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What is your job title? How do you use social listening in your work?
My job title is Head of External Monitoring - and it represents my role in bringing external insights into the organisation. My role is global, and I use social listening and all forms of digital analytics in my work - including web and search. Social listening is a critical part of understanding the external landscape: what is on people’s minds? How are attitudes towards key societal challenges evolving? What are the barriers to adoption of new technologies?
There’s been a huge awakening as to the power of online data and how it can be used to shape strategy. Social listening and search data combined offer great insight into what issues customers and society are facing. What type of language they use, questions they have around the energy system, and how this differs across the globe. It enables us to meet our audience where they are and adapt quickly.
What’s your background? How did you get into social listening?
I never intended to go into social listening - I fell into it. Whilst studying Law at university I took up a part-time job as a media analyst to help fund my degree. As time went on I became less interested in pursuing a legal career, and more and more interested in the way people interact with different forms of media. Social networks were growing at an exponential rate, new platforms were emerging, some were failing. The social listening space was new and interesting and fast-moving. The antithesis of UK law.
After graduation I was offered the opportunity to work on news and social media analytics at a small insights agency that is now part of Cision - the owner of Brandwatch. The agency focussed on the automotive sector, and as a keen car enthusiast I leapt at the opportunity. I started out working with Jaguar Land Rover to analyse communications related to car launches. The social listening tools I started out with were very rudimentary, and required far more manual analysis. A far cry from the AI-powered platforms we have today.
What has been your biggest achievement?
Aside from making the Social Intelligence Insider top 50, of course? I started my career at a small insights agency and my proudest achievement is going from an unknown in the UK market, to a team of 50 working with all major brands in the automotive industry - primarily through word of mouth. Using data to make better decisions is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and the phenomenal growth achieved at this stage of my career was a huge learning curve, but also hugely rewarding.
What’s the boldest mistake you’ve made? What did you learn from it?
I was working on a product launch for a car brand, showcasing a live news and social media insights dashboard to their global communications team as the press launch was underway. The searches were set up before the event, had been tested, and the data was clean. Little did I know, someone with a very similar name to a competitor’s car brand was on a reality TV show in South America, and suddenly gained lots of traction for some risqué activity. The live data coming through wasn’t the kind you wanted to see in a room full of people on a giant screen. A few panicked calls to the office later, and we filtered out most of it for the rest of the day. I spent a night building complex exclusions to filter out the content. Luckily, the client saw the funny side. The main learning? In this space, you’ll never have a completely perfect search, and there’s always a chance that something completely unpredictable will come out of the blue. The side learning - when displaying live data to a room of 100 people, use a VERY comprehensive profanity filter…
What would be your dream project to work on?
Is it too cliche to say I’m already doing it? When I moved from an insights agency side in-house, in the back of my mind I was worried I may get bored working for just one brand. Almost 6 years in and I am still learning new things every day. I’m fascinated by the global energy challenge and I’ve worked on projects related to electric vehicle charging networks, biofuels, wind farms - you name it. I’m lucky to have the opportunity to work on such a diverse range of topics in a complex sector that powers people;s lives.
Do you think there’s a right way and a wrong way to use social data?
I don’t think there is a right way as such. The world of social and online data is changing so rapidly, the only right thing to do is constantly adapt your approach and expand your horizons. Continue to educate yourself on new platforms, technology, and how users in different regions use different platforms. These are the things that count when deriving insights from social data.
On the flipside, I absolutely think there is a wrong way. It can be easy for those unfamiliar with social data to draw the wrong conclusions. Without context, the kind of statistics you get from social data can be alarming. As social intelligence professionals we understand our data. We get it. It is our responsibility to articulate insights and recommendations in a way that businesses can digest.
Are there areas where you think you should be using social data for but aren’t currently?
We are currently looking into ways to use social data as more of a predictor - how to see around corners. What is bubbling under the surface that we should elevate as a risk or issue? What is the next trend in a certain space? I don’t mean finding out what is trending now. I’m talking about looking for signals that can help understand what could potentially trend in the future. In the B2C space the available data means this is slightly easier to do as there is more chatter on products. But the sample size is smaller for corporate branding and communications. Nevertheless, there is an opportunity to improve our ability to spot signals which inform future planning.
What’s your favourite data source to use and why?
At the moment, my favorite data source by far is search. In my role I use social, news, web and polling data, but search offers a whole new perspective. Social data captures information people are willingly putting out there, but search allows you to look at common terminology, questions and concerns. The things people aren’t sure about, want to know more about, but perhaps would not reveal to the wider world. Search is hugely powerful when combined with social listening. If you work in this space and don’t use search heavily at the moment - invest the time to learn more.
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