Jorie McLeod
What is your job title? How do you use social listening in your work?
My job title is Social Media Manager, Intelligence & Reporting. At Uber, we integrate social listening across several departments and business functions. This includes Communications & PR, Marketing, Product, Brand, and Policy. We utilize social listening to better understand marketing campaign performance, to conduct crisis monitoring and reporting, and to analyze product feedback.
What’s your background? How did you get into social listening?
I’ve always had an interest in research and analytics, with several internships throughout college exploring this field. I began my professional career in Ad Sales Research in the Media Industry. During this time, I was introduced to social listening and found the analysis of real-time user data so exciting versus the other research methods I had worked with previously. I then began to pursue a role in social intelligence and worked at an advertising agency as a Social Intelligence Manager, where I worked on social listening projects across CPG, Finance, and Pharmaceutical clients. This experience led me to my current role at Uber, where I’ve been the social intelligence lead for the past 2.5 years for Uber and Uber Eats.
What has been your biggest achievement?
Thus far in my career, I feel that my biggest achievement has been building a successful social listening framework at a brand such as Uber. When I started in this role, the majority of previous social listening had been done externally by an agency and it was an exciting opportunity to build from within. Since then, I have established an internal framework, providing listening analyses for numerous product launches, marketing campaigns (including 3 Super Bowl commercials), and annual live brand events. I’m motivated to continue growing the listening practice within the company as the team expands globally and to innovate further with new listening strategies & methods.
What’s the boldest mistake you’ve made? What did you learn from it?
In my opinion, one of the best parts of social listening is that it is always evolving. Therefore, there are always opportunities to continue learning and to change our research methods. Earlier in my career, a mistake that I learned from was not taking the necessary time with an analysis and expecting to see the major takeaways immediately. I’ve learned that the best reporting comes from the details within the data and that it takes time to comb through social data to uncover these insights, especially since social data is so extensive.
What would be your dream project to work on?
I believe that I am already working on a dream project, which is building out the social intelligence framework for major brands such as Uber and Uber Eats. As we expand our social intelligence practice to regions around the world, I feel lucky that I get to work with so many talented people that I can continue to learn from. That being said, I think it would be really exciting to partner with another major brand to conduct social listening together on a major joint campaign or partnership.
Do you think there’s a right way and a wrong way to use social data?
I don’t believe that there is necessarily a wrong way to use social data, but those who don’t utilize social listening data to the fullest extent are missing out on valuable insights. For example, focusing only on insights from one data source limits reporting outcomes and creates a high probability of missed opportunities that could have further advanced the brand and strategy. Additionally, fully understanding the extent of query & content capabilities is crucial for pulling in as much relevant data as possible.
Are there areas where you think you should be using social data for but aren’t currently?
In 2024, we’re hoping to expand our proactive use of social listening to uncover emerging trends and further analyze risk. Additionally, I think there is a lot of opportunity to further utilize Reviews data, which I’m excited to dive deeper into this year.
What’s your favourite data source to use and why?
The data source I have been using more frequently is Reddit! There is a lot of exciting data to uncover from this platform. The thread aspect of Reddit is particularly interesting as it allows fuller online conversations on specific topics to take place, which has been helpful in getting direct feedback for our product research. The anonymity of the platform also aids in generating more honest and candid mentions.