Meet the Hot 30: Elliot Smith, Head of Social PR and Activations at THG

Meet Elliot, Head of Social PR and Activations at THG for Myprotein and one of our Pepper Hot 30 UK 2026 winners.

Leading social across Myprotein, Activewear and Vitamins, Elliot is helping rethink how organic, paid, PR and activations work together - while proving there’s still plenty of opportunity on platforms some brands might have written off.

We caught up with Elliot to talk about Myprotein’s huge Facebook growth, getting one million views within two weeks of joining Reddit, why brands are now competing with everyone on the internet, the rise of WhatsApp and dark social, and why creativity matters more than knowing every platform inside out.

What’s your role at THG and what does your day-to-day look like?

I’m Head of Social PR and Activations at THG for Myprotein, covering Activewear and Vitamins. I’m two months into the role and, honestly, no two days are the same.

My role has broadened to cover PR and activations, so at the moment it’s about getting stuck into those areas and learning, but also keeping an eye on the stats and insights on social. That’s one of the most important things I do day to day to make sure all our content is not only performing, but hitting the right signals and audiences.

What’s been your biggest win or proudest moment in your current role so far?

When I first started, one key thing I did was go around the business and ask for unfiltered opinions on our socials.

We got some tough responses, so for me the proudest moment has been seeing that opinion shift to become more positive.

That’s taken a lot of work - a lot of nights, evenings and weekends from me and the whole team - to make that happen and get to a space where social is a lot more credible for us.

Which social platforms are you seeing the most success with right now, and what do you think is driving that?

It’s a bit of a weird one because I’m a big believer that it’s probably one of the most underutilised platforms, but we’re seeing a lot of success on Facebook.

It’s still one of the only places in the entire social stratosphere of traditional platforms where you can link out freely. We’ve seen a massive step change in link clicks going through with wellness updates and people taking health and things like GLP-1s more seriously.

The impressions and engagement we’re seeing from Facebook aren’t in the 100% or 200% range - they’re in the 500% to 600% range. So it’s a huge success story for us.

We’ve also recently started on Reddit. We had our first one-million-view post within the first two weeks of being on there.

Most people go on Reddit and try to be a brand, but we’ve gone on Reddit and tried to be part of the community, and we can see that paying off.

What’s one piece of work you’ve been involved in recently that you’re particularly proud of?

For my team, we always centre around things like the HYROX World Championships. As a global partner of HYROX, being able to activate that is key for us.

More recently, we had Myprotein HYROX Manchester. We’re a Manchester business, so we like to go big in Manchester, and this was our named event.

We did a world record attempt and got the unofficial world record with our talent. We brought together four of the biggest names in the HYROX scene, created a whole set around it, built a full campaign and embedded it across social.

That is probably one of the better moments of this year for sure.

What’s something you’ve learnt in your current role that has changed the way you approach social?

I think it’s the appreciation of openness.

A lot of the time on social - and I’ve definitely been someone who’s done this - we think the whole world’s out to get us. Everyone’s got an opinion on social, everyone in the business looks at social, and you guard it. Social internally in brands can feel quite guarded, like it’s us against the entire business.

Great social teams are able to block that out and be collaborative.

Even more so now, the role has allowed me to look at activations and go, “Okay, we can make this more social, but it requires us starting earlier and bringing in these processes.”

We’re doing a lot of collaboration between organic and paid nowadays too. Paid used to be paid, organic was organic, but over the last year a lot of brands have been bringing those two closer together.

Having that opinion of “one team, one dream” - everyone says it, but sometimes it doesn’t come across in practice. In these last two months, we’ve definitely got closer to putting that into practice.

What’s exciting you most about social media at the moment?

What excites me most about social right now is almost how hard it’s become to do social.

When Instagram started, it was a single algorithm. TikTok had two or three years where you could grow a 400k or 500k account like that - it required hard work and dedication, but now, for great reasons, social has become incredibly democratised. Anyone can make it, anyone can start posting.

That’s put brands in a space where you’re not just competing with other brands anymore. You’re competing with every other person that’s showing up in someone’s feed.

If you’re not entertaining or educating, or giving someone a reason to engage or believe in it, they won’t. They’ll move on.

The really exciting thing is that everybody’s almost on the same playing field now. What cuts through is great content, great ideas and great tactics. It means you can do more cool shit, and it’ll get seen because you’re not in your own bubble anymore.

A lot of brands used to rely just on their name and became very stagnant. Nike does some of the most amazing storytelling content you’ve ever seen, but compared with Nike 10 or 20 years ago, it’s night and day. Adidas’ social content is fantastic right now.

All that’s going to happen is Nike will raise its game, which means Adidas will raise its game again, and it’s fantastic for the watcher, fantastic for the brand and fantastic for everybody.

What’s your biggest prediction for social media in 2027?

I think people are going to start taking WhatsApp a hell of a lot more seriously.

I think going into these “dark social” areas where you can’t really track everything is where it’s going. WhatsApp is bringing in Stories, communities and group chats.

Brands are going to have to start going past the point of Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat, and start integrating WhatsApp into social journeys and customer journeys.

What do you think brands and social teams will be talking about this time next year?

The obvious ones are going to be TikTok Shop and then things like Whatnot. Social commerce is huge - we’re already seeing luxury brands coming onto these platforms.

Connected television for social assets will be big too. More people are watching YouTube through their TVs, and I think you’ll see that behaviour continue to shape how brands think about social content.

Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are settled. Brands will be talking about where they can get new customers from without having to pay millions of pounds in paid ad spend.

That will ultimately mean platform migration into third spaces like Twitch or Kick.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone looking to build a career in social?

If you’re just starting out in social, my biggest piece of advice is don’t worry about the social aspect of social - which is a really weird thing to say.

As leaders in the industry and managers, we can teach you how to do social really easily. We can teach you what the platforms are, how to do the nitty-gritty and the reporting.

What we can’t teach is effort and creativity - showing up consistently day in, day out, creating cool stuff and cool ideas.

Don’t worry about going in and saying, “I know how Instagram works.” We all know how Instagram works and how TikTok works. That’s not bringing anything new to the team.

If you can bring creativity and ideas to the table, that’s what’s going to give you the leg up more than anyone else.

We know great social is always a team effort. Are there any members of your team you’d like to give a shout-out to?

I have to spotlight the three incredible managers who run the floor with me.

Sven Gibson, TikTok Manager: Sven came over from JD with me, where he previously built JD Football from scratch to 1.5 million followers. You will never meet a human being less likely to crack under pressure. What he doesn’t know about TikTok isn’t worth knowing.

Rebecca “Rebs” Ashurst, Meta Manager: Rebs manages across our accounts and is the direct mastermind behind our massive Facebook growth. Her technical knowledge, platform dedication and work ethic are top-tier.

Emily Wilcox, Social Content & Planning Manager: Emily stepped into a role I created when I took over the team. She actually had zero social media experience before joining us, but she completely transformed our operations. She moved us from reactive 24-to-72-hour planning to structured three-month-ahead strategic roadmaps.

She’s my right arm - if Emily doesn’t know about something happening, I don’t know about it.

What makes us work so well together? No one’s a dickhead, I think, is the main thing.

We have THG DNA values, and two of them are “no passengers” and “no egos”. I’m a big believer in coming to work and it’s work - nothing’s personal. Whenever there’s a problem, it’s collectively sourced and collectively resolved.

They give it to me as much as I give it to them. I’m not always right - I might be talking absolute wham! Tell me, and we’ll figure it out. It’s that mutual respect that’s there, and that’s why it works so well.

Why Elliot Made the Hot 30

Elliot’s approach to social reflects just how much the job has changed. Brands aren’t only competing with other brands for attention anymore - they’re competing with every creator, meme, group chat and piece of entertainment appearing in someone’s feed. His response is refreshingly simple: make better stuff.

What particularly stood out to us was his willingness to challenge where brands should be showing up. From finding huge growth on Facebook and treating Reddit like a community rather than another broadcast channel, to predicting a bigger role for WhatsApp and other “dark social” spaces, he’s looking beyond the platforms and tactics everyone else is already using.

There’s also a strong team philosophy behind the work. Elliot’s focus on breaking down the barriers between organic, paid, PR and activations - combined with his belief that effort and creativity matter more than simply knowing how a platform works - represents exactly the kind of forward-thinking approach the Hot 30 was created to celebrate.

As Elliot puts it, social isn’t an individual sport. But his role in building a team and culture capable of making social matter across the wider business is exactly why he deserved a place in our 2026 Hot 30.

You can read more about the Pepper Hot 30 UK 2026, meet the full list of winners and find out more about the initiative here.