in the Silicon Valley and in China today build on top of existing tech infrastructures.
Because that is how innovation move the fastest.

Here is the part that hurts most.
€50.000 is not even enough to build your own AI tool from scratch.
But it is absolutely enough to build something remarkable on top of existing tools.

They rejected the exact approach the entire industry has since adopted.
Then took 26 months to deliver that verdict.

Germany has brilliant AI companies. 
Munich is booming. 
Hamburg is moving.
But Berlin? 
The city that was supposed to lead?
Not a whole lot of AI-companies are coming from here.

It is being held back by programs that bureaucratize innovation to death.

I filed a formal objection. 
I don't really expect too much. 
But I do believe someone has to say it out loud. 
That's also why I'm writing this post here.

If you are a Berlin founder who has been through this, I want to hear your most frustrating bureaucrac(z)y story.

Social Media Accelerator & Expert Consulting for Startups & Scale-ups ⚡️ Instant growth via Organic, Paid & Influencer | Interim Team Extension, Strategy, Workshops & Speaker 🐽

Piggyback is now a team of 12!

(With a few missing from this photo.)

Last week we welcomed Laura Pfaffel, Social Media Consultant, and Jonas Fehrentz, Jr. Social Media Consultant, to the team, pictured front and centre!

Laura brings several years of agency experience and is the first team member with an agency background to join the Piggyback team, alongside Jonas. She has worked with a wide range of clients at both Charles and Charlotte and Ressourcenmangel.

Before Piggyback, Jonas already ran his own social media and influencer agency, built personal TikTok and Instagram accounts with over 500,000 followers, and even launched his own focus and performance drink startup, Ryn.

Welcome to Piggyback, we’re so happy to have you both on the team!

One of the most talented social media agencies I know is opening one new project slot from May onwards.
(Luckily, I know them pretty well 😉)

At Piggyback, we’re making room to help one more brand completely overhaul their social presence through our accelerator program.

Been thinking about turning your content chaos into a clear, high-performing social strategy that actually drives engagement?

Then this might be your chance to stop talking about it and finally do something about it.

We only take on a handful of projects like this each year, so when a spot opens up, it doesn’t stay open for long.

You know what you should do.

Instagram in an actually useful update shocker.

Did you know that Instagram is now rolling out a ‘Shared Access’ feature that allows you to share your account with up to 3 other people, without giving them the password?

That means when people accept the invitation, they can post, like, and comment from the profile. 

You can also manage their controls, such as choosing who has access to your DMs or who can post on your story.

Super cool!

And of course, if they leave your company, you can remove their access super easily, instead of the usual “what’s the password?” situation 3 months later.

Do you have this feature? And if so, have you used it yet? 👇

This is one of the best indicators of whether someone is truly successful:

If they’re a genuinely nice person.

I recently read something from Scott Galloway where he said that when he meets successful people, they’re usually really nice.

They’re not overconfident, rude, or just… an assh*le.

Why? Because if you’re successful, it’s rarely because you’ve done it all on your own.

There are always people along the way you’ve had to ask for help, whether that’s mentors, colleagues, or friends, and you have to be humble enough to ask for favours and accept guidance.

It’s also worth saying that 'success' doesn’t always equal money. 

There are plenty of people with wealth who aren’t fulfilled, and plenty of fulfilled people who would never call themselves rich.

Everyone needs their own definition of success, whether that’s impact, freedom, relationships, or simply just doing work they care about.

This is something I always try to keep at the forefront of my mind.

I really believe in the law of attraction and try to lead from the heart, with my team and colleagues, through kindness, humility, and friendliness.

Because I think that that energy always finds its way back to you.

(Maybe along the way, when some people get too successful, they forget that part…)

Tell me: are most of the successful people you’ve met nice? Yes or no?

You’re absolutely fooling yourself if you think organic social can just exist on its own.
It never will.

Successful organic social should sit inside a wider ecosystem made up of paid social, influencer marketing, events, and CRM, with each touchpoint strengthening the others.

Organic is where people understand you brand's POV and decide whether they trust you.

Influencer marketing builds on that trust by letting familiar faces carry it further.

Paid is how that recognition reaches more of the right people and showcases your products or services.

Events give those shared relationships a place to show up and create moments together.

CRM is where those relationships are nurtured and turned into conversions.

The brands getting it right today are the ones doing it this way.

(And the ones thinking about it but only have one social media manager to execute it all, we see you.)

Did I miss any channel?

If I won the lottery, I would buy LinkedIn.

First platform update: type “Here’s what I learned” = instant block and app uninstall.

Let’s see how many people we’d have left.

(I reckon we’d be down to 12 users by lunch – including me, obviously.)

Why do so many brands get in their own way on social?

I recently joined Luke Costley-White on The Growth Dojo podcast to talk about exactly that.

(And, in case you’re worried, I do also answer the "why" questions in this one... not just ask them non-stop 😉)

In the episode, we talked about my design thinking approach to social strategy, why interviewing followers matters, how to balance posting quantity and quality, and so much more.

Thanks again to Luke and DOJO AI for the invite and the great conversation!

Check out the episode now on Spotify.

Did we just invent my new favourite meeting format?
"Roast our channel"

The whole Piggyback team roasted one of our clients. 
In the best way imaginable.

We’re 12 people now.
Of course not everyone is super deep in every channel anymore. 

So we tried a format where the whole team reviews one channel with fresh eyes.

Our first “victim”: wowtamins

A children’s supplement brand we’ve been live with on social for about 2 months now.

Kathi, Ayce and Victor are the core team on the project. 
Everyone else prepared in advance.
We then blocked one hour to go through the whole channel... really properly:

Instagram, TikTok, bio, handle, highlights, captions, community management, content, faces, hooks, CTAs.
Everything.

At the start, we set one rule: 
Just take the feedback, don’t get defensive.

The session was ridiculously valuable.

We even ended with school grades for the channels and content, just to be honest about where we stand. 
We landed somewhere between a B- and a C.

So yes, still a lot of room to improve. 
And now we know exactly what to fix.

Big thanks to the whole Piggyback team for preparing so well, and to Kathi, Ayce and Victor for taking it so "sportlich" and professional.

Would you let us roast your brand's channel?

We’re doing the (sometimes) impossible at our consultancy: 

Keeping both our team and partners happy at the same time.

Right now, our client satisfaction scores 9.7/10, and our team satisfaction is a perfect 10/10.

As our work ramps up, and our team and partner base continues to grow, I’m so proud that we’ve managed to do something that, while it seems simple, is actually quite challenging:

Balancing team and client satisfaction.

How did we manage it?

I could create a carousel full of slides to explain everything, but simply, it comes down to this:

We never sacrifice our team’s wellbeing for our partners success. 

Because when our team’s thriving, our partners win.

If you can guess the agency from the feed, that’s a problem.
Here’s how we avoid that.

At Piggyback, we’re currently working with:

a beauty brand
a kids’ bike brand
a supplements brand
and a medical brand

Each one comes with a completely different audience, industry, and set of expectations. Every brand also starts from a different place because of it.

That’s why we invest heavily in creative exploration.

We prototype content early, produce it properly, and publish it to see what actually works. This helps us to find real proof of content rather than relying on assumptions, which we can then build on across channels.

At the same time, we develop each brand’s look and feel in close collaboration with in-house teams or external designers.

To make sure nothing feels generic or copy-and-paste, we also bring in different external perspectives, from videographers to designers, depending on what the brand actually needs.

The result is feeds that feel unmistakably them, not us. 

Check them all out below ⬇️

Piggyback – Project Partner Feeds

There’s a word I’ll never use to describe the brands we work with.
And it’s a pretty common one.

'Clients.'

Since I started working with brands, I’ve made a conscious effort to call them project partners instead.

Why?

Maybe it’s just me, but 'client' has always felt a bit hierarchical.

I feel like it creates an unnecessary sense of us and them, and that’s never how I want our relationships to feel, on either side.

By calling them 'project partners' instead of clients at Piggyback, we set the tone from day one for an equal collaboration, where both sides are trusted, respected, and listened to.

Even though it might seem like a small thing, I genuinely believe that these small things have a real impact on the bigger picture.

Do you think the same about the word clients? Or have you never even given it a second thought?

Marketing teams: 2026 is the year where AI won’t be optional anymore – but most teams aren’t prepared for what that actually means.

The question is: who will adapt? And who will fall behind?

With many companies kickstarting pilots of AI tools last year, I think 2026 will be the true test, and where we’ll see which companies can keep up and which will fall behind.

In my article with Springer Professional, I explore where AI is headed for marketing teams in 2026, including why many AI initiatives fail, how effective shadowing can drive usage and adoption, and why introducing a continuous learning system with AI is critical for long-term success.

Check it out below!

We generate 200K views a month from a weekly content production session that takes just 30 minutes.

Here’s how:

Every Wednesday, when the whole team is in the office, we block out half an hour to create content for Piggyback’s owned social channels.

In that time, we shoot videos based on ideas we’ve already planned, mostly fun content about agency life and social media.

Are we exploding in followers?
No. We've got about 500 across both platforms combined, despite the views.

Are we getting new clients from it?
No. We've never had a lead from it, but that's what LinkedIn's for.

Are we attracting great talent from it?
Absolutely. Our Piggyback channels have become an employer branding goldmine and have been so helpful in hiring new team members.

Most of our applicants are Gen Z, and instead of checking our website before applying, they go straight to our socials.

We've now hired multiple people who have mentioned  our socials during the hiring process.

One said: "I only applied because of your Instagram."

Another walked into her interview and said to one of the team: "I know you from TikTok."

The response from applicants has really encouraged us to stay consistent with the channels.

After all, if this is what 30+ minutes (more with scheduling!) of work a week gets us, we're happy to keep doing it.

Do you have anything low effort that is secretly a goldmine for you?

What do all of these brands have in common?
Vogue
Brammibals Donuts
BMW
cosnova
Freenow
Nikon
Zalando
Kaufland
GQ
foodspring

Our team worked with every one of them before joining Piggyback.

Want to join this growing list of brands our team has helped build and scale?

Then you’re in luck.

We’ve opened one new slot starting in May for a brand that wants to overhaul its social presence from the ground up through our accelerator program.

You can grab the spot now…

And work with top-tier talent who have the kind of experience you’d expect from a Champions League-level team.

Or spend another year with underwhelming socials.

Your choice.

Writes and creates an entire 30-page project case study carousel.

Schedules the post.

Goes back to “View Scheduled Post” 10+ times just to admire how well-designed and insightful it is.

Thinks about how great you are and how well it’s going to perform.

It goes live.

Immediately lists all the reasons why it didn’t do well.

The end.

(It was nice while it lasted.)

Can anyone else relate?

Brands don’t win because they post more content.
They win because they own something no one else can copy.

That “something” is IP — stories, characters, worlds, systems, and cultural assets that compound into long-term value.

Intellectual Property (IP) is becoming the core strategic asset behind modern brand entertainment and cultural ecosystems.

For over 20 years, I worked inside some of the world’s most influential entertainment and consumer brands — Disney, Warner Bros., Nickelodeon, PUMA — shaping global franchises, managing multimillion-euro IP portfolios, and learning how brands evolve when they move beyond campaigns and into entertainment, culture, and ownership.

Today, as the founder of unmtchd., I work at the intersection of brand, entertainment, and IP — designing IP-led, entertainment-driven ecosystems as long-term strategic assets.

My work sits at the intersection of three pillars:

→ IP & Brand Strategy
Identifying and structuring what makes a brand truly unmatched — its unique assets, meaning, narrative, and signature.

→ Brand Entertainment & Ecosystem Design
Turning IP into characters, formats, products, content, partnerships, communities, and scalable revenue streams that live far beyond social platforms.

→ Cultural Positioning & Future Readiness
Helping brands evolve intentionally so they remain relevant, differentiated, and culturally meaningful in a fast-shifting world.

The outcome?
Brands that don’t just participate in culture — they build it.
Distinct by design. Scalable through IP. Built to last beyond the algorithm.

If you’re a brand leader or founder exploring how to move from content to IP, from campaigns to owned worlds, let’s connect.

Oana Leonte 💬

I asked 150 social media professionals in Athens if they knew what their company stood for and 3 raised their hands.

Not 20. Not even 10. 
Three.

That's not a knowledge gap. That's the gap between output and meaning.

I was invited to speak at the "All Things Facebook & Instagram Conference" in Athens this week. My talk was called "Scaling with Meaning in the Age of AI."

The core argument: AI scales output. It doesn't create meaning. And the brands that win in the next decade won't be the ones that post the most, they'll be the ones that own something nobody else can copy.

I walked the room through Honda vs. Harley-Davidson (same product, completely different meaning), Disney's empire (19 business lines, one piece of IP holding it all together), and Bad Bunny (a reggaeton singer who turned Puerto Rican identity into a global brand ecosystem).

And I left them with one filter to take back to their teams:
"Does this scale our meaning?"

Ask it before every brief. Every campaign. Every piece of content you approve. That one question will change more than any tool ever will.

Thank you to Dannos Tsakalos and OTEAcademy for having me. 
And to every person who came up to me afterward to continue the conversation — that energy is exactly why I do this work.

IP is the new influence. 
And if you want to talk about what your brand actually owns, my DMs are open.

Oana  Leonte

IP is the New Influence | Brand Strategist & Adviser to CEOs & Founders | Author | Speaker → How to Scale Your Brand with Meaning in the Age of AI

I'm in London next week and I want to try something I've never done before.

If you're a founder or brand leader, let's grab a coffee. No agenda. I just want to hear what you're building and what's on your mind.

Just got back from speaking in Athens and I'm still buzzing from the conversations that happened after the talk.

It reminded me that the best things in my career never started with a pitch. They started with a coffee and a good conversation.

So… DM me if you’d like to meet up.

Also — I’m thinking about hosting a small Strategic IP Masterclass while I’m there. 

A focused session on how to identify and build the IP that makes your brand impossible to copy. 

If that sounds like something you'd want in on, comment MASTERCLASS and I'll make it happen.

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Someone asked me yesterday what Strategic IP looks like for Coca Cola. 

And it’s one of the best examples to study because it’s not obvious.

And because most people look at it and still miss the point.

They point to the formula.
The trademark.
The bottle shape.

Those are real. Those matter.
But that’s not why people choose Coke.

Here’s the pattern I see:
In blind taste tests, most people prefer Pepsi.

But in the market, Coca-Cola wins.
That gap — between what people taste and what they choose — that’s where Strategic IP lives.

Coca-Cola owns a narrative no lawyer could file.

The feeling of happiness.
The ritual of gathering.
The identity of the person holding the can.

No patent protects belonging.
No trademark covers the sound of that bottle opening at Christmas.
But they own both.

That’s the difference between a product and Strategic IP.

One lives in a contract.
The other lives in people.

And the one that lives in people
is the one that survives everything else.

This is the pattern worth studying.
Not the formula. The meaning underneath it.

The real IP  Coca Cola 

Three sessions.
That’s it.

That’s all it takes to go from ready to quit to knowing exactly what you’re building and why.

I work with solo founders who are ready to quit — just “done” with it all. 

They have real expertise.
Real results behind them.

A business that should be further along than it is.

But they’re burnt out.
Demotivated.
Running on obligation instead of drive.

The thing they won’t say out loud:
“I don’t know if I can keep going”.

I’ve been there so many times too…

When a founder comes to me feeling like that, 
I don’t fix their marketing.

I don’t give them a new strategy right away.
I don’t optimize what’s already draining them.

We go to the root.

Session 1 — we uncover what’s actually wrong. Not the symptoms, the source. 
The clarity you’ve lost about what you’re building and who you’re building it for.

Session 2 — we rebuild the vision. 
Not a vague direction. 
A precise destination, one you can see clearly enough to want again.

Session 3 — we construct the roadmap. 
12 to 18 months. 
What gets built, in what order, toward what outcome.

You leave with:
✔️ clarity on what the business actually is
✔️ a vision precise enough to navigate by
✔️ a 12-18 month roadmap built around you
✔️ the meaning back in what you do

The motivation doesn’t return because things suddenly got easier.

It returns because you can see again.

It’s interesting because it’s a similar framework I use with larger organizations but applied to solo founders.

With one BIG difference.
I’m a solo founder too.

I know what it feels like when the business you built starts feeling like a job you can’t quit. 

I know the specific exhaustion of carrying everything alone.

That’s not a weakness in the method.
It’s why it works.

Most founders feeling drained think they have a business problem.

But I know they have a meaning problem.
The good news is, that’s fixable. 🤍

I’m writing my book with AI.
And I want to talk about what that actually means.

Because the conversation around AI and creative work keeps getting stuck in the wrong place.

People ask: is it still yours if AI helped?
But that’s not the right question.

40,000 years ago, someone pressed their hand against a cave wall and blew pigment around it.

The tool was bone and ochre.
The meaning was: I was here.

Then came oil painting.
Then photography.

Some painters panicked. 
Declared the medium dead.

But the medium was never the point.
The meaning was.

Photography didn’t end painting.
It freed it, to go deeper into what a camera couldn’t capture.

This is where we are now.

I’m writing this book with AI and a human editor.
What I’m putting into it is 20 years of pattern recognition.

The frameworks I’ve built inside some of the world’s most IP-driven industries.

A worldview I’ve spent a career testing, refining, and living.

Observations that can only come from someone who’s been in those rooms.

AI doesn’t have my experience.
It doesn’t have my failures.

It doesn’t have the specific way I see the relationship between meaning, ownership, and long-term power.

What it does have is speed, structure, and the ability to help me think out loud faster.

So I’m using it.

The same way a sculptor uses better chisels.
The same way a filmmaker uses better cameras.

The tools are evolving.
The intention and the meaning make the impact.

The question shouldn’t be “what are you writing with”?

But “what are you putting in”?
And everything I have is going into this book.

If you’re a founder, creator, or brand leader who’s been building for the long game, this book is for you. 

More soon 🤍

PS. This is an excerpt from my talk “How to Scale your Brand with Meaning in the Age of AI”. DM me if you’d like to hear more.

Most people think IP is a legal conversation.
Trademarks. Patents. Contracts.

Things your lawyers protect.
That’s one kind of IP.

But there’s another kind.
The story people tell about you when you’re not in the room.

The reason they come back without being retargeted.

The thing they’d miss if you disappeared tomorrow.

That’s Strategic IP.

And here’s the difference that matters:
Legal IP protects what you own.
Strategic IP is what your audience owns — about you.

You can’t file a trademark on meaning.
You can’t copyright belonging.

But you can build both.

The brands ahead of the curve aren’t just protecting assets.

They’re building narratives durable enough to travel without them.

Reach without that narrative is just noise.
And noise is expensive to maintain.

The question isn’t how much content you’re producing.

It’s whether anyone would notice if you stopped.

taplio

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Mirco Gluch

Oana Leonte 💬

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The Battle

Mirco Gluch

Oana Leonte 💬

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Mirco Gluch's LinkedIn Performance

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