What does social intelligence mean to you?
Social intelligence as a research practice where I’m able to analyze unbiased & unsolicited online conversations to extract real-time actionable insights about our customers, brands, categories and cultural trends. The insights gathered from consumer conversations and social behaviors helps our brands establish authentic connections with our consumers and customers; and ultimately drive strategy and brand relevance.
What skills do social listeners need to succeed?
While AI has helped to democratize social listening across our organization, it’s still important for our experts to possess a combination of strong analytic & technical skills, along with a curious mind and strong storytelling skills.
Given the volume, and nature, of online conversations, it’s not uncommon to find yourself battling with irrelevant content and skewed results. Possessing a strong foundational understanding of the data sources, and an ability to manage unstructured and complex data results, is critical to extracting those actionable insights.
Biggest challenge to social intelligence adoption in brands?
Available data sources and segmentation have been two ongoing areas that have challenged overall adoption.
In my experience, there’s been an ongoing need to inform stakeholders of what is and what is not accessible. Even though many of our brands are activating on TikTok, broad cultural and trend listening is currently a challenge due to API restrictions.
Segmentation of conversations and insights by demographic has been a challenge as well. Often our brands are looking to better understand the needs, desires and trends amongst our Gen Z consumers. Traditional research tools and methods can easily accomplish this, but while it’s a challenge across many social platforms, it’s led to a disinterest in the value of social intelligence.
Favourite use case for social intelligence and what decisions can the insight help support?
Fandoms & Cultural Listening. Through social intelligence, we’re able to go beyond the consumer to understand people's passions and influences. With that deeper understanding of fandoms and culture, our brands are able to connect with consumers in a meaningful and authentic manner.
What piece of advice would you give to those looking to do more with social data than just brand tracking or campaign monitoring?
Align your social intelligence approach with your organizations short & long term strategies. Prioritize the high-impact business questions over basic brand health metrics. Having research that is relevant to the strategic direction of your company will help drive adoption. Once you’ve uncovered the ‘what’ & ‘so what’, be sure to include the ‘now what’. Including implications and potential opportunities in your research is more impactful.
Gen AI in social listening: hype or helpful?
Helpful. The AI capabilities within our tools has made it possible to democratize social listening capabilities across our brands and customer teams. Through automated dashboards, 100s of marketers are able to measure and listen to their respective brands, competitors and categories in real time.
If we could grant you one wish to help your social intelligence practice succeed, what would you ask for?
TikTok 😃. Despite the looming uncertainty with the platform's future in the U.S., TikTok continues to be my biggest data gap and hindrance to comprehensive social intelligence.
If you were to start your social intelligence team from scratch what three things would you do first?
Assuming you’ve recruited and built your team of technical storytellers, I’d suggest the following amongst those critical steps to building a social intelligence team:
1. Establish a clear objective and mission. There are many use cases for social intelligence, many of which take time to develop. Having a clear direction will help to prioritize resources, and set expectations across the organization.
2. Know both your organization & brands short and long-term strategies. Once you know your brand's objectives and challenges, you can tailor your efforts to address those specific needs, leading to increased adoption.
3. Technology. Be sure to select the right technology for your industry and needs, and then invest the proper time to configure it. The right tech will only help to deliver deeper and more actionable insights, efficiently.
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