What is your job title? How do you use social listening in your work?
I am a Global Insights Lead at Reddit, where years of user-driven and genuine conversations make it a dream for anyone interested in social listening. Currently, I use social listening to empower brand narratives and understand consumer behaviors. In today's data-rich era, effective social listening provides a scalable way to sort through data and create universes that continue to expand and evolve. Tapping into anonymous community-led conversations offers a unique perspective on user dynamics and emerging patterns within the community, which is applicable to the industry at large. It reveals how users and potential customers express their interests and desires when their personal information is not the focus of their opinion.
What’s your background? How did you get into social listening?
I initially pursued studies in international relations and economics because I have always been fascinated with understanding the underlying reasons behind historical and political events. The premise of social sciences, which relies on extracting patterns to predict possible outcomes, resonated with me. When I discovered my particular interest in statistics, I decided to pursue a graduate degree focused on data. In my first 'real' job, I was tasked with creating hundreds of booleans to be part of larger monitoring strategies for clients. It was then that I realized I wanted to become an expert in this field and satisfy that curious part of myself that wanted to understand human behavior through online behaviors.
What’s been the project you’ve been most proud to work on?
Reddit Recommends - no question about it. This project was ambitious from the start, challenging me to develop a robust architecture capable of withstanding rigorous quality control and verticalization. Ultimately, I created a framework now applicable across industries, offering insights that have been shared in Cannes, CES, marketing communications, and client work.
What’s the biggest misconception about your work?
While the abundance of tools may suggest that social listening is a 'plug and play' solution, this is not the case. Effective social listening requires an art and science approach involving research, testing, refinement, and continual improvement loops. A strategic and intentional approach is essential, as it determines the framework's structure and desired outputs. Cultural and societal cues, integral to social listening, cannot yet be fully automated. The excitement over new technology can contribute to this misconception, especially in environments where social listening is viewed solely as a tool for query building, rather than as a strategic method for analyzing the social media landscape.
Any nightmare clients? Why? (No names)
I don't remember nightmare clients, but I do recall misunderstood requests. The traditional approach of demographic analysis of consumers sometimes creeps into mixed methods. Social listening allows us to analyze people's thoughts and opinions independently of their demographics, which is a powerful way to understand an audience. While demographic information is important, I prefer to focus on the clusters that connect people rather than the differences that separate them.
Is there anything that you’re doing with social data that you don’t see others doing? Any missed opportunities?
While I'm sure others are also exploring this field, I'm particularly interested in continuing to delve into network analysis. With the availability of data, tools, and incoming automation, there's an opportunity to create a sort of stream of consciousness for different behaviors. In the past, my work has been centered around specific entities and I see a path to expand this to a human behavioral approach. For instance, if we have a social listening infrastructure focused on capturing conversations around a particular life experience, I want to examine how people engage during these stages, identify expected conversation clusters, and understand the thread leading users from one cluster to another. This understanding of their path can help us grasp their mindset and how to engage with them at each stage, reflecting a full-circle understanding of their journey.
How do you think the social intelligence industry will evolve in the next few years?
I think social intelligence will go up in the priority list for overall business strategy. It's evident that social data's role has expanded beyond informing digital strategies to influencing product development and creating powerful relationships between brands and creators. We now have the capability to identify key attributes associated with brands using social data, enabling us to develop new product lines or enhance existing ones. The Stanley Cup "frenzy" would not have happened had they not adjusted their strategy to engage with people who were talking about them, even when they were not the initial target they set to acquire. While partnerships with content creators are not a new concept, understanding a brand's perception through social data can help align with creators whose online identity overlaps with an untapped niche for the brand. This alignment leads to more authentic collaborations that users will be excited to support.
These strategies exponentially multiply the impact of social data and the potential revenue associated with these insights. In my perspective, this shift indicates a maturation in how companies leverage social intelligence and measure its success.
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