What is your job title? How do you use social listening in your work?
As a Research Director, I leverage social listening to drive insights and guide strategic decisions for clients. I oversee projects, analysing data, managing teams, crafting insights, and engaging with clients.
In addressing unique challenges, my expertise lies in the creation of innovative approaches - this is where the Research Innovation specialism of my role comes in. This may involve pushing the capabilities of the data and tools we use or finding new approaches to extract insight. Examples include leveraging Python scripts, shaping custom product enhancements, and the development and deployment of custom machine-learning models on social data trackers.
Internally, I aim to foster a culture of continuous learning and development within our team. By setting up the Innovation Challenge, the team has regular opportunities to test social and audience data for new ideas and methodologies, enhancing our collective expertise.
What’s your background? How did you get into social listening?
I've always wanted to pursue a role that combined both the left and right sides of my brain. I love data (I'm a mathematician at heart), but I wanted to round this out with my passion for understanding culture.
I started my career conducting primary research, and my shift into social listening was purely by chance - it was one of those roles I didn't know existed until I applied! Luckily for me, the discovery felt like finding my professional calling. It was a revelation to encounter a role that combined my analytical skills with a deep curiosity about people.
What’s been the project you’ve been most proud to work on?
The work I'm most proud of (and able to talk about publicly!) is Pulsar's campaign measurement partnership with X (formerly Twitter) to analyse how and why campaigns become successful. Harnessing X's ad exposure data and Pulsar's proprietary platform, we demonstrated the measurable impact paid ads have on conversation spread and audience growth, supporting advertisers in optimising paid media strategies. Over two years, the team conducted 100+ campaign conversation studies, analysing some of the most talked-about cultural moments on X.
My role on this project started on day one, developing the analysis framework and setting up the new methodology, requiring some quick learning of Python and audience networks. As our reporting processes matured, I focused on standardisation, new developments, and team expansion. It was immensely rewarding to witness the project evolve into a well-oiled machine, consistently delivering exceptional results that regularly received stellar feedback from recurring advertisers.
Adding these studies to the 15 years that Pulsar has been studying virality, we learnt that everything starts and ends with your audience. Syncing your marketing and communications with your audience's behaviours, perceptions, and language gives you the best chances of success.
What’s the biggest misconception about your work?
One common misconception is the belief that artificial intelligence (AI) alone can be applied to social data and fully handle the complexities of answering a brief. Still in its infancy, there’s so much to learn and explore with this evolving tech. While we’ve quickly established that AI is invaluable in our toolkit to analyse social conversations, it's important to recognize it as just that – a tool.
Skilled human researchers remain a necessary part of the workflow. They play a crucial role in ensuring that best practice is applied, and the insights AI provides are valid. Then, the job is to contextualise the results within broader narratives drawn from diverse sources, methodologies, and other research and align them to the business question. Our work in social intelligence is a dynamic interplay between cutting-edge technology and human insight, each complementing the other to deliver meaningful results and facilitate informed decision-making.
Any nightmare clients? Why? (No names)
Occasionally, I've encountered clients with a specific vision for a headline they want social listening to provide evidence for, only to find that the data aligns differently from their expectations. Despite trying various approaches, the desired results may remain elusive.
However, amidst these challenges, there's often a bright side. These situations can lead to the discovery of unexpected insights through a process of adaptation and learning.
Is there anything that you’re doing with social data that you don’t see others doing? Any missed opportunities?
Something that I love about Pulsar is that everyone is a superuser of the platform, meaning that anyone can shape the direction of the tool. This culture is incredibly rewarding, and it's inspiring to witness the eagerness within our teams to package and share advancements in methodologies, custom solutions, or new ways of visualising data with our clients.
Benefiting from the breadth of expertise in the Access Intelligence group, I also get to work on briefs that are not limited to just Marketing or PR. Enriching my experience, this diversity of use cases and clients helps to create a more interconnected view of business functions, enabling more cohesive strategies that support the client's overall strategic direction.
Who has made a lasting impression on you? Any SI heroes?
I’m incredibly fortunate to have been and continue to be, surrounded by talented and passionate people – from team members to leadership and clients. This makes it easy to love what I do, as every day feels like a new learning experience. I’ve had several mentors that I try to channel daily, shaping how I empower and motivate others, drive change, and deliver smart, interesting work.
While there are too many to list, honourable mentions go to Francesco D’Orazio and Rob Parkin, who have supported and inspired me throughout my time at Pulsar!
How do you think the social intelligence industry will evolve in the next few years?
Social listening will continue to be an ever-changing domain. Consumers are increasingly mindful of their online privacy and can opt-in to share their data to receive a more relevant and personalised experience in exchange. For researchers, the growth in tools, tech and data means that we’ll continue synthesising more data, unlocking new capabilities, and making more time to be spent on building strategic insight and action.
But against this backdrop, the underlying behaviour to connect with others online to share knowledge and creative passions remains constant. Focusing on these connections across social and the rest of the online space through social intelligence, we can prioritise the audience’s needs and craft strategies that foster trust and resonate authentically. This central focus enables us to navigate the evolving social landscape effectively and deliver impactful experiences to our stakeholders.
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