What was your journey/career path to your current position?
My journey started off in the field of Market Research, in agencies where I managed qualitative, quantitative projects and anthropological studies. I later led an editorial team in designing and developing a new technology news web portal for the Spanish-speaking market which strengthened my knowledge of the digital environment through creating  original, targeted content for our clients. This broad range of experiences and skills set prepared me to join the launch of the Consumer Interaction Center (CIC) for Coca-Cola Mexico, as Head of Social Listening. This position has evolved over the years with a Corporate Intelligence approach for Coke's Latin American business unit.
What's your proudest achievement of your career to date?
When I joined the CIC, the workflow was essentially reactive and solely provided descriptive data and reports. For instance, there were not many KPIs or benchmarks to determine whether negative social media represented a risk for the company's corporate reputation, or what was the potential of that case to escalate into a crisis. In collaboration with my team, we developed processes, methodologies and tools that allowed us and the client to better size up the digital conversation and establish parameters and action standards. This approach provided the insights that led to developing a Predictive Listening platform which uses AI/Machine Learning to anticipate whether risks have the potential to escalate, based on real-time data and metrics. Continuing to develop this platform coupled with the development of new tools and skill sets which allows us to activate preventive measures and capitalize on real-time marketing opportunities providing the client with better learnings and recommendations.
What does social intelligence mean to you?
It means having the power and know how to understand an audiences' behavior across varied digital environments and contexts, in order to gain knowledge and insights that provide a proactive, preventive approach, helping brands and companies make better informed decisions for both digital marketing and communication efforts. That could mean improving their performance metrics, gaining insights for the optimization of media planning and buying, choosing strategic ambassadors for their campaigns or understanding the risks and opportunities within the corporate territories for the most efficient, targeted approach.
What's been the biggest challenge you've faced while trying to get brands to integrate social intelligence within their growth strategy?
I believe the biggest challenge is helping managers who are less familiar with the digital environment and tools understand the benefits of Social Intelligence. Many times they are used to relying on only face-to-face Market Research, whitepapers and other traditional sources of information, disregarding the agility that Social Intelligence can provide, especially when time is key for decision making. However, as brands realize that they need to move much quicker in the social media realm to optimize campaigns, respond to a reputational issue, or obtain a more precise overview of the trends relevant to their audiences, they start believing in the power of Social Intelligence. Then the challenge becomes helping them convince all stakeholders needed to implement Social Intelligence strategies. This can be done through illustrating cost benefits, increased sales and even pointing to avoided legal battles.
What do you think is the biggest missed opportunity for social intelligence?
Rather than a missed opportunity, I would point out the greatest challenges that Social Intelligence faces. For instance, restrictive privacy policies among platforms have limited the ability to access even anonymous data among users' digital content. Additionally, 'dark social' content spread heavily throughout private messaging platforms like WhatsApp remains a blind spot for Social Intelligence, and can be particularly crucial for reputational issues. Finally, the benefits of Social Intelligence for businesses are not as publicized or understood as they should be in many organizations. This lack of clarity as to the role of Social Intelligence not only limits the resources available to the teams, but it also keeps truly relevant information from reaching top level management. I see the necessity for industry leaders to educate and reskill their teams in order to add this integral tool to their team's strategy and marketing tools. Also, forums like The Social Intelligence Lab contribute to generating a much broader understanding of social intelligence.
What's in the cards for you and your team/organisation in 2022?
We are expanding our scope outside of Mexico to have a wider reach across Latin American markets, with emphasis on localizing certain processes while at the same time maintaining the high level we have developed over the past 8 years. We are strengthening our intelligence capabilities by enhancing our predictive/preventive approach, making the most of the tools (both proprietary and external) to automate manual processes, and scouting the digital environment for trending conversation platforms in order to keep up with how audiences are adopting new behaviours and developing new patterns.
How do you see social intelligence and its use evolving?
Social Intelligence will need to evolve according to the environments where consumers are interacting, and adopt different approaches depending on each platform. We know that Twitter remains the most conversational platform with regards to news and debate, that Instagram is where users post their most carefully crafted content or that TikTok is setting the tone for younger audiences in many ways which we have seen spike during the last year. As more brands understand the risks and opportunities associated with each platform they will become more demanding clients. Therefore, Social Intelligence will evolve to provide even more powerful, actionable learnings and insights in an increasingly personalized way for varying industry segments. This will allow brands to approach and understand each audience in the most efficient way.
On a broader scale, Social Intelligence leaders will need to understand the implications of the metaverse in terms of brand presence, consumer experiences and user interactions, to help brands navigate this incipient digital sphere. This poses a great challenge, but also a great opportunity for Social Intelligence to keep evolving and remain relevant.
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