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 the Social Media CX Podcast, Brooke Sellas explores the communication framework that has quietly shaped relationship-building for decades: the Social Penetration Theory, also known as the “Onion Theory.” Originally developed to explain how trust forms between people, this framework offers a powerful lens for understanding why some brands build loyalty while others struggle to create meaningful engagement.

You’ll hear why most brand content never moves beyond clichés, how relationship depth impacts customer trust, and why today’s social algorithms increasingly reward conversation over passive engagement.

For marketing leaders navigating audience fatigue, declining engagement, and pressure to prove business impact, this episode reframes social media as more than a distribution channel — it becomes a relationship environment.

• Why publishing more content doesn’t automatically create stronger customer loyalty
• The four layers of relationship-building that shape trust between brands and audiences
• How surface-level messaging weakens engagement and emotional connection
• Why customer service interactions on social media can either strengthen or damage loyalty
• What social platforms are rewarding now — and why conversation matters more than impressions
• How enterprise brands can move from broadcasting content to building relationships

Today’s customers expect more than awareness campaigns and polished announcements. They want relevance, recognition, and human interaction.

The brands earning trust are not necessarily the loudest or the most visible — they are the brands willing to communicate with greater depth.

This episode challenges a common assumption in enterprise marketing:

Visibility doesn’t automatically create loyalty.

Instead, loyalty is built through trust, and trust grows through conversations that move beyond surface-level messaging.

Want more insights on social care, customer loyalty, and conversation-driven marketing?

Subscribe to Brooke Sellas’ Lost to Loyal Newsletter on LinkedIn for ongoing strategies and real-world examples of how brands turn engagement into loyalty.

Join the newsletter:

https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6815661085677383680/

Or take the free Talk Worthy Content Course to learn how to create social content designed to spark meaningful engagement.

Explore the course:

https://bsquared.media/courses/talk-worthy-content/

Follow Brooke on LinkedIn for ongoing conversations about customer experience, social care, and the future of relationship-driven marketing.

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, and what shifts when you stop thinking about efficiency and start thinking about engagement.

Matt shares what he’s seeing across hundreds of contact centers, including how AI is changing customer expectations, where companies are creating friction without realizing it, and why the real opportunity isn’t automation… it’s redesigning the entire experience.

We Talk About:

• Why adding AI to one part of the process can backfire
• The “fast food” approach to customer service
• What I think companies still misunderstand about CX
• Why customers are fine with AI (until they’re not)
• How better handoffs between AI and humans improve outcomes
• The pressure CX leaders are under right now
• What you’d do differently with unlimited capacity

Mentioned in this Episode:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/growthspecialist
• Website: https://www.crescendo.ai
• Email: [email protected]
• State of Social Media Care Report: https://bsquared.media/the-state-of-social-care-2026

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, from reactive to fully experience-led.

If you’re investing in social, this is the framework to understand where you really stand and what it takes to level up.

We Talk About:

• Why responding to comments doesn’t mean you’re actually doing social care
• The gap between where brands think they are vs. where they actually are
• The 5 levels of social care maturity (and what defines each one)
• What “reactive” social care looks like in practice
• Why most brands are stuck between Level 1 and Level 3
• Why social is becoming an experience channel, not just content distribution

Mentioned In This Episode:

• 2026 State of Social Care Report: https://bsquared.media/the-state-of-social-care-2026

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 when) to respond to comments, this episode captures what social media strategy looks like in practice, not theory.

If you’ve ever struggled to get people to engage, measure what matters, or prove the value of social care, this is a behind-the-scenes look at how those problems actually get solved.

• How to approach content when you’re speaking to multiple audiences
• Why people aren’t engaging with your posts—and what to change
• What “conversational content” actually looks like in practice
• How to think about engagement rate (and why there’s no perfect formula)
• Why your campaigns might be too big, too soon
• How to use polls and simple prompts to build momentum

Mentioned In This Episode:

• BSquared Media
• Social Media Marketing World

Customer experience doesn’t usually break all at once. It’s often a series of small moments that aren’t handled quickly enough.

In this episode, I’m joined by Rani Parkinson, our Senior Social Care Account Manager at B Squared Media, to talk about what’s actually happening inside social care day to day—and why the brands that feel “calm” are usually the ones handling the small stuff well.

We talk about why good CX often feels invisible, how small issues turn into public escalations, and why consistency matters more than any big viral moment.

We also get into what’s really behind most customer complaints (it’s usually not the product), and how quickly things can spiral when no one responds.

Mentioned:

• Connect with Rani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rani-parkinson
• Social Care Weekly: https://bsquared.media/newsletter

Learn more in the State of Social Care Report (2026): https://bsquared.media/the-state-of-social-care-2026

Customer experience doesn’t break in one big moment. It breaks in the gaps.

In this final episode of the CX Under Pressure series, I’m pulling together the biggest patterns from the last four conversations and where things tend to break down.

It’s usually not one big failure. It’s gaps in how teams operate, how decisions get made, and how customer signals actually get used.

This episode is a look at what’s behind that—and what separates teams that stay reactive from the ones that don’t.

In this episode:

• Why most brands are still getting wrong about customer relationships
• The real reason customers escalate (and why it’s usually not about anger)
• How disconnected systems create broken experiences
• Where AI is helping—and where it’s making things worse
• Why listening to customers isn’t enough (and what to do instead)
• The difference between reactive vs controlled CX
• What metrics that actually matter

Mentioned:

• State of Social Care Report (2026): https://bsquared.media/the-state-of-social-care-2026 
• Ep. 61 with Tyler Stambaugh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfBpi7AY7nI 
• Ep. 62 with Katie Robbert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIEwppGapcY 
• Ep. 63 with Lisa Martin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8nfxpGW7Ec 
• Ep. 64 with Scott Lee Holloway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqmaCVTZglY 

Most banks collect customer feedback. Very few actually use it.

In this episode, I talk with Scott Lee Holloway, Head of Customer Experience at APS Bank, about what it looks like to actually turn customer insight into action.

We get into how his team gathers feedback across channels—and how that insight makes its way into real decisions across the business. We also talk about automation and where human support still matters most, especially in a trust-heavy industry like financial services.

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to move from collecting feedback to actually using it, this conversation breaks it down.

You’ll hear about:

1. Why most customer feedback never turns into anything useful
2. What you’re missing if you’re only looking at dashboards
3. How customer insight actually reaches leadership
4. The tension between AI efficiency and human support
5. What breaks trust faster than most teams realize

Mentioned:

1. Connect with Scott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottleeholloway
2. APS Bank: https://www.apsbank.com.mt

Interested In More?

1. Download the State of Social Care 2026 Report: https://bsquared.media/the-state-of-social-care-2026

AI is moving fast — but is your brand keeping up in a way that builds trust or quietly erodes it?

In this episode, I sit down with Lisa Martin — former NASA scientist, tech media strategist, iHeartRadio host, and host of CMOs Unscripted — to unpack one of the most pressing questions in business today: How do you use AI in customer-facing environments without sacrificing the trust you've worked so hard to build?

Lisa brings her signature blend of scientific rigor and journalistic clarity to the conversation, and she doesn't hold back.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why most AI initiatives fail to deliver ROI — and what leaders are getting wrong about use case selection
• How AI is fundamentally changing the trust equation in public, customer-facing channels
• What "human in the loop" oversight actually looks like in practice
• The non-negotiable guardrails CMOs should insist on before scaling AI in social and digital channels
• Why transparency and accountability aren't just compliance checkboxes — they're growth strategies
• What some big brands are doing right (and why they're still the exception, not the rule)
• The three metrics leaders should be measuring beyond cost savings and automation rates
• How to push back internally when AI rollouts feel rushed

Connect with Lisa Martin:

• X/Instagram: @LisaMartinMedia
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamartinmedia/
• Website: https://www.lisamartinmedia.com/
• Podcast: CMOs Unscripted (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cmos-unscripted/id1817565884)

Interested in More?

• Download The State of Social Care 2026 Report (https://bsquared.media/the-state-of-social-care-2026)
• Rate & review the show: RateThisPodcast.com/SMCX

What would you do if someone started posting across your social media saying your company was a scam?

That’s exactly what happened to Katie Robbert, co-founder and CEO of Trust Insights. One day their notifications started blowing up with accusations that they were stealing money from a customer.

There was just one problem… she had the wrong company.

In this episode, part of our CX Under Pressure series, Katie shares how she handled the situation and why responding with empathy instead of defensiveness turned a potential reputation crisis into a trust-building moment.

Mentioned:

1. Trust Insights
2. Katie Robberts on LinkedIn
3. SparkToro study on AI visibility

Rate the Podcast:

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love your feedback. Leave us a quick rating or review at: ratethispodcast.com/smcx

As part of our March series, CX Under Pressure, we’re exploring what’s really shaping customer experience in 2026, from rising CAC to fragmented journeys and the human side of loyalty.

In this episode, I sit down with Tyler Stambaugh to unpack why acquisition is easy to test, but retention is personal. We talk about discount dependency, vanity metrics, and the uncomfortable truth that many brands are training customers to expect incentives instead of value.

In this episode:

👉Why retention feels “emotionally distressing” for founders

👉How discounting creates transactional behavior

👉The “Pavlov’s dog” trap in e-commerce

👉The 80/20 rule in customer revenue

If CX is under pressure right now, retention is where that pressure shows up first.

Mentioned:

1. Magnetiq
2. Tyler Stambaugh on LinkedIn