Justin Schoen

What’s the one thing you wish you’d known when you started in social listening?

The one thing I wish had known early in my career/journey in this industry is to not always trust the data. We are dealing with a medium that is ripe with emotion and personal opinions. I’m reminded to always be critical of the data and subsequent insights it provides.

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Have you had any experiences that have made you want to quit? What made you keep going?

Just like in any role there are moments where you question your decisions. However, I will say in my current role my team encourages me to be better every single day. The team makes coming to work more rewarding, leading more gratifying and most importantly continual learning with them enjoyable.

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What role does tech play in your social intelligence process? Where to people contribute?‍

I may be a bit biased here, but technology plays a vital role in our process. From leveraging technology to write / create queries, methodology development, thematic analysis and all the way to the insight’s generation, technology plays a vital role in our day-to-day.  Not only do we leverage our own internal technology stack, but we also rely on our partners to bring new methodologies to the forefront to ensure we are always at the cutting edge of the use of technology and understand how it impacts our social intelligence efforts and outputs.

‍Who have you seen as a mentor in your career?

‍Mentorship plays a huge role in my career. I find it very important to have mentors both internally and externally within a company.  One of the best pieces of advice I have been given was from a long time engineer whom I was introduced to, but never had the pleasure of working with, and that was this: ‘Be the Leader/Manager you wish you had’.  In addition to having a mentor, I enjoy mentoring those early in career to help develop the next generation of social intelligence leaders.

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Most embarrassing mistake you made in a social listening project - what did you learn from it?

‍I would not say this is embarrassing perse, but instead a common mistake I have noticed in our industry. Sometimes we assume the audience knows how we get to the insights we present, however it is often just that, an assumption. Assuming can often lead to a disconnect and misunderstanding. It is recommended to spend time early on and often to educate which will help build understanding and advocacy.

Another easily mistaken area I would mention here is showcasing our work. When we are in the day-to-day, we often overlook how impactful our work is. Highlighting all data advancements, insight successes and learnings has a lot of impact. Championing your work unapologetically and being your own advocate will not only benefit you in your career, but it will support the growth of this industry.

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How do you see the future of social listening evolving?

Video and long form content is the future. With more compute power available at our finger tips, the ease of which users can create professional video content will be a main area of focus in the near-term. With the advancements of artificial intelligence this will unlock the ability to analyze massive amount of data that is generated every day and find meaning in this unstructured data set.

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What’s the most useful data source? Are there any you find useless? Why?

To start, I find all data useful, so therefore to say that I find any useless data sources would not be accurate. However, depending on the objective there are data sources that are more strategic. For instance, LinkedIn is a gold mine for B2B and career driven research. Whereas TikTok is more representative of a younger demographic to analyze and create insights around. On a personal level, LinkedIn is one of my favorite data sources. Not only can LinkedIn be used for engagement, but it also provides ways to segment data and allow for insights to be better generated looking at different verticals, industries, job roles, and career stages.

How have you been able to win over ney-sayers throughout your career?

Anytime you are pushing boundaries and norms you will have ney-sayers. The key to winning them over is to listen to their concerns, break down their fears and address them head on with data.  The goal is to build trust, but also educate them on what to look out for in the future to avoid any doubts should they be skeptical.