Ben Ebbrell from SORTEDfood shares YouTube tips, and how to build a rich community

SORTEDfood is one of the most popular and successful YouTube food influencer channels in the world, with millions of subscriber and a rich community of passionate foodies. The show was started 10 years ago by a group of mates from school, all with a passion for food, but with varying levels of skill when it came to cooking. But it is exactly those different skill sets, alongside the lads’ banter and camaraderie, that make the channel so binge-worthy, winning audiences over worldwide. You can’t help but like them, laugh with them, and want to eat with them.

The channel now has over 2.3million subscribers, half a billion total views, and secured 121 million views in 2019 alone to secure its place as one of the worlds largest food and cooking communities. So it seemed only right that I kick off our new series of foodie content creator interviews with Ben Ebbrell, co-founder and one of two professional trained chefs at SORTEDfood. 

Firstly, I’ve been loving the Instagram live content that SORTEDfood has been broadcasting since the quarantine guidelines were put in place. Has it been as fun to make as it looks?

At Sorted we tend to work several weeks in advance, and were able to batch film (to quite literally stockpile videos) in late Feb when hints of a lockdown were on the horizon, so we’ve been in a strong position to continue releasing our regular content on YouTube. Going live on Instagram at 4:30pm every weekday was in addition to our regular YouTube content and allowed us to address the more topical questions from our community. It’s been a LOT of extra work for sure, but it’s been fuelled by the audience who had so many questions in the current situation. Plus, in reality, it’s an excuse for us to hang out virtually as mates. Even those not broadcasting from our team join the comments to hurl anything and everything to distract or add a laugh. It’s fun and super impromptu to react off of the live comments.    

Food content has exploded on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, over the last few years. Why do you think we love food content so much? 

Food is universal, visually very appealing, and can transcend language barriers, plus it helps to define our personalities To be a ‘foodie’ is pretty cool nowadays. Before the lockdown we’d use food and drink to punctuate our days, social lives and routine; “Shall we grab a coffee?”, “Do you fancy brunch?”, “What are we cooking this evening?”. All of these factors, along with greater awareness and mindfulness of how food is affecting our bodies (nutritionally), our communities (socially) and our planet (environmentally) means we all pay more attention. Couple that with a huge increase in the consumption of digital content, not just calories, and you can see why food and cooking content has exploded. 

What would you say is the most important element of growing a rich online community?

Trust and Authenticity. Sorted is based around a group of old school friends. We’ve known each other since 1998 (long before social media and content platforms like YouTube). What we share between the founders of Sorted is a genuine friendship of more than two decades. We constantly strive to put the same values at the heart of what we’ve created with Sorted. Our community can trust us.

We talk very frankly about the good and the bad in the challenges we undertake on YouTube, yet they know that any recipe we publish on our site, our Packs App, or in our cookbooks, has been tried and tested and will work. The five of us you see on screen have different approaches to food, and are allowed differing opinions, so everything is authentic. The global community reward these characteristics with their loyalty. Many Sorted members engage and talk to us more frequently online than they do with their own decade-old friends! 

What is the biggest tip you can give to anybody starting a YouTube channel in 2020? 

Avoid chasing the viral video or the clickbait, and instead take time to build a strong and genuine connection with those that chose to engage with whatever subject matter you create around. You won’t see overnight success, but then neither did Sorted. In more than 10 years on YouTube we’ve never gone viral, however, well over half a billion people have enjoyed our videos. Over 400,000 Sorted videos were watched every single day in March 2020, with an average watchtime of over 9 minute and more than 99% positive sentiment!

Do you guys have a secret sauce for creating content? Is there a process you always use for idea generation?

Ultimately, it has to be an idea or a concept that is of interest to two distinct groups: ourselves as content creators (without that, the output is rarely genuine) and our core demographic of digital native foodies around the world who are globally curious and mindful around food. Ironically, because of the peer-to-peer approach that Sorted has always taken, there is a huge overlap in both sides. Which is why we ask our community what they want to see, and allow them to steer and shape the content ideas as they evolve. Our team of 15 people in a studio in East London can’t possibly have all the answers, but if we engage with and listen to the Sorted community (made up of people from just about every country, language, cuisine and culture) then incorporating those ingredients makes for a world class ‘special sauce’. 

SORTEDfood has worked with some incredible brands such at Kenwood and Brand USA. What is your approach working with brands and creating sponsored content?

Working with brands is always most successful when it’s a true partnership, and one that is on-going and meaningful rather than just a one-off video. Two teams collaborating to create content with the campaign or brand messaging at the heart of the narrative, whilst allowing the community/audience to shape it. What most people don’t initially consider is that it’s actually easier to work with brands outside of specific food products. That way, the backbone of what we do (the food and cooking content) remains free to be what it needs to be, whilst the brand can unlock and enable entertaining and inspiring adventures or challenges.

A combination of expertise, access and budgets provided by the brand can mean that a project goes above and beyond what could be achieved without their involvement… Therefore the community can celebrate the brand as the hero.

What tips can you give brands when wanting to work with established channels like SORTEDfood? 

Consider what both sides of any partnership are proficient in. For instance, Sorted is quite uniquely a team of people that contribute to a number of activities a brand would traditionally find across several agencies. Sorted is a creative agency with account managers and a production house that intrinsically knows what content resonates with a ready-made and loyal community. Sorted is the personality and DNA of the brand, which is the reason millions of people watch each month. And it’s also a social media agency that hosts an on-going and ever evolving conversation.

Plus, Sorted is armed with an organic community of a quarter of a million people who will leap to watch and engage in the content within 24 hours of release, in part because it was their idea and they helped to shape it. Then, the content sits across the likes of YouTube for years to come, gaining ever more traction; far stronger than a passing Instagram story or post in a Twitter feed. With this in mind, the brand will see best results if they become part of a team that creates the perfect end-to-end content to meet and deliver on the brand or campaign objectives, rather than pitching prefabricated concepts.

What is next for SORTEDfood?

The Sorted Club [Sorted's global, community-minded, multi-app initiative to help people  shop, cook, and eat smarter] remains something we are hugely proud of and we know can make a real difference in people’s day-to-day foodie lives. The authenticity of Sorted extends to the Club and is your best friend in food. We want people to get as much pleasure and enjoyment from food as we have over the last decade, and the easiest way to do that is to take the stress out of it all. The Club does that with 4 key tools. So 2020 is about continuing to expand that and making sure it delivers everything that’s required for the community of people who helped build Sorted into one of the world’s largest food and cooking communities, all whilst exploring and uncovering more foodie adventures.