Social Media CX Podcast

Promoters love you. Detractors have a problem. But the sevens and eights in the middle often get left out of the conversation—even though their feedback may tell you exactly what’s keeping them from becoming loyal advocates. In this episode, Brooke Sellas talks with Chris Boivin about why those neutral responses deserve more attention, what the comments behind the score can reveal, and why asking...

Chargebacks, cancellations, and bad reviews rarely come out of nowhere. Customers often show signs of frustration first through comments, DMs, unresolved questions, or escalation language. In this episode, Brooke Sellas explains how brands can identify those early customer warning signs, audit what happened before a dispute, and use social listening as an early warning system for customer experien...

“Friendly fraud” doesn’t sound particularly threatening. But for businesses, one disputed transaction can mean thousands of dollars in lost revenue. And AI may be changing the equation. In the travel industry, customers can dispute charges after a trip is over—and AI could make it easier for someone looking to game the system to figure out what to say, what to document, and how to make their case....

AI has made it easier than ever for competitors to see what’s working for your brand and create their own version of it. But they can’t copy how you show up. Last week, Brooke shared the results of Planable’s experiment comparing human-run and AI-run Instagram accounts. Both followed the same brief, yet the human accounts received 88 comments compared to just two across the four AI accounts. This...

AI can create the posts. But can it actually run your social media? Brands are moving fast to bring AI into their social media workflows. But a new experiment from Planable suggests there’s a big difference between creating social content and actually managing a social presence. In this episode, Brooke talks with Miruna Dragomir about Planable’s experiment putting human social media managers head-...

Fewer brand mentions can look like a win. Fewer complaints, a quieter inbox, less noise. But silence doesn’t always mean things are going well. In this episode, Brooke breaks down the three reasons brand mentions decline, why only one is actually good news, and how fewer conversations can quietly drag down your reach. You’ll also learn how to spot gaps in your social listening, audit your content...

We spend a lot of time measuring engagement. But what is that engagement actually doing for your business? A comment can tell you a customer is about to leave. A DM can signal someone is ready to buy. And the conversations happening on your social channels can affect everything from reach and retention to what you pay for ads. Brooke Sellas calls the value behind those interactions Return on Conve...

Your website isn't the only thing AI reads before it decides what to say about your brand. Your Yelp reviews are. So is that unanswered DM from three weeks ago. Katie Artz spent 90 days optimizing her own company's website, testing every AI visibility best practice on herself before she sold a single client on it. The thing that actually got her cited by AI? Not the website. Her personal LinkedIn,...

Fast replies aren't the same as solved problems. Here's what actually proves it. Most leadership dashboards answer one question: How is the team performing? What they often miss is an even more important one: What are customers trying to tell us before those issues become expensive? Response time, follower growth, and engagement may look good in a report, but they rarely reveal whether your organi...

Every marketing team now has access to AI. The challenge isn't finding the right tool—it's teaching AI what makes your brand worth listening to. This week, Brooke Sellas talks with Mike Allton, Chief Storyteller at Agorapulse, about why so much AI-generated content sounds the same and what leaders can do to change that. Their conversation explores why AI needs more than a clever prompt, how better...

What if the reason your leadership message isn't landing has nothing to do with the words you're using? Most organizations spend countless hours refining executive messaging. But as leadership communication shifts to video, AI is revealing another factor that influences whether people trust what they hear: the alignment between what leaders intend to communicate and what audiences actually perceiv...

The biggest risk with AI isn't that it gets customer interactions wrong. It's that it gets them almost right. When AI responses become generic or inconsistent, most organizations assume they have a prompt problem. Susan Westwater argues they're solving the wrong problem. Those results often point to weaknesses in the workflows, governance, and brand systems behind the AI. In this episode, Susan ex...

Every company is investing in AI. Fewer are asking the harder question: What should AI actually do, and where do humans create the most value? The companies pulling ahead aren't necessarily using more AI. They're making different decisions about where automation ends, where human judgment begins, and how those choices shape customer trust, operational efficiency, and long-term competitive advantag...

Reddit isn't just a forum anymore. It's one of the most influential sources shaping what AI says about your brand. As AI search becomes a bigger part of how customers discover, evaluate, and compare companies, the conversations happening on Reddit are increasingly influencing recommendations, perceptions, and purchase decisions. The challenge? Those conversations are happening whether your brand p...

Most brands treat engagement as a scorecard. The smartest brands treat it as a source of customer intelligence. In this final episode of the CARE Framework series, Brooke Sellas explains why meaningful engagement isn't something you chase through algorithms, hacks, or more content. It's something you earn through conversations, trust, and consistent customer care. You'll learn how conversations, a...

Most companies don't discover customer churn until it's already too late. By the time a customer cancels, they've often spent weeks or months signaling frustration through questions, complaints, and unresolved issues. In this episode, Brooke Sellas explores the "R" in the CARE Framework: Retention and shares the story of BCU, where an unanswered complaint over a holiday weekend revealed how quickl...

What if your company is already having sales conversations every day—and not counting them? Most brands assume inbound social activity is primarily customer support. Questions. Complaints. Troubleshooting. But what happens when the data tells a different story? In this episode, Brooke Sellas shares the surprising findings from a customer intent study with Brother International. After analyzing inb...

Every time we publish forgettable content, we teach our audience there's no reason to pay attention. That's the hidden cost of cliché content—and one of the biggest reasons brands struggle to generate meaningful engagement, customer insight, and measurable social media ROI. In this episode, I'm introducing the C in the CARE Framework: Conversations. I explain why social media works best as a conve...

Your brand content might be too safe to build trust. In this final episode of the Social Penetration Theory series, I’m talking about the deepest layer of human connection online: feelings. Because while most brands say they want loyalty, advocacy, and emotional connection, their content is often designed to avoid risk instead of create relationships. And customers can feel it. I share the story b...

The algorithm doesn't care that you posted. It cares that you said something worth responding to. This week, I'm breaking down why so much "safe" content underperforms, why applause isn't the same as engagement, and what platforms are actually rewarding right now. It's layer three of Social Penetration Theory: opinions. The layer where real conversations start, trust builds, and brands either beco...

Most brands think they have an engagement problem when they actually have a conversation problem. Because facts matter. Credibility and data matters. But if your content stops at “here’s a statistic,” you’re probably creating passive engagement instead of real conversation. This week, I’m digging into why some of the smartest, most accurate brands online are still struggling to get people to respo...

Most brands are publishing more content than ever — yet trust, engagement, and loyalty still feel harder to earn. For enterprise marketing leaders, the challenge is rarely a lack of content. The problem is that much of today’s brand messaging stays at the surface level: polished announcements, safe language, and transactional responses that create visibility but not connection. In this episode of...

AI is everywhere in customer service right now. But faster doesn’t always mean better. In this episode, I’m joined by Matt Price, founder and CEO of Crescendo AI. We talk about what’s actually changing in customer experience, and where I see a lot of brands getting it wrong. We get into why “just adding a bot” often makes things worse, how so many teams are still operating like production lines, a...

Most brands think they’re doing social care well. They’re responding to comments, they have a team, and they might even have the right tools in place. But when you actually look under the hood, there’s often a gap between perception and reality. In this solo episode, Brooke Sellas breaks down the B Squared Social Care Maturity Model and walks through the five levels most organizations move through...

At Social Media Marketing World, the most valuable conversations don’t always happen on stage. In this special replay episode, Brooke Sellas shares real, unfiltered hallway conversations recorded immediately after her session at Social Media Marketing World 2025. From navigating B2B2C audience challenges to rethinking engagement metrics, sparking real conversation on social, and deciding how (and...