Welcome to the Before You Market Podcast, where we challenge you to “Rethink Marketing.” To help us in the endeavor, we’ve invited some of the best marketers in the business to enlighten you on your path to a brand-first awakening.
Brooke Sellas has been on the scene long enough to be considered a thought leader and expert, but she’s still young enough to be taken seriously when talking about TikTok. Brooke is also one of those marketing experts who understands how to use social media the right way, as a conversation. I’ve never spoken to Brooke before, so I am super excited to pick her brain. Watch the full episode below!
Brooke B. Sellas founded B Squared Media in May of 2012 with the marketing mantra: Think Conversation, Not Campaign.™ Since then, Brooke and the B² Crew have become known as the ‘conversation company’ with their done-for-you social media, advertising, and social media customer care solutions that focus on customer-centric strategies.
In 2022, Brooke published her first-ever book called, Conversations That Connect. In it, she explains how she’s helped billion-dollar brands in consumer goods, finance, retail, and others connect with the online communities that discuss, influence, and buy their brands. Like all meaningful connections, it starts with genuine conversations – knowing how to listen, share feelings, and offer opinions (yes, even as a company!) – that build relationships and lead to effective social media management.
Brooke Sellas has 15+ years of marketing experience, with over ten years focused specifically on social media marketing. She has taught social media classes as an adjunct professor at elite universities such as NYU, Baruch College, and the University of California. As a speaker, Brooke has commanded the stage at some of the largest and well-known marketing events from coast-to-coast, including Social Media Marketing World, Agents of Change, B2B Marketing & Sales Exchange, and Content Jam.
Jon Bailey 00:01
Okay, and we're live? No, we're not live. We're recording. I don't know what we are. We're crazy. Hi. Welcome the kitchen, forgetting what we're looking we're walking into the kitchen, forgetting what we were doing. What were we just talking about? Oh, yeah. Welcome to the Before You Market, podcast where we challenge you to, yep.
Every time, rethink marketing, to help us in this endeavor, we've invited some of the best marketers in the business to enlighten you on your path to a brand. First awakening. That's right, that's what we're going with. A brand first awakening. It's important. And anyway, Brooke has been on the scene long enough to be considered a thought leader and expert, at least I do. I think she's awesome, but she's still young enough to be taken seriously when she talks about Tiktok. So you know, she's got the best of both worlds. But anyway, Brooke is also one of those marketing experts who understands how to use social media the right way. That's right. I said the right way as a conversation, and I'm sure that's going to come up again. I've never spoken to Brooke before in real life, although I feel like we're friends and we've been chatting online for many, many, many years. But I'm super excited to have this conversation with you, Brooke, and to pick your brain. So please, if you would take a moment and introduce yourself to these, these wonderful folks. Hey,
Brooke Sellas 01:24
y'all. I'm Brooke Sellas. I'm from Texas. I lived there for 29 years. I say y'all all the time. I can't help it. It is an actual word, by the way. It means you all use Y, O, U, S, not a word in the English language. We have no official second person plural, and it's very strange. But anyway, continue. I founded B Squared Media, which is a social agency, 12 and a half years ago, which is Wow, mind blowing, right? So I think I am old enough to be a thought leader, but not young enough to know tick tocking. I don't TikTok. I find it extremely amusing. I love all the like, themes and trends. I would love to be like a dance person on TikTok, but I don't TikTok, um, and, yeah, my my mantra, marketing mantra, brand mantra, whatever you want to call it is, think conversation, not campaign. I live by that every single day.
Jon Bailey 02:23
In fact, I believe you even trademarked it. Which, which smart move? Yes, yes, it's good.
Brooke Sellas 02:29
Yeah, I owned the trademarked think conversation, dot campaign before I actually started the company.
Jon Bailey 02:35
Believe it or not, that's the way to do it. You protect your ideas and then you go make money? Yes, yes. So I remember when you came on the scene, and you impressed me a great deal then, and you still do today. That said I really hate social media, so I'm hoping that you can, you can help me to fall in love with social media again. So I know this is a tall order, but, but are you up for it?
Brooke Sellas 03:02
I'm totally up for it.
Jon Bailey 03:03
All right, let's do it. Let's do it. So in a recent article, you described social media as a key player in building trust, influencing opinions and fostering customer loyalty. Now I agree with this, but I think many brands are missing this opportunity and using social media to blast people with what I like to call pseudo-advertising. You know, I'm sure many people think I'm being too bitter. I don't know, but I wanted to get your thoughts. Do you agree that many brands have strayed from the true potential of social media?
Brooke Sellas 03:41
Yeah. And I'm gonna say something a lot of you are gonna really hate. So don't, oh sweet. Don't at me, bro. But I we have become so enamored with content. It's content, this content, that every single time the latest you know researchers is published around marketing content budgets always at the top right. We're just throwing all this money at content, and yet we've forgotten what content actually means. It's become kind of a commodity on social media, when really, when you think about what the purpose of social media is, which is connection, content is supposed to be the vehicle that gets you to emotion.
Emotion is how you get to connection. You cannot get there without the emotion. So, you know, yes, most brands, if you look at most branded content, it's, it's, it's commodity content, right? It's all based about the on the brand. It's all facts and cliches about their products and services. There really isn't a lot of opinion sharing, like as a brand or feeling sharing, but there also isn't a lot of soliciting opinions and feelings from their audiences, which are hopefully customers and would be customers. So. Yeah, I think 90% of brands out there are doing it wrong. Sorry, not sorry.
Jon Bailey 05:05
No, you're absolutely right. And also, by the way, every time Gary Vaynerchuk says, content, a kitten dies, I don't know if you knew this.
Brooke Sellas 05:14
They take a shot. I'm like, how would we function?
Jon Bailey 05:16
Well, yeah, that's right, I would be on the floor, we would all be constantly hammered. No, that's not fair. Gary's carries Carrie's a nice guy. Anyway, people don't like this.
Brooke Sellas 05:29
People don't like this, right? Because, I mean, again, the data shows like we're so enamored with content, we think the answer is content. It's not sorry, it's not.
Jon Bailey 05:38
It's emotion, it's connection, it's connection, it's authenticity, and so which? Which leads me to my next question, because in that same post, you you argue for more transparency and more authenticity from brands, which, yes, amen to that, but then you quote a stat that kind of says it all, which is 69% of consumers trust influencers, friends and family, over information coming directly from a brand. So, you know, I guess at this point, because I tend to be the one to throw up my hands and give up because I'm lazy. Do you think that brands would be better off using their people on social media to market themselves, at least, you know, maybe the smaller brands, or can companies and brands and organizations still move the needle with their with their company pages and speaking as a brand?
Brooke Sellas 06:33
Yeah, well, first and foremost, we created that problem. We meaning marketers, right? Because we have this idea that content is the solution for all the things we created this problem with, with people not being able to trust brands. Brands aren't vulnerable. You can't have a relationship without being vulnerable. So because you refuse to be vulnerable, you're not building those connections, right? But as the famous quote in Dumb and Dumber, you can totally redeem yourself if you start thinking about more of those opinions and feelings type content. You can also use influencers, what we call trust influencers, so they may not be influencers, they may actually be like one of your brand advocates or something, and employees ex equals CX, right? Employee experience equals customer experience. Employees who actually care, right? You can't, don't mandate this, please. Yeah, don't make everybody jump on social and share the company stuff that is not what I'm talking about.
Jon Bailey 07:37
Because then you've lost your authenticity. Piece, yes.
Brooke Sellas 07:40
But if you can find identify those people, and they can help you get your message out there, and I do think it will be a big part of building trust and loyalty, but you've also got to stop with the commodity content. You've got to start sharing and then also asking for opinions and feelings. This could be as easy as using a poll. Every social media platform now has polls start there, ask things that are adjacent to your brand, your industry, your competitors, even, and collect voice of customer data through those conversations. I'm not just saying like have conversations, to have conversations. They are a strategy to collect voice of customer data to help you market better to your customers. And your would be customers.
Jon Bailey 08:25
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, if you agree with Brooke, leave your comments below.
Brooke Sellas 08:33
Comment, conversation, yeah. Think conversation, not campaign, yeah.
Jon Bailey 08:36
Smash that subscribe button. People do it. You gotta hit the bell. The Bell's important.
Brooke Sellas 08:42
The bell? Is it a follow? I'm just I'm lost. I'm in the kitchen again. I have no idea what I'm in there for.
Jon Bailey 08:48
What are we talking about?
Brooke Sellas 08:50
I don't know.
Jon Bailey 08:53
So unlike me, you actually did smart things in college, and your thesis in college was about the the social penetration theory, or SPT from, from the 70s, which, if you don't know about it, go look it up. It's, it's very interesting. It's, it's, anyway you you were, your thesis was, how does it apply to sort of online marketing and social media, which I found, you know, very fascinating. And you're finally findings mainly showed that that brands were not doing well in terms of building trust and relationships, you know, with their social media activity. So first, I wonder if you could kind of break this down for us a little bit, and then, and then, I'm curious to get your thoughts on how you think AI might impact this whole social penetration theory situation thing. Duha.
Brooke Sellas 09:46
Duha, I love it. Well, here's how we're gonna do the doing. So social penetration theory, terrible name. Brilliant concept.
Jon Bailey 09:54
Yes, it is a terrible name. Thank you for saying that.
Brooke Sellas 09:58
I watched the audience like. I have to burst out laughing. In some cases, laughing. I didn't name it. Okay?
Jon Bailey 10:04
Our time saying it just then, I agree. Thank you for pointing that out.
Brooke Sellas 10:07
We can also call it the onion theory. Let's call it the onion theory, yeah.
Jon Bailey 10:10
Okay, thank you, yeah.
Brooke Sellas 10:10
So if you think about an onion, right? An onion, I don't know, in the last time you peeled an onion, but it has lots and lots of layers, and what we are doing with our content is, really, we're not even peeling the onion, we're just kind of going in circles around it, which is very superficial, right? The SBT, or the onion theory, says that we form relationships. John and I are getting to know each other through disclosures. A self disclosure means I'm giving John information about myself that he doesn't already know, right? So if I said, Hey, my name's Brooke, you'd be like, uh, cool. I already knew that.
Jon Bailey 10:44
Isn't it actually Jennifer?
Brooke Sellas 10:46
It is actually Jennifer. My first name is Jennifer. Yes, you read the book, obviously. Um, so if I said my name is Brooke, that's a fact, right? It doesn't help us really build the relationship. But if I said My name's actually Jennifer, but I've gone by Brooke since birth. That's a fact, but it's interesting because it's not otherwise known, right? I'm giving new information. Most brand new content, lives in facts and cliches. Cliches is the lowest level. This is like, hey, really sunny out there today. You know, right? That water cooler like you're in the elevator and you're just like, trying to fill the silence with nonsense. It does absolutely nothing to move the relationship forward. What the theory saw was that when people share opinions, like an opinion would be a fact would be it's raining outside, an opinion would be like, I get really depressed when it rains, right? And then John might think, Oh, I get depressed too. Gosh, I relate to Brooke, or he might think I love rain. Rain's amazing. Brooke's not my people, right? I'm only happy when it rains. Move away from me. But this is good, because dissolution is a good thing. We are not trying to sell to everyone. So disillusion good thing. You want to align with people who are going to match your brand core values, which are your brand opinions and feelings, and then feeling feelings. Obviously, that's the deepest level of the onion. This is where trust and loyalty happens. And by the way, trust and loyalty only happens with feelings. And then if you tie that to the Harvard study, which says that we buy, 95% of why we buy is based on emotion. It's like literally mind blowing to me that in the year 2024 almost 2025 we are talking about the fact that you need to use more emotions in your marketing. I mean, I don't think it's that smart. I think it's just common sense, but thank you. So that's a really long way of just saying that you gotta get there somehow, which means vulnerability, it means emotional marketing. It means having these conversations, which social media is perfect for, by the way, right? And then when it comes to AI for the second part of your conversation, I think AI is gonna be amazingly helpful, but I also think you're going to have to use it in such a way that's really smart. So when somebody comes to you and they want that factual information, are you open today? Do you have this in a size seven? Whatever it may be, those facts can be answered by a bot, 24/7, on social with 100% accuracy right away, right? Nobody's having to wait for this factual information. However, if somebody is coming to you with opinions and feelings, your product sucks. I'm so mad I bought your product. That's where I don't think AI should be the the frontline service per person, Thing, Thing, but I think you need a human involved when it involves opinions and feelings, because I think we are going to get to a place we're not there now, right? We're all like all enamored by AI. It's amazing, but I think eventually we're going to get to a place where AI becomes a commodity, just like content. Everybody's using it. And to be able to connect with a real human when you have a need, whether it's good or bad, is going to be everything?
Jon Bailey 14:02
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's interesting, you know, when you think about the the onion theory, and then you apply that to brands, I think that's, you know, to me, that's genius, because I think that's where most marketers and and and brands, you know, they miss an opportunity, because they they jump, they skip right past everything, and they just, they just, they just blast, instead of, like, figuring out who they are as a brand. Because a brand doesn't just like, you know, fully form overnight. And it doesn't just like, its perception doesn't form overnight. This, all of this stuff takes time. And so to be authentic as a brand, you have to know who you are and and I think that's where so many brands like they don't have a clue who they are. No, they know they have a really cool logo, or whatever. They know they sell. X, yeah, but they're not right? They're not you. They're not real. They're not they don't have an authentic self yet they can.
Brooke Sellas 15:06
Yes, you're hitting it right on the head. So a lot of, lot of what we do when we do consulting and training on social care is we start there. We start with, what's your brand mission? What are your brand's values? What's the brand philosophy? How do you tile those things to business outcome, right? What nonprofit organizations do you support? What? Where do you Align yourselves politically? Even if we're not going to share about it, you need to know, because that does help develop a tone of voice. It helps people understand, like we could talk about Rei, for instance, our Patagonia. Let's talk about Patagonia, because I think that's even more obvious, right? Patagonia is constantly sharing content about their opinions and feelings about climate change, and so we kind of know where they sit politically on the scale, even though they've never told us, but you can go read their posts and time and time again, they're talking about how they want to save the planet that are concerned about climate change, their audience is totally aligned with that core mission and value and purpose of that brand. The people who don't believe in climate change aren't their customers, and so they don't care if their content is being vulnerable, because they know they're aligning with an audience that pays and that pays a lot, you know, in some cases, like, four times higher for that piece of clothing than they would at, say, like a Walmart or something like that.
Jon Bailey 16:27
I mean, just think about that. That alone, it's worth the it's worth putting the time into your brand. It's worth being, you know, figuring out who you are as a brand. Yeah, so you and I totally on the same page. We're vibe, yeah, we're vibing. Now, if we could just, you know, get the rest of the world to.
Brooke Sellas 16:46
Oh, please come vibe with us.
Jon Bailey 16:48
Please come on. Let's vibe. I'm so, let's do this.
Brooke Sellas 16:51
Let's vibe. Vibing equals money, like this is what I say to passion equals profit, yeah, if you figure out what you're passionate about as a brand besides money, sorry, so if that's it, maybe you're not part of this. You're just, you know, it's okay. You're not part of this, this club, right? But if you can figure out what you're passionate about and align yourself with with customers, and would be customers who are also passionate about that, maybe it's clean water, maybe it's climate change, whatever it is, it leads to profit, right? Patagonia knows that, because even though their clothes are a lot more expensive than something you can get similarly elsewhere, people are really buying that experience, that emotion, right? That 95% of the emotion right from Patagonia versus somewhere else.
Jon Bailey 17:35
Now, of course, everybody's going to be, you know, thinking like, oh, well, that sounds like, you know, that's, that's all, you know, time intensive. And then, and then they do things like, they use AI to, you know, to develop their social media content. And I'm curious to hear, you know, your, your kind of perspective on that today, and then how you think that that either might or should evolve in the future, in terms of using AI to, maybe not ideate, maybe not creatively come up with different ideas, but to actually generate the content once you've fed it certain information. You know what I mean?
Brooke Sellas 18:16
Yeah, I don't mind AI creating the content if it knows, right, that my goal is conversation and voice of customer data collection, right, right? So I think it's all in the prompting right now. But so the way I talk to my, my Brooke bot, is I tell her, you know, she know I've trained her all on me, I've given her all of my writing style. And then I say, you know, knowing that Brooke is looking for engagement, she is looking for conversations that spark, you know, a lot of conversation from people who are customers would be customers, more other marketers help me come up with some ideas. And those ideas are usually very good because I given the AI the execution of knowing that the whole goal is engagement on a higher level, you could actually take your social media post and download that data into it like a CSV file, just the conversations and maybe the analytics, like, how many likes, How many comments, reactions, okay.
Brooke Sellas 19:21
Upload that into like a chat GPT, let's say, and say, analyze this content. Analyze the patterns and trends that you see, but also give me the gaps, knowing that my goal for 2025 maybe you do 2024 this month, or whatever, is to have more conversations and to get more engagement, and I don't just mean the vanity engagement, like likes, right? I want comments, I like shares, right? And AI will actually in seconds, yeah, look at that data, write up a really cool synopsis, and then tell you what, and then get to do the conversation, talk to it like it's a person. And say, Wow, this is amazing. Thank you for that information. Now, can you tell me, based on what you're seeing from from from 2024 moving forward to 2025 help me create conversational content. Let's say you post Monday through Friday, three times a week, two times a week, we're going to post like the salesy, you know, commodity stuff, but three times a week, I want to make sure I'm trying to have a conversation. Help me do that. It will now, I wouldn't say take that as a final answer and copy and paste it.
Jon Bailey 20:28
You have to judge that's a professional term.
Brooke Sellas 20:31
Very professional but, but it will help you get there. And it is hard, like you said earlier, like it's not easy. But start with polls. Start with just asking polls, right. And then once people are conditioned to start answering polls, then you could lead to like an ABCD, like, right, like, type it in. Then you can lead to like a fill in the blank. I actually have a free course on creating conversational content that connects. I guess I should talk about, if you go to b square, dot media under Resources, go to our courses. It's completely free, and I have tons of examples of how brands are doing this, right, both B to B and B to C.
Jon Bailey 21:09
Great, awesome. We'll put a link in there. Yeah. Thanks. Now, here's the question I want to know, How many times should I post on social media? What are the best days? What are the best times? Should I talk in the third person or the second person or the first person? Is Monday better than Friday? What about Tuesday?
Brooke Sellas 21:26
Quitting? Quit it like, quit it like that, mom, my mom's role. Obviously, we're Southern, so knock it off. Me and my sisters get together. We always quit at each other, because my mom would be, like, on the phone in her room. This is like, way back when I'm ancient, like an early 90s, and we walk in, like, quit it, and get, get Yeah, so that would be my advice if you're asking those questions. But in all seriousness, we post. Our frequency for posting is based on engagement, and you'll see me do this on my personal LinkedIn all the time. I'll do conversation, conversation, conversation. And then when I have all this engagement happening over those three days of all those conversations, then that next day, I'm like, Oh, and by the way, sign up for this thing, or fill out my survey, or go check out this blog post I wrote. So I asked, ask or give, give, give, give, give, write, conversation, conversation, conversation, boom. Because what happens. I'm showing the algorithm that I'm getting all this crazy good engagement, they're more likely to see the sales you post, right? So we posting frequency, post based on your engagement levels. Not getting engagement. Don't post again till the next day, or wait a couple of days even.
Jon Bailey 22:39
By the way, in the early 90s, I was in college, wasting an enormous amount of time, just hours of time gone anyway. So we have, we have a bonus question from my main partner in crime, my buddy here at at Brand3, our marketing coordinator Emma, Emma Marzullo, and she asks, Emma asks, and I'm going to read it verbatim. I've seen you emphasize the importance of conversations in marketing, more specifically social media. What are some tips for helping brands in more traditional or technical industries spark creativity when building meaningful conversations with their audiences, even when their products and services may seem less exciting at first glance. Yeah. How do you do boring?
Brooke Sellas 23:34
A lot of boring, believe it or not, a lot of our social care clients are like in manufacturing, finance, right? Some some industries that you think are not sexy at all, but I want you to stop thinking about building a follower base on social media and start building a customer base. Because you know, who cares about your content on social your customers, even if it's factual and cliche for the most part, right? So let's start there, and then secondly, think about ways that you can have fun with your audience and conversations or polls or whatever it is that are adjacent to your brand, your industry, your competitors. So yesterday on LinkedIn, I am a B to B brand, right? I'm my company's a B to B brand, and my personal brand is a B to B brand, because my personal brand is trying to help my professional brand. Jennifer's
Jon Bailey 24:26
B to C. But Brooke is, yeah, Brooke is.
Brooke Sellas 24:28
B to B. Jennifer, we'll talk about her a different so I posted, I think it was yesterday, on LinkedIn, like, if, okay, let's pretend like I'm Hope, hosting the biggest, baddest Halloween party. Right? Halloweens on the brain, but it's for marketers, and you have to come dressed as a marketing theme. What would you come as? I think I have like 50 something comments on that post, a ton of back and forth. I'm answering people. People are now coming back to me again and saying something, all of that is very adjacent to. What I do. It's top of mind. We're talking about ROI and conversations and algorithms, and you should go check it out. It's actually pretty funny.
Jon Bailey 25:07
Okay, I was trying to think of what I would go as while you were talking.
Brooke Sellas 25:11
You could also ask ChatGPT. So it's really fun and funny. It's not necessarily selling anything. But then, guess what I did today after all of that conversation happened, and I got all of those engagement impression numbers, I posted something about, like, Hey, if you're trying to be more customer-centric in 2025, we should talk right stuff like that. Like, like, it doesn't have to be, you know, and our microphone now has a new wire. Like, no stop that. It'd be like, if you were a speaker at an event and you had, you know, one of our mics sitting in front of you, what would your opening liner be like? Yeah, let me tell you, I've always, always, always wanted to do this. Maybe somebody will let me do this on stage, if any of the speaking people out there are listening. I've always wanted to get on the mic when I walk on stage and be like, party people, and then, boom, like start playing right? Like that is my ultimate dream. Like that is how I would answer that question. It's fun, but it still pertains to the microphone brand
Jon Bailey 26:14
Jay Baer, just real quick. So Jay Bear was telling me a story where, where he was speaking at a corporate event about team building and and the entire, I think it was Jay Baer, I'm pretty sure. And the entire backdrop just started falling forward, and the entire team rushed forward and and, and like caught it, and like saved the day. And he's, he was just about to go on stage, and he's sitting there thinking, Oh, my God, what am I what? Oh, this is, I guess I'm not going to speak now. And then he started, then he started thinking, Oh, this is perfect. Yeah, you lean into what's going to resonate with people, yeah.
Brooke Sellas 26:49
Like, literally, let your goofy flag fly. Like, I am so goofy. And I think that comes across in my content, and that is just part of the brand, right? So, but that's me being vulnerable. I used to be very like, buttoned up and, oh well, we have these serious clients, and so I need to be serious. No, they love the silly side. So your clients may not like the silly side, but, but figure out what your brand identity is, and then make sure it aligns with who your customers are.
Jon Bailey 27:19
Everybody loves a little bit of silly, as long as it is, it just fits and it's not forced. When you force silly, then it's awkward.
Brooke Sellas 27:29
Awkward. Yes, awkward. Really fast and not to say that, I'm never awkward, I'd say it's like a 7030, split.
Jon Bailey 27:36
Well, I mean, for me, awkward works. That is also true. Like, awkward vary on brand for me.
Brooke Sellas 27:44
I love it. So then 30% of what I do, like, really, like, identifies with you.
Jon Bailey 27:52
Yeah, totally Yeah. See, we've, we've connected on our awkwardness. I love it.
Brooke Sellas 27:57
I think awkwardness, yeah, it's just kind of part of the game when you're silly.
Jon Bailey 28:01
Ladies and gentlemen, Brooke sell us and John Bailey getting awkward. Love it. It's awesome. Oh my god.
Brooke Sellas 28:06
We should start our own podcast called getting awkward. Oh god, that's good, and then force brands to come on and get awkward, man. We'll help you through it. But get awkward, get vulnerable. Let's do it.
Jon Bailey 28:18
Oh my god, I love that. That's so awesome. We should totally do that.
Brooke Sellas 28:22
I should start marketing for a living.
Jon Bailey 28:23
I know you really should. You missed your calling. Wait. Well, Brooke, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I actually learned a few things here, and I think this is all just amazing stuff. And you know you never disappoint. And it's great to finally talk to you in person, and maybe someday we'll see each other. IRL, as the kids say, Yes,
Brooke Sellas 28:47
I hope so, and look for us coming soon on a podcast near you. Get awkward.
Jon Bailey 28:52
We're getting awkward people. All right. Thanks. Bye, everybody.
