How did you get into social intelligence? What was your career path to your current position?
I've worked in media intelligence for my whole career! Starting in press & TV analysis, as the potential scope of traditional media intelligence grew to include early social media like Usenet, my career followed. I joined Infonic - one of the first agencies to purely focus on monitoring of public conversation online - as Head of Research in 2002, and spent a happy 15 years deeply specialised in what we'd now label social intelligence before making my first move client-side to Sage in 2017.
What's your proudest achievement of your career to date?
At Infonic, we were instrumental in helping multinational brands to get comfortable about constructively engaging with their critics. This was a major strategic change for giant multinationals that had become used to leveraging media budgets to suppress critical voices. We listened to online conversations, developed insights and strategic recommendations from what we found - working with our brilliant clients - and drove major change in some of the world's biggest enterprises. Not bad for a small agency in an emerging field! On a personal note, it's always a great feeling to see young analysts that you have hired & mentored move on to big roles and successful careers.
How is your organisation using social data to support business decision-making?
Wherever we can, we embed social intelligence into processes and programs, not just projects. For example, we routinely input insights to media plans, product marketing playbooks, agency briefs and more. This year for the first time, we have incorporated a metric entirely developed and measured within our social intelligence function as a high level business KPI in our largest market (a measure of brand advocacy within a strategically-important channel audience).
Looking into 2022, what are your expectations for how social intelligence is going to support your organisation?
Our 2022 plans are built around two priorities. Our first priority is to consolidate the progress we have already made - ensuring that rapid, actionable insights into audiences, markets and competitors sourced from social intelligence are an integral part of all our strategic marketing planning processes. Our second priority is to broaden reach beyond our digital marketing 'home' - we've begun to build attachments across other parts of the organisation that could find value in social intelligence, scoping programs that touch on sustainability & society strategy, employer brand, customer care & cybersecurity to give just a few examples.
What's your view on how to develop social intelligence and get organisational buy-in?
A laser focus on showing the value! For businesses that don't yet have mature social intelligence functions, there's usually some skepticism - and you have to be able to make the case, and show the return. Strong management is key to this - great processes, an eye for detail and a consultative mindset that can educate and bring people with you. Executive sponsorship doesn't hurt, but ultimately the key to success is delivering quality insights that drive valuable outcomes. If you can do this consistently, momentum will build.
What piece of advice would you give to others working within organisations doing social intelligence?
Lean in to appetite, enthusiasm and curiosity wherever you find it in the business - happy project sponsors are the foundation for growth.
Where would you like to see the discipline of social intelligence going in the future?
Less focus on automated text analysis of documents sourced from social listening tools - there is so much more to social intelligence, and the availability bias baked into social listening technology can hurt real understanding as much as it helps.
What would you say to business leaders about why they should be incorporating social intelligence into their growth strategies?
Would you like to understand the thoughts, feelings, perceptions and likely behaviours of the audiences that will determine whether you succeed or fail? Thought so :)
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