Martin Miliev

Can you tell us about a pivotal moment in your career that led you to where you are today?

My junior and senior year in college, 2001-202, we had these Library training sessions once a quarter - some instructor would herd us to the library where one of the librarians would show us how to use aggregators like ProQuest and EbscoHost, and even Google (those were the days!). At the time it seemed like a drag and waste of time, but in hindsight it taught me how to find relevant information and the basics of Boolean searches. This helped me land my first job in media monitoring in 2006. 

After that I moved to the greener pastures of brand consulting for a bit. However, 

in 2011 a client handed me a Sysomos account without any training or onboarding, just let me lose with the tool. Using social media listening to extract consumer insights felt natural to me, got a bit lucky, perfect spot at the perfect time.

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What makes a good leader in social intelligence?

Somebody who helps the industry grow. If you are on the research side - providing value to the clients, real insights, knowing and acknowledging the pros and cons of our trade. We are still a niche industry, barely out of its infancy stages, so we need people to deliver results, raise awareness and convert sceptics.

Following this train of thought, an SI leader is also somebody who shares his/her knowledge. Too many of us have spent the past decade often alone, running solo or in a corporate silo. And the younger generation of SI practitioners deserves a helping hand. 

If you are on the tool side - build better and useful tools for us. 

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What three skills do you have that helps you to excel in your role?

It is not exactly a skill but a disposition - curiosity about the world and people, their behaviour, what makes them tick. If I wasn’t working in social intelligence, I still would have been involved with some other form of market research.

My curiosity and desire to stay informed has made me a voracious consumer of news articles, academic reports, podcasts, fiction and non-fiction books on various topics. As Nate Silver explains his fox/hedgehog researchers’ mindset model – “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”. I consider myself a fox and I am trying to have my finger on the pulse of a large number of often unrelated topics. This is extremely helpful when you face a broad range of diverse clients. 

I also work with a team of excellent analysts and my success stands on their shoulders. Thus, I try to teach them everything I know and as I already said I'm a firm believer that knowledge is the only resource that increases when it’s been shared. 

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What do you think will be different about social intelligence in 2035?

I am not too keen to make such long term forecasts. As the super-forecaster Philip Tetlock pointed out, almost all long-term forecasts tend to fail. 10 years is too much time. 

In the short run, the next 18-24 months I expect more attempts at government regulation of the social media platforms, Reddit and the other forums will remain salient and valuable source of consumer insights, and more Gen AI integration in the listening tools. 

Regardless of the time period, we have always been at the mercy of people’s willingness to talk online and the listening tools’ ability to harvest the content. 

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Will we still have jobs? Is AI all hype or actually helpful?

Depends on how we define our roles/jobs - as social listeners or as market researchers. There is always going to be a need for people doing market research, studying people and their behavior, and this is what we are doing. Except our raw material happens to be social media content and search data instead of surveys and in-depth interviews. So maybe the job will change, but if you are into research, there will still be work for you.

AI can be helpful and there is still room for improvement, areas where Gen AI can significantly streamline out day to day work. 

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What should people know before getting into social intelligence?

It is messy but it is also fun. It is just one of many market research tools so sometimes it can be a source of great value and insights, and sometimes it can be utterly useless. 

And you need to feel comfortable with ambiguity and working with imperfect information. 

It is also a craft, once a media analysts, always a media analysts. 

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What’s been your biggest career highlight?

Making the Top 50 SI Lab list three times in a row. I am pretty sure this year was my last chance to sneak in as year after year the level of talent has been growing tremendously. It’s been a privilege to be nominated and be part of the broader SI Lab community.  

However, I consider it even a bigger accomplishment that brands started poaching people from my team after I made the list last year. It speaks tons about the way the industry is growing and developing and the people I work with. 

And on a related note, turning the social media listening unit at Publicis Bulgaria into the Publicis Groupe Social Intelligence Center of Excellence is another thing I am really proud of. 

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What’s next for you?

Not sure, but I know I want to remain motivated and be surrounded by quality people who push me to grow and develop. 

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