The question isn’t whether social media is broken. It’s whether we’ve built the right teams—and asked the right questions—to fix it.

In this episode, Josh pulls back the curtain on life at the intersection of behaviour, branding, and burnout. As Global Head of Social at HX Expeditions—and with previous stints leading Unilever’s global Beauty & Personal Care output and digital comms at Save the Children UK—Josh has lived the highs and lows of the industry. He’s delivered Cannes-worthy content for global names and absorbed frontline pressure in moments of humanitarian urgency. That breadth shapes a rare kind of perspective: part systems thinker, part empathetic operator.

What drives this conversation is a hunger to reframe how social platforms—and the organisations behind them—approach engagement. Anchored in a provocative research paper on “Pro-Social Media,” Josh discusses an alternative feed logic: one that surfaces content not by sheer popularity, but by contextual relevance. Who is engaging, and why? What cognitive diversity might we introduce to nudge us out of algorithmic comfort zones?

“The platforms are doing exactly what we trained them to do,” Josh notes. “They mirror our psychology—particularly our bias towards outrage. But we never asked what it’s costing us.”

The Quiet Cost of ‘Always On’

For Josh, the biggest blind spot isn’t the algorithm—it’s the culture.

Across both commercial and non-profit sectors, he’s seen how social media teams often become reactive fire blankets rather than trusted strategists. “Don’t talk to them unless something’s on fire—that’s the norm,” he says. “But that invisibility comes at a cost. It’s real emotional labour.”

His solution is disarmingly low-tech: presence.

“Support isn’t a Slack channel. It’s someone in the room. Literally. Someone who understands the pressure and can hold space when things go sideways.”

This isn’t a wishlist—it’s hard-earned realism. And it speaks to a deeper point in the episode: if social platforms are behavioural ecosystems, then so are the teams managing them. Ignoring their emotional bandwidth is a systemic flaw.

Impact as Accountability

Josh’s lens sharpened significantly during his time at Save the Children. “You couldn’t just run a campaign for engagement’s sake,” he reflects.

“You were telling real stories—often about children’s lives. The weight of that forces you to rethink what success looks like.”

It’s here that Josh draws a line between metrics and meaning. Behavioural insights, he argues, should serve as connective tissue between a brand and its broader responsibility—not just as a shortcut to higher reach.

This realignment, he believes, is where social can regain its humanity.

Designing for Better (Not Just More)

Despite his honest view of ad-driven platform logic, Josh remains hopeful. “We might not be able to change the revenue model overnight,” he concedes, “but we can change what we reward internally.”

That might mean celebrating content that slows people down. Or labelling stories in ways that encourage reflection over reaction. Or simply asking: what does meaningful engagement look like if it’s not just a click?

Josh’s closing reflections speak less to marketing KPIs and more to human priorities. He dreams of a world where ESG is tied to financial markets—and where parenting well is seen as a leadership trait.

“If someone looks back and says I helped them be better—at work or in life—that’s the goal.”

It’s not a rebrand of social media. It’s a re-humanisation.