Being Social

"We started at a time before Meta even existed. We were a very unique agency because we were a social media agency before social media really kicked off. We could see that with digital there were online communities and with online communities you need someone there to moderate conversations. Fast forward to now, social media has exploded. The reason why we exist is even more relevant today. We launched a campaign to make social better. Ensuring that platforms and anyone in social media is accountable and aware of the power and impact they have, and enabling brands to do it better."

The founding insight of Social Element, that digital communities need facilitation and that brands have a responsibility to participate rather than just broadcast, has become more relevant with every passing year. The scale of social media and the power it has to shape opinion, spread information, and build or destroy brand reputations means that the skills Social Element developed in moderation and community management are now a core commercial competence rather than a niche service.

"This is not about a brand saying we want to be on social media. It is about a brand being social. Before with advertising, we could look through a telescope at our audience and we had a very linear approach. Now consumers have a choice. They can choose to consume. The brands that will prevail are the ones that have an actual relationship. Community is simply around shared ideals, shared values, shared interests."

The distinction between being on social and being social is operational as well as philosophical. A brand that is on social produces content on a schedule and measures impressions and reach. A brand that is social manages ongoing conversations, responds genuinely, creates space for community participation, and treats its social presence as a relationship rather than a broadcast channel. The second approach is harder but it builds something that compounds: a community that advocates for the brand because the brand has earned their genuine affiliation.

"I actually firmly don't believe in separating approaches for B2B and B2C. My background is classically trained at Ogilvy, Y&R, I ran a small creative agency and went client side at Virgin with big B2C brands. And now I have obviously got a B2B role as Co-CEO. But I truly believe marketing is marketing. People are people."

Frost's background gives her an unusually grounded perspective on the B2B/B2C divide. She has worked at both ends of the spectrum and consistently finds that the principles are the same. The person who approves a significant B2B purchase has the same motivations as any consumer: they want to work with people and companies they trust, who are interesting, who add value, and who treat them as a human being rather than a job title.

"In every session when we are meeting someone, we say to them, tell us who you follow and why. Don't say a brand because normally people don't actively choose to follow a brand. And then you will see the richness of who people follow. It is only because of humour or inspiration. And then you are like, OK, so now think about how you are going to talk as a brand."

The exercise of asking people who they follow and why strips away the corporate assumptions about what makes a brand worth following. The honest answer is almost never because they post good product updates or because they have a consistent brand voice. It is because they make people laugh, or teach them something they could not find elsewhere, or make them feel part of a community. Getting brand teams to articulate this honestly, and then to ask whether their social presence delivers any of those things, is typically where the transformation in social strategy starts.

"We launched a campaign to make social better. It is about enabling. On one side, ensuring that platforms and anyone in social media is accountable and aware of the power and impact that they have and the responsibility. On the other side, enabling brands to do it better. The truth is, brands need to be social at their heart. There is an immense opportunity and it is about enabling them to navigate that landscape."

Social Element founding a campaign to make social better is a deliberate statement about accountability. A company that has spent twenty-two years helping brands use social media now arguing for more responsibility in how it is used is not a contradiction but a logical extension of that experience. The campaign is aimed at both sides of the equation: the platforms that set the rules and the brands that operate within them. Both have more power than they sometimes acknowledge, and with that power comes a responsibility to the communities they serve.