Bold Brands

Karan Singh

Social Data and Insights

Netflix

Winner 2024

Karan Singh

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

I lead social data and insights at Netflix. My role sits between data, insights and strategy, where I help content and marketing teams make decisions based on consumer behaviors we observe on social. Be it investigating fandoms to build/buy IPs, studying consumer reactions to inform future content, or building internal tools that enable insight discovery at scale, I use social data to consult across business units.

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

Early in my career, I pivoted from finance to marketing but found my passion in research and data. My first exposure to social listening was in 2012 at Initiative Media, where I gained hands-on experience with the full social analytics stack (owned, paid, and earned). I was fortunate to be in the presence of Carrie Stern (now at Google) and Brad Stebbins (insights leader at a major agency), who showed me the ropes of social insights in an experimental, hacker-style environment. In this setting, we pressure-tested social data and often brainstormed just how far we could push the boundaries of its applications - an experience that truly helped me hone my problem-solving skills with social data.

What has been your biggest achievement?

Setting up the social insights practice at Netflix and making social data a staple in the intelligence toolbox. 

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

Over-representing social data. I learned that social, while rich in insights, is just one part of the larger conversation. It's important to view social data as a piece of the puzzle. Sometimes, social might give you the first piece of evidence that sparks discovery, and sometimes it's the piece that brings the insight home. Big numbers can be distracting.

What would be your dream project to work on?

I’m all-in on GenAI so I'm excited about the idea of consumer-personas powered by real-time social data. There’s something fascinating about using live social-data feeds to build chatbots that emulate a persona. Imagine being able to create a bot, constantly updating it with social data that captures the essence of a specific fandom or culture, and then posing questions to it on the fly to get real-time insights. 

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

A common pitfall is viewing all social data equally, without considering how different audiences, communities, and regions engage on social. It's crucial to shift focus from a broad 'what's happening on social' to a more targeted 'how is this specific audience reacting on social'. Prioritizing the audience in social listening, benchmarking, and linking insights back to business strategy make social insights more actionable.

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

I think there is still room to explore and innovate on social audience panels, particularly for reaction forecasting. Currently, there is no effective way to test how an idea would land on social in a controlled environment, as you might in a focus group, that accurately mirrors organic social engagement. Replicating social communities in controlled panels could provide foresight into real-world reactions without the risk of leaks or inflated engagement.

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

I've become a big fan of search listening. Google Trends and search behaviors are underrated siblings to social data, providing real-time, structured, borderless data that reflects (and sometimes precedes) social behaviors. Best of all, it's an accessible resource that is free to use.

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