Justin Schoen

What is your job title? How do you use social listening in your work?

‍I am the Manager of the Social Intelligence Practice (SIP) at Microsoft. The team sits within a central research organization which provides insights to Engineering and Marketing teams and Leaders.  The teams/Leaders leverage social and online conversations to help their organizations make business decisions that will benefit our customers. 

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What’s your background? How did you get into social listening?

‍By trade I was a web developer/graphic designer.  I always wanted more people to see my work and thus I entered the search engine optimization (SEO) world. I’ve had the great pleasure of working for some of the world’s largest brands such as Ford Motor Company, Coca-Cola, AT&T and Motorola to name a few.  Later on in my career I accepted a role at REI (Recreational Equipment Incorporated) where I transitioned from SEO to their social team.  You could say this is where my love for social intelligence started. I was referred to the role at Microsoft by the Director of Communications at Microsoft, and the rest is history.

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What has been your biggest achievement?

‍In my current role my biggest achievement is watching my team succeed. I gain so much joy and excitement to see a team member showcase social data in ways I could have only dreamed of just a few years ago. Watching this industry evolve knowing that it used to be strictly text based, to where we are now with additional mediums like videos and podcasts and leading and encouraging the team to be at the forefront, makes all of the hard work of being a manager worth it!

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What’s the boldest mistake you’ve made? What did you learn from it?‍

One of the boldest mistakes I’ve made was letting a stakeholder tell me what the data ‘should’ say verse what the data represented. If someone pushes back and or is taken back by the insights, you can and should stand on the data and let the data tell the truthful story.

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What would be your dream project to work on?

‍This may sound cliché, but I work on dream projects everyday at Microsoft. From being able to analyze broad scale subjects like AI and Security, down to customer usage of products like Outlook, Windows, Xbox, etc., there is no shortage of subjects to dive into.  With such a breath of projects, there is no shortage of opportunity to learn and grow.

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Do you think there’s a right way and a wrong way to use social data?

‍Holistically I do not think there is a right way or a wrong way to use social data. However, there are a few key areas one should consider when leveraging digital content. First, make sure you have clean queries to ensure you are pulling the most impactful data out of a very noisy medium. Second, continually scrutinize your data/insights. Check your assumptions and make sure your proximity biases are not shown in the data. Lastly, let the data do the talking right, wrong, or indifferent. The insights are just that and take comfort in telling the narrative the data is illustrating.

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Are there areas where you think you should be using social data for but aren’t currently?

‍At present time, we are trying to keep up with videos and more specifically, IG reels, YouTube shorts, and TikTok. This is where younger and more engaged audiences are participating, so leveraging these mediums more in research will help to tell a more well-rounded story.

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What’s your favourite data source to use and why?

‍I was formally a power Twitter user, but I have since transitioned away mid last year. I would say at this point LinkedIn is one of my favorite data sources. Not only can LinkedIn be used for engagement, but it also provides ways to segment data and allow for insights to be better generated looking at different verticals, industries, job roles, and career stages.

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