Sophia Smith Galer is a creator, author and media innovator working at the intersection of journalism and the creator economy. The first BBC journalist to launch on TikTok, she went on to leave the newsroom and build an audience of more than a million people around her journalism on language, technology and culture.
Since then, she has helped leading experts and organisations translate their expertise for social media while building original formats of her own, including interview podcast Word For Word (17m+ social views) and How To Kill A Language, an FT summer read & Sunday Times Book of the Week.
Who we advise
Newsrooms, foundations, cultural institutions, research bodies and technology companies bring us in when their expertise is not reaching the people it was made for. Here's an example of previous work we've done.
Coached scientists participating in the UN’s Team Halo initiative, helping subject-matter experts translate complex scientific research into compelling, accessible social-first content.
HOW WE WORK:
Sophia Smith Galer's videos have been seen more than 200 million times, in which she amplifies her original journalism and explores language and languages through the lens of history, politics and culture. She prioritises what she calls "facts and feelings"; honouring the peer-to-peer power of social media video without ever sacrificing her editorial rigour.
Her content has won her international recognition as a journalism innovator, including spots on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, British Vogue's 25 Most Influential Women list, and the TikTok 50 Global Changemakers list.
But more importantly, it's won the approval of 1 million language nerds on the internet who all tapped "follow". Her superfans subscribe to her Patreon, sell out her book tours, and are hooked to her podcast Word For Word, where she interviews storytellers about the languages that made them.
Results from a creator who actually goes viral themselves with expertise
Book us to train your team. 7,000 people have already been through a Viralect workshop, course or tool. Are you next?
Learn the A to Z of vertical video - and leave with a script ready to record
Learn all the tricks to feeling and being camera confident on social media
How to ideate new tools that actually get built, and solve problems in your organisation
How to write scripts with content creators that actually sell and convert
Long term engagements get long term results.
Advisory engagements run for a minimum of six months.
We look at what you are already publishing and where the gap sits between your expertise and your audience; we train the people who make the work and coach them on real videos as they go out; then we co-build the tools, formats and guardrails your team keeps using once our engagement ends.
A consultancy-grade newsletter on narrative vertical video, written by Sophia.
Client wins
For a research organisation, compared against their previous researcher Q&A-style shorts. Engagements per video rose 60% over the same period.
A local government team used our training and our case for social media to win the headcount.
An i paper reporter used Sophiana's teleprompter to film her explainer.
“one of the best I've used - such good controls and the video clarity was still really good”
A Sophiana video doubled the TikTok following of political journalist Zoe Crowther.
“means you can still put a personal touch on it”
Salma scripted and shot a promo video for her BBC World Service documentary using Sophiana.
“it made my life approximately one thousand times easier”
Oscar Davies, human rights barrister.
Engagement up 136% for Liz Bucar, religion scholar.
Zing Tsjeng, journalist.
We build tools to improve the lives, and work, of creators and experts online
A scriptwriting and teleprompter app that turns articles and research into algorithm-ready video. Built using Sophia's own expertise after two journalism innovation prizes, it's sent journalists viral and has sold organisational seats to places like the UNHCR and TikTok US.
Backed and recognised
Viralect is a proud recipient of grants and recognition from across journalism, technology and the creative industries.
