What is your job title? How do you use social listening in your work?
SVP of Research & Insights
We use social listening / intelligence to unlock the potential of the organic voice of the consumer to help brands be more relevant. As part of our services we develop bespoke research solutions, such as uncovering brand love drivers, understanding audience networks and influence or unearthing culture trends and creators. Social intelligence is an integral part of our work to help our clients build consumer centric strategies not just to be more relevant but also to carve out a competitive edge in a crowded marketplace.
What’s your background? How did you get into social listening?
Originally my background is in academia and I started my career as a research assistant in the field of behavioral economics. However, I always had a passion for languages and psychology, which got me interested in language analytics, especially semiotics studies. Working as a social media manager in my early career, I saw huge potential in taking a closer look at online conversations about brands not just from a brand reputation POV but mostly as a source of inspiration how brands and products resonate and what audiences truly want and expect from companies.
What’s been the project you’ve been most proud to work on?
Hard to choose one, there have been many projects and client collaborations that I was excited to work on. I am most excited when we are able to develop new solutions that bring valuable insights to our clients with a tangible output.
A passion project of mine is a project we've worked on with the Microsoft Social Intelligence Practice where we utilized social media posts to uncover new brand love drivers in the tech space. We were able to connect brand love drivers with established psychological models of love and uncovered valuable insights about what is driving brand love in the tech space.
Any nightmare clients? Why? (No names)
There are no nightmare clients, just bad expectations management. I think everyone who is interested in looking at the organic voice of the consumer is excited by the valuable and rigorous insights this type of data source can provide. The key is to be open to leverage its exploratory nature; we can’t expect the same responses as we’d get from surveys or focus groups, but often we’ll get to know the unknown instead.
Is there anything that you’re doing with social data that you don’t see others doing? Any missed opportunities?
I think it’s less about what can be done and more about how clients are using insights from social data. Not a missed opportunity but perhaps one that can be explored more: Retailers can leverage product trends identified on TikTok to inform product portfolio developments.
Who has made a lasting impression on you? Any SI heroes?
Having had the pleasure of working with the Microsoft Social Intelligence Practice for over 6 years, Justin and Melissa are true SI heroes! As well as the wider team at Microsoft, they are all pioneers of the field and constantly push the boundaries to find new ways to leverage social intelligence data.
How do you think the social intelligence industry will evolve in the next few years?
I see three major changes, mostly driven by the huge advances in AI last year that have been pitival for the industry.
- LLMs are now more accessible to researchers than ever, especially when it comes to segmenting large language data sets.
- New research skills will be needed. While AI advances help enhance some skills like query writing, they also demand new skills like mastering the art of writing data prompts.
- Language data is going to be broader in terms of the sources we can tap into. Audio, video and even images can be easily converted into text data and thus enhance our capabilities to analyze the voice of the public.
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