The Strategy That Replaced Posting on Social Media! With Brooke Sellas

Episode Summary

You can find Brooke Sellas at:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookebsellas/?skipRedirect=true
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HelloBSquared

Brooke Sellas Podcast Interview

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour Win The Day, and I am your host, Kris Ward. And today in the house we have Brooke Sellas, and she is a return visitor. And when she starts talking, you’ll know why.

So Brooke is a social media customer support strategist. So we’re gonna get right to it. We’re gonna get into this. Brooke always has a lot of depth and scope to anything we discuss, and today will be no different. Welcome to the show, Brooke. 

[00:00:24] Brooke Sellas: Wow. I love that intro. I always love hanging out with you, Kris.

We, I should just say it right now, so it’s recorded. Anytime Kris asks me to come on her show, I say yes without a doubt because we have so much fun. She’s so smart. She asks great questions that not everybody asks. Like it’s not the same old. 

[00:00:44] Kris Ward: Thank you. I appreciate that. And you know what, I have had people who confuse me as a good interviewer, but really I’m just curious and I’m just interested and you know what, to you, you can have really smart people who are not interesting.

So I’ve learned that the hard [00:01:00] way. So when you have interesting. People that are smart and you just ask questions. You give people the false sense that you know what you’re doing. So it’s, but it is all about having fun. I believe business should be fun, so yes. Speaking of fun or not fun, let’s dive into, you and I were just having a really interesting conversation about AI and I thought you had some nuances.

You cannot get up any day and not hear about AI. I passionately believe that if you slept in an extra half hour this morning, you’d be behind on AI. It’s oh my gosh, I slept in, what’s happening today?

[00:01:33] Brooke Sellas: Right. 

[00:01:33] Kris Ward: So with you though, we were talking about some nuances that I have not really understood or heard, explained the way you did it. So let’s start there. Let, what is it you wanna tell us ab about, about AI, and let’s get into the nuances. 

[00:01:47] Brooke Sellas: This is something I’m seeing as a business owner. So I’ve owned my company for four 14 years. We’ll turn 14 in May, so just a couple of months. And I, it’s a social media company, right?

So I’m saying this not to be an alarmist, not to scare anybody or knock anybody. I’m just telling you as a business owner and social media, this is what I’m seeing. And personally I see that brands are producing more content than ever. 

[00:02:14] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:02:15] Brooke Sellas: And why do I think brands are producing more than ever? Because AI has literally lowered the barrier to publishing, right?

[00:02:22] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:02:23] Brooke Sellas: If you are a company who didn’t have the resources or didn’t have the time, or didn’t have the money to post previously. Now with AI, you don’t need a team of people. AI can churn out a year’s worth of content for you. Yeah. In a few hours. It can also churn out the imagery that you might need to post.

Yeah. It might, it can turn out videos that you might need to post. Publishing content on social media has become commoditized. 

[00:02:52] Kris Ward: Okay 

[00:02:52] Brooke Sellas: Thanks to AI. So what does this mean for me as a business owner? Yeah, it’s definitely making me pay attention [00:03:00] because I’m thinking how do I continuously how people pay me to create content and imagery for their social media strategy and posting and tactics and all of that, if they can do it faster and cheaper with AI. So if I’m thinking that way, what this means for you listening is if everyone can now publish pretty good, it may not be perfect. There’s some nuance there, right?

I’m not saying it’s perfect or that it’s human or any of that, but I’m just saying if everybody can now publish, publishing is no longer the advantage.

Because now it’s commoditized. So what is the advantage to continuing to use social media as a company? Whether you’re using AI or not, knowing that publishing is no longer the advantage.

I think that modern thinking for social media marketing is now conversations matter more than content. 

[00:03:56] Kris Ward: Oh okay. ‘

[00:03:57] Brooke Sellas: cause when our feeds are flooded. [00:04:00] Yeah, we’ve got all this new content. We already know the feeds are busy, people are, attentions are low, all that stuff. But now there’s more, even more content.

Yeah. And so our feeds are flooded. Customers, I think stop scanning for what brands post, but how brands respond, how brands are creating an experience for them on that channel, whether it’s Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever it may be. Yeah. And so the broadcast content becomes commodity, but the conversation that says, Hey Kris, what do you think about X, Y, Z?

Or, we’re thinking about releasing this product next. Would you like to see it in red or purple? Where I’m actually asking for your opinion and valuing you as a consumer and a potential customer. I think that the experience matters more than the content or the publishing itself. Does that make sense?

[00:04:50] Kris Ward: Yeah. So I think what you’re saying is on two levels. One is look okay, it’s no longer oh my gosh, I have to work for two hours to get three posts out this week. So you can say, [00:05:00] alright, that’s a commodity. We can all do it now. Yeah. One hand though, given the nature of my work and what I do and how entrepreneurs are just run off their feet and they, so many of them, like we find, hire, onboard virtual assistants, put them in our Leadership Program.

We work with entrepreneurs and really the bulk of what we do is working with entrepreneurs because they’re, so many of them are just working way too many hours for where they are at this point in their journey now. 

[00:05:24] Brooke Sellas: Yes. 

[00:05:25] Kris Ward: I would still say even with AI though, even though it’s quicker and easier, I still believe there’s so many people that just can’t still get to it because there’s not set up for success or working too many hours.

So I don’t think it’s eliminated, it’s made it easier, but I don’t think it’s made it consistent, probably still for a lot of people, given the nature of my work. So I think it’s, yeah. I think there’s still that.

I see what you’re saying. I still think there’s inconsistencies, because you can be like, oh great, AI gave me all this stuff for the month and fine, I put it out for the month and then I don’t realize two months have passed ’cause I’m not consistent.

So there’s that. But then [00:06:00] I think what you’re saying too now is that now it’s getting like we’ve been saying for the longest time, social media is social. So maybe it’s not even about what’s in the post, but what’s in the conversations, what’s in the comments? What’s in the dm 

[00:06:13] Brooke Sellas: thousand? Yeah.

[00:06:13] Kris Ward: Just like you, you are here because we have maintained this relationship. If somebody through 

[00:06:19] Brooke Sellas: social media, by the way, 

[00:06:21] Kris Ward: who? Social media, right? And that’s the thing. And I’ve had people who are on the show. And they reach out to me a year and a half later and they say, I’d love to be on the show again.

It’s excuse me, I haven’t heard boo from you. Like you don’t, don’t act like we’re best friends. You know what I mean? Yeah. You, whatever. You’ve had no engagement with me, nothing on any level at all. I haven’t even accidentally tripped and bumped into me. And now you want something from me.

So I do think. What you’re saying is obviously the networking, the connecting, the relationships, and I know we get tired of hearing that ’cause it’s oh my gosh. Sometimes you’re like, I don’t have time for all that. 

[00:06:55] Brooke Sellas: It feels very hard to get into the emotional stuff, right? Yeah. So transactional [00:07:00] stuff is so much easier.

Buy my stuff, here’s a post to buy my stuff, and you either buy or you don’t. When we talk about the emotional part of content and relationships and conversations, it becomes a lot scarier because. It’s a, that’s a lot more nuanced. A lot more work. Yeah. And there’s the emotional piece, right? We don’t wanna get rejected on either side.

Yeah. The brand or the consumer. 

[00:07:20] Kris Ward: And true to be told, even when I reached out, I was just like, you know what? I just I’m not the kind of person that says, Hey, let’s hop on a virtual coffee for what? Do you know what I mean? I always feel like I, you probably don’t have enough time for your family.

It’s okay the week is packed. What are we gonna do? But I, what I love about this podcast is it does give me excuse. So recently I was like, surely you got so much going on, Brooke. There must be something we could talk about the show and it gives us a reason to play together. But even then I thought she’s busy.

She’s already been on the show. What’s this gonna benefit her? Should I ask? But I was just really looking to spend time with you, so you are right. There still is that new nuance of. Am I being a pest? Is there a rejection? Not that I’m all tenderhearted, but you think I don’t wanna be No, it’s an emotion because I [00:08:00] like her.

I don’t wanna be, yeah. Yeah. I don’t wanna be a nuisance. Yeah. Okay, so then where do we go from here? 

[00:08:05] Brooke Sellas: All right, so can we get nerdy for a second also? Sure. Love it. Okay. So part of the thing that we’re probably all seeing on social media is that engagement rates are down and they’ve been going down consistently year after year.

Part of that is passive consumption, so because there’s more content and more noise and a lot of it. I’m just gonna say this, some of you might come for me, but a lot of it being created with AI and not thinking about humans, it is noise, right? It’s really just more noise in our view. 

[00:08:34] Kris Ward: Generic. 

[00:08:35] Brooke Sellas: Yeah, very generic.

Same sea of sameness, AI slap whatever term you wanna use. 

[00:08:40] Kris Ward: Oh, I like that. Hold on, write that down. AI slap. 

[00:08:42] Brooke Sellas: AI slap. So because of that, passive consumption has been a rising thing for brands. Passive consumption means I see it. 

[00:08:50] Kris Ward: Yeah, 

[00:08:50] Brooke Sellas: I might even give it a little or a reaction, but I’m moving on.

Yeah. I, there’s no dwell, what we call dwell time as a metric involved. 

[00:08:57] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:08:58] Brooke Sellas: Though that’s one piece. [00:09:00] So the other piece is that algorithms for the social media platforms, every social media platform has their own algorithm. We don’t exactly know all of the variables within the algorithm, but the platforms themselves have come out and been very vocal about.

Rewarding meaningful conversations and back and forth exchanges that happen on the platform. Why? Because that leads to dwell time and the platforms want people to spend the most time on that platform as possible. That is their goal. So passive consumption doesn’t work for the platform, right?

We can just, let’s just use LinkedIn as the platform. Yeah. LinkedIn doesn’t want passive consumption ’cause people are just scrolling and if they don’t find anything to engage with, they leave the platform. 

[00:09:45] Kris Ward: Kinda like channel surfing. If you’re watching tv, you’re not watching a movie.

Nobody’s getting credit for that movie.

[00:09:50] Brooke Sellas: Exactly. Yeah. It’s all about the consumption. So LinkedIn for instance, has publicly stated that its algorithm prioritizes meaningful [00:10:00] conversations over passive engagement. They look at dwell time, they look at depth of comments, they look at back and forth exchanges, and those carry more weight than vanity reactions.

So like that little or that reaction or whatever. Instagram has repeatedly emphasized that saves shares and conversational engagement get you more ranking in the feed. TikTok boost videos that generate comments in the threads. Yeah, and creator replies, especially when the creator does a video rep reply.

Even Facebook has said, and this was years ago, that they’ve shifted the algorithm towards meaningful social interactions. So the brands that are intentionally creating conversational content to have those back and forth conversations to get people to participate in those conversations are gaining a disproportionate amount of visibility and trust compared to those who are just publishing to publish.

[00:10:59] Kris Ward: I [00:11:00] went through many waves of emotions while you chatted. In one hand I was stuck at call to action, which I think for so many of us, especially me, that would be my weak spot because with the nature of what I do, we talk about things like inconsistency of income with a lot of my clients, they get really busy and they onboard a few clients.

They get busy being busy, and then of course they realize later that this is not a marriage or one or two clients leave and then they’ve been busy and they have nurtured or had the, kept the pipeline open and they’ve let relationships cool off whatever, right? And so now they’re like, oh, my income’s going down.

I need new business. I deal with people who are just at this point in their journey. They look great on paper. They’ve been in business a while, but they’re still working way too many hours and they’ve got inconsist inconsistencies in their income. So then I, it’s they’re not gonna wave their hand and Oh yeah, that’s me.

’cause they can’t let their clients know that on LinkedIn. And often I’ll see people come out, oh, two years ago I was broke and here’s what happened. But no one says, oh, I’m struggling today.

[00:11:56] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. 

[00:11:57] Kris Ward: So then I sometimes struggle with the call to [00:12:00] action because it, that’s a weak point when they don’t wanna self-identify, right?

And then I, but then I went to the next stage. I’m like no, it’s not all the call to action, I guess if my posts are better and they’re, and they have more dynamics or more things in there to comment about, like you said today, you got a little bit pushback on something you posted. So then it’s not all reliant upon the call to action. So we’re really all start looking at the anatomy of the post. Really? 

[00:12:27] Brooke Sellas: Yes. And what you do, Kris is so emotional, right? Yeah. I have to come to an emotional point as an entrepreneur and say. I can’t do all of this anymore. 

[00:12:39] Kris Ward: Right. 

[00:12:39] Brooke Sellas: And that’s very emotional for me. ‘Cause what I’m saying is it depends on the person, but for me personally, I’d be like, I wow.

I’m failing because I’m not getting everything done. 

[00:12:48] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:12:48] Brooke Sellas: When I talk to people outside of myself, hello recovering people pleaser and perfectionist. Yeah. So that, this is my viewpoint. It’s very heavy and very personal and very emotional for me. And I was literally on a call with [00:13:00] one of my friends who’s a branding coach, and she was like. You are doing so many things. I cannot believe you don’t have a, an assistant or a VA. 

[00:13:09] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:13:10] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. And I’m like no, that feels selfish right now I’m doing this for the team and we’re doing this and we’re blah, blah, blah, blah. And she was like, but it’s not selfish. It’s, yeah. It’s doing something that will help the team have more access to you because you’re not bogged down and all this stuff.

Yeah. It’s a very emotional, so for me, the, just the way I’m looking at it, your posts by nature could be very emotional and because they’re very emotional, you could get people to engage in that emotion and that experience to share their feelings and their opinions. Like what’s the scariest thing of delegating as, an a business owner?

Okay. And then let people give you their opinions. The scariest thing is for me, right? I’m, I feel like if I got an assistant, I’m being selfish. 

[00:13:55] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:13:56] Brooke Sellas: And you might have, you might come back and comment on that and say, oh, [00:14:00] Brooke, that’s not being selfish. It’s slowing down to speed up. Your team’s gonna have more access to you.

You’re gonna have more time for the creative things that need your brain energy, versus the minutia of scheduling or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. And now, and then other people see that, you’re lending your thought leadership, but only after you ask for that conversational piece.

[00:14:20] Kris Ward: Right. 

[00:14:20] Brooke Sellas: For the anonymized piece, polls, every platform has the use of polls, okay? That allows people to give their true, honest opinion without kind of self-identifying as I’m the person who’s, thinks I’m being selfish if I hire a VA. Yeah. Yeah. Let people vote. All that does too. It helps you create better content, right?

Because now you can see which pieces give you the most conversation, give you the best voice of customer data, give you the best feedback. If somebody comes in on that conversation you had with Brooke in the comments, and they’re like, oh my God, I felt the same way as Brooke. I saw your response. I wanna reach out and talk to you about helping me find a VA.

Right? That piece of content now led to a lead, so you [00:15:00] can create more types of content like that. I think it is just changing your mindset about what posting is meant for on social. And to your point earlier we’ve really forgotten that social was meant to be a social platform.

It’s become a broadcasting. We just push out our messages, we check the box. Yes. We post once per day, every Monday through Friday, check that box and we move on. Yeah. But it’s not working anymore. And so our mindsets have to change. If we wanna be ROI. Focused on social. If we wanna survive the algorithms, if we want to not have, become a commodity because of AI, we really have to start to think about the relationship aspect of what social media is, which starts with publishing non-commodity content, 

[00:15:45] Kris Ward: And when you say that the relationship part.

I’ve heard that before and now I think, I don’t know if I’m finally getting it, if I’m a slow learner or it’s a new day, or I almost feel like they need to invent a different word because now it really means something [00:16:00] totally different. Yes. You know that relationship part is incredibly important and it’s everything.

Like it’s what I try to remember every once in a while when I get annoyed at social media. I think, listen, boys and girls gather around in the 18 hundreds, we used to have to get up and drive on a cold winter this morning to some frigging chamber breakfast and sit beside someone at seven o’clock in the morning, and all of a sudden you’re like, behi beside this guy who owns a car detailing company.

And you’re like. This is not my ideal client and now I’m having breakfast with him and so you just feel like, oh, that was a bust. I wasted two hours and I started so early. And so as much as I sometimes, ugh enough with the social media, it’s I can do this in my pajamas and I can at scale.

Yeah, at scale and be chatting with Brooke. Brooke and keeping that relationship alive and all this other stuff. Yeah. But I do then think we get greedy or take it for granted and I think. The one constant in social media is always changing, but what we’re boiling down to from what you’re saying is, man, you can’t take the shortcuts. It really is [00:17:00] about the relationship. 

[00:17:01] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. And the algorithms, the platforms and the algorithms that they use are really reinforcing that because they don’t want passive consumerism. Yeah. They want active consumerism. So if you’re putting out passive content that lets people keep scrolling, buy my stuff.

Yeah. We have this new podcast that just came out. I’m guilty of this too. I’m not saying I’m burned.

Yeah. By all means I’m still posting the broadcast things as well. But what you’ll notice, and I know you know this, Kris k you and I converse all the time on social media, is I really try to make it a point to make it where I’m giving a spicy take and I know I’m gonna get pushback.

Yeah. Or I’m asking for your opinions, like what are you seeing with AI or I’m using pulls, i’m really trying to get people to comment back, not just for the algorithms, by the way, I’m not being performative because I really am trying to take in that voice of customer data and have it affect change somewhere within my organization.

[00:17:59] Kris Ward: [00:18:00] You do. Something else that’s interesting is like when you said performative, I get it. ’cause I see sometimes like on a YouTube role or something, a real role, I dunno what the hell role is. I sound like a mother, but a reel, whatever. Yeah. And they’ll put out like a really good recipe and then you look in the comments.

Or they’re trying to show you, oh, this is really great. You gotta eat this tonight. And then all the comments are, but you didn’t give us the recipe. What’s this about? But they’re still getting engagement. Now they’re frustrating people, but I am like yeah, you just got 25 comments ’cause people are upset.

You didn’t give the recipe, but that’s switch and bait. And it’s I have no interest in that. I see what you’re trying to do. 

[00:18:32] Brooke Sellas: Yes. 

[00:18:33] Kris Ward: And that’s only gonna get them so far. But I do find it interesting, and I don’t even know how to describe this. What you’ll do sometimes is LinkedIn is, I will see, and I haven’t seen anybody else do this, is you’ll just have a sentence or two, forgive me for saying this.

Almost like old school Facebook. Like you’ll ask a question or put something out or roll your eyes inside that a TV show is over you liked, or something that just seems nonsensical. And I’m like look at us all. Chime in. I don’t even know what the hell we’re doing [00:19:00] and why we’re doing this, but yeah.

But I raise my hand and then I go. And so I think, what is she doing? But it is a different look. 

[00:19:09] Brooke Sellas: It is. It is. Yeah. And because you have to balance. I can’t be out there on the socials every day being like, what do you think about social media customer care? Give me your opinions. And nobody would comment. I have to, it’s like a salad, right?

Yeah. We wouldn’t eat a salad if it was just lettuce. Maybe you would. I wouldn’t. I like, I love salads, but I like mine with like lettuce stuck in it. 

[00:19:28] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:19:29] Brooke Sellas: And tomatoes and cheese and artichokes and sunflower seeds. Think about your content in that way too. You wanna obviously stick to the themes. We don’t wanna be all over the place, but everything I do with my salad, if we’re gonna call it that, is to get people talking, to position me as a thought leader, to position me top of mind when it comes to social customer care.

[00:19:51] Kris Ward: But some the times are so short. 

[00:19:53] Brooke Sellas: Some of the times they’re, and that’s all it takes because I’ve been doing this for a long time though. My, as Kris, my [00:20:00] company tagline is Think conversation not campaign. So literally, and I literally bought that, I trademarked that before I started B Squared.

So I’ve owned the trademark, I think for 15 or 16 years. So that’s literally been my mantra the whole time. That’s the way I’ve used social the whole time. Yeah. So my engagements haven’t dipped. They’ve continued to grow, but I’m doing social completely differently or very differently than a lot of people are.

Yeah. And that’s what I’m trying to tell y’all. I’m like hey. I know how you can do better. Literally just copy what I’m doing. But nobody wants to do it. Yeah. Because in marketing we have to check the box. We have to, yeah, make sure we talk about this campaign and sell this thing and we have quotas and whatever, but marketing metrics don’t cover behavioral outcomes.

Oh, and we’re talking about is a behavioral outcomes. 

[00:20:46] Kris Ward: That’s well said. That is very well said. Marketing outcomes do not be cover behavioral, what? I didn’t even say it right. 

[00:20:53] Brooke Sellas: Marketing metrics. 

[00:20:54] Kris Ward: Yes. 

[00:20:55] Brooke Sellas: Do not cover behavioral outcomes. 

[00:20:58] Kris Ward: Okay. That I think that’s very [00:21:00] wise because even when you like, you’re right, I see your post and it’s okay.

Every day you can’t be educating us on social media. The salad gets boring, but then in the post where you hop pop up and say something and it’s only a line or two, I still would’ve thought even if whatever you’re talking about. I don’t know, cross country skiing on the weekend. I still would’ve thought that would have to have, oh, it’s gotta be this long and this way.

And there has, you have to follow the formula. This is the recipe they gave us. And you’re up there and with no visual layout that looks anything like anybody else on LinkedIn. And you’ve got one sentence or a sentence and a half and emoji rolling eyes and off we go. And I’m like I don’t know what she’s doing, but she’s doing it well.

[00:21:39] Brooke Sellas: Thank you. I think too. Think about the psychology behind and sociology, right? Yeah. Like the human condition is all about psychology, sociology, and therefore, marketing and social media, marketing and sales should all have a very big psychology. Social sociology should have a very big role.

It doesn’t, unfortunately. Okay. ’cause we’ve, 

[00:21:58] Kris Ward: yeah. 

[00:21:59] Brooke Sellas: We’ve made it so [00:22:00] transactional. We’ve made everything so transactional. The whole our, the America period. It’s all about consumerism and transactional relationships, and I think people are getting really tired of that. Yeah. And so when the algorithms change on the platform, so I mentioned how LinkedIn just recently updated theirs and TikTok and whatnot.

That’s a leading a, I’m sorry, a lagging indicator on consumer behavior. So the algorithms are updating because they’re saying, we are looking at these millions and billions of users. They’re analyzing all of this behavior constantly in real time, and they’ve got an audience of millions and billions, right?

So they know first when customer behavior or consumer behavior is changing, and then they update the algorithm. So if you pay attention to these algorithm changes, which is boring, I know, but if you look at what, just what I said, LinkedIn is literally now looking for dwell time. They’re looking for bath back and forth conversations.

They’re looking for conversational engagement happening on post because it increases dwell time. They’ve already done the market research for you. Yeah. You’ve gotta change because they’re saying this is how millions and billions of people now want to use social media. 

[00:23:13] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh. Okay. I’m just 

[00:23:17] Brooke Sellas: sorry. I can nerd out on this stuff all day. 

[00:23:19] Kris Ward: No, I think what, when I, to me it’s, what you’re saying is so simple and yet so profound. It’s almost like watching steam come off a pot okay, it’s boiled, but now we still have the steam. Let’s wait till the steam rises. So I think you give it a lot more depth and scope and intellect than most people do with social media.

We tend to be chasing arbitrary things or they’re just listing stuff. Like you say, here’s the algorithm, here’s this, we gotta do that. But the bigger psychology and all that you’re diving into it. It makes it also more interesting and more tangible. So then you’re not just chasing stuff. ’cause the sky is falling. You’re like, oh, that’s why. That’s why I’m doing [00:24:00] this.

[00:24:00] Brooke Sellas: Yeah. The sky is falling. 

[00:24:02] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:24:02] Brooke Sellas: So many different aspects, but I try not to lead from a place of fear. Yeah, me too. I’m not saying I’m perfect at that. 

[00:24:09] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:24:09] Brooke Sellas: But. Instead of going, oh, the algorithm changed again. Much to your point earlier.

I’m curious too. Why, yeah, why did it change? What do these changes mean? Oh, they want dwell time. Obviously they want dwell time because that’s how they get paid. That’s how they are successful, right? The number of users and how often and they’re, they use the platform, how long they’re active on the platform, but they wouldn’t change that algorithm to do that unless the millions and billions of people that use that platform signaled that change.

They’re not gonna go against what the people want, although we think they do, because Instagram still isn’t giving them, its editing and whatnot. But 

[00:24:49] Kris Ward: yeah. 

[00:24:49] Brooke Sellas: But they have to serve the users at the end of the day. 

[00:24:54] Kris Ward: I think even though you resent it and you feel like it’s a bait and switch, and it always feels like a head game and [00:25:00] nobody knows, but we’re all guessing and they say this and they say that.

But I do think that for the most part, at the end of the day, it does more often than not benefit us. Like I know back at one period of time with LinkedIn, I’d be like scroll. And I’m like, okay, I’ve thrown you emoji. Is that enough? But I was doing it at surface level okay, I’ve been on LinkedIn for 20 minutes, I’ve dropped five or 10 emojis.

It’s really being a, going to a networking event and just being a horrible conversationalist. Like I said, hi to you, Brooke. Is that not enough? Like I ran through the room and said hi to everybody and then I got to leave in 15 minutes. Yeah. That’s the same as slapping down an emoji. So I had to learn that as a recovering workaholic that had no, that was of no help to anybody.

I wasn’t doing anyone any favors. Thank you so much. Yeah, so then I started engaging and then when I’m engaging. It is building out relationships. It is putting consistency. It is networking, connecting me and keeping me top of mind. So whether I found it annoying when I had to do that initially, it did benefit me.

[00:25:57] Brooke Sellas: A thousand percent. Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this on LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s my favorite platform. Yeah. And that’s where I hang out the most. They have now you’ll see your comments. Got you so many impressions. Oh, okay. And they’ll say in the analytics, like this comment on someone else’s post brought you a profile viewer.

[00:26:13] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:26:13] Brooke Sellas: They’re really pushing also the engagement too. Again, not just as the brand or as the Yeah. The personal brand. If it’s us personally pushing out conversational content, but it’s you actually engaging in other people’s content. And when you do that, you will also see your numbers rise.

Oh, okay. People coming to your profile, people following you, connecting with you, your Sometimes my comments on other people’s posts get me more impressions in that day than my own post did. 

[00:26:41] Kris Ward: Wow. Okay. 

[00:26:43] Brooke Sellas: So this is another part of the conversational content that’s so important. Your own, you’re, you are creating your own content when you go out and comment thoughtfully on someone else’s post lending. Your perspective or thought leadership. 

[00:26:58] Kris Ward: Hand to God if I didn’t have a [00:27:00] timer going so that I knew a long time. I would think we had been talking for four and a half minutes. I don’t know what happens. Like I even looked at that, I’m like, is that timer right? Whatever. So gosh, I could have you back on Fridays.

Okay, Brooke. It’s so sad to me. Where did the time go? But okay. Where where can people find more of your brilliance? And it is nothing but brilliance. 

[00:27:20] Brooke Sellas: Oh, that’s so kind. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ll take it. It. Thank you so much. 

[00:27:24] Kris Ward: Listen, I do not say anything that, I do not mean when somebody shows me an ugly child. I say look at his motor skills, picking up that ball. So I’ll never say anything, I do not mean. 

[00:27:35] Brooke Sellas: Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. I love it. You can find me on LinkedIn. It’s my favorite place to hang out. This is where Kris and I hang out the most. ‘Cause like again, I really, I don’t hang out so much on other platforms because my ICP, my ideal customer profile is on LinkedIn and YouTube, so that’s where I hang out.

Yeah. So you can find me there at Brooke Sellas. I’m the only Brooke Sellas on the planet, so you should easily be able to find me. 

[00:27:55] Kris Ward: Oh, good for you. 

[00:27:56] Brooke Sellas: You could also go to B squared media. Okay. And [00:28:00] that is our website that talks about all of the cool social customer care things that we’re doing. We also just released our social care report for 2026, which talks about Hey, what are these outlier brands doing?

Yeah. To focus on conversations and a little bit less on content. 

[00:28:16] Kris Ward: Yeah, and if you haven’t caught on yet, everyone, Brooke comes at this with a lot more intellect and just a higher level of understanding than what you see out there. So it is really worth your time to be paying attention to her work. So please hand this show over, send it, send the link to a business buddy.

’cause there’s so much content here, we just, we can’t have them banging around by themselves. Alright, everyone else’s, definitely not, no. We will see you in the next episode. And once again, Brooke, thank you so much. 

[00:28:42] Brooke Sellas: Thanks y’all.