What does social intelligence mean to you?
Social intelligence is all about giving a voice to consumers inside organisations. It’s the practice of not only understanding their needs but championing their perspectives and ensuring their opinions are heard, respected, and acted upon. Social intelligence bridges the gap between brands and the people they serve.
What skills do social listeners need to succeed?
Successful social listeners require a unique mix of technical and interpersonal skills. They obviously need to be skilled in data analysis and interpretation, to have a deep understanding of the ever changing social media universe and its dynamics, and excellent story telling abilities. However what I think makes the difference between a good and a great social listener are two qualities:
Curiosity: a relentless desire to dig deeper, uncover hidden truths, and explore the "why" behind the data.
Stakeholder management: The ability to evangelise social listening, debunk myths, and educate colleagues about its transformative potential is key. While the discipline has gained recognition, there’s still work to do in building understanding and buy-in inside organisations.
Biggest challenge to social intelligence adoption in brands?
I think one major challenge is the overemphasis on campaign monitoring. While campaign monitoring and evaluation is one of the use cases for social intelligence, I think brands might make the mistake of excessively focusing on it. Monitoring your campaigns is critical, if nothing else for potential crisis monitoring, but the truth is that few campaigns have what it takes to generate waves of conversations online, while most campaigns can benefit from social listening in the ideation stage. Social intelligence can uncover what the relevant audiences care about, the language that resonates with them, and how competitors engage similar groups. By focusing on these insights, brands can create more impactful campaigns from the outset.
Favourite use case for social intelligence and what decisions can the insight help support?
Over the last years at Reckitt we integrated social, search, and rating & reviews data into several DCG projects (Demand Centric Growth), actively supporting our categories identify new growth opportunities, by analysing consumer needs, preferences, motivations , behaviours.
Connecting social listening with other data source available to the business, we have helped our categories understand what drives consumers decisions and act accordingly to tailor their marketing messages and develop new products. Seeing insights directly shape product innovation is incredibly rewarding.
What piece of advice would you give to those looking to do more with social data than just brand tracking or campaign monitoring?
Start small and stay focused. Begin by identifying clear business questions and build on existing knowledge. Category conversations are a goldmine of insights, but they can quickly become overwhelming without boundaries. Defining a well-structured “sandbox” early allows you to prioritise what truly matters and deliver actionable insights.
Additionally, a standardised and well-structured briefing form can be a game-changer. It helps stakeholders articulate their requests more effectively, ensuring their questions are clearly framed. This not only streamlines the process but also ensures the quality and relevance of the insights.
Gen AI in social listening: hype or helpful?
Helpful—definitely. Social listening has used AI for years, and we’ve all faced the challenges of managing expectations around features like sentiment analysis. While Gen AI isn’t a magic wand just yet, it’s accelerating progress in exciting ways: query building, topic modelling, summarisation, and integration with diverse data sources.
As someone who has managed global teams, what excites me most is its language-agnostic potential. While cultural context will always matter, Gen AI could help us better support underserved regions and markets, making global insights more accessible than ever.
That said, the proliferation of AI-generated content introduces new challenges. It will require new approaches to distinguish authentic consumer voices and genuine engagement from the increasing noise of automated content. This adds complexity but also reinforces the need for more sophisticated tools and human oversight in social intelligence.
If we could grant you one wish to help your social intelligence practice succeed, what would you ask for?
I’m sure I’m not alone in this: Tiktok Social Listening API.
If you were to start your social intelligence team from scratch what three things would you do first?
1. Clearly define the scope and purpose of the social intelligence team, based on the company structure, team's responsibilities and broader company objectives. This clarity ensures focus and positions social intelligence as a strategic asset.
2. Conduct stakeholder interviews to understand past experiences with social listening—what worked, what didn’t, and where expectations were unmet. This step helps address biases or misconceptions while securing internal buy-in. Most companies have some experience with specific use cases, but those experiences might have shaped how they view social intelligence today.
3. Build the capabilities choosing the right people, tools and partners carefully considering what capabilities to build in-house versus what to outsource or buy.
What are you looking forward to in social listening for 2025?
I’m eager to see how AI will enhance our ability to analyse large datasets, span multiple languages and markets, and integrate social listening with other data sources. This might finally help us move from simply understanding trends to predicting them—unlocking even greater potential for innovation and strategic decision-making.
Get Social with SILab
