What was your journey/career path to your current position?
My path to analytics is an interesting one. I started my career over 20 years ago doing search engine optimization for small businesses in the wedding industry. As social media began to take the Internet by storm, I found myself gravitate towards more integrated marketing, focusing on web marketing, paid search and then social media. I was fortunate enough to work for a few innovative companies (Hewlett Packard and Intel Corporation in Silicon Valley earlier in my career. At that time, I was a part of the Social Media Center of excellence, and I was a part of a team responsible for scaling social media internally and building governance around measurement, employee advocacy, social software, and more.
In 2008 I joined the agency life. It was a good experience because I understood what clients were going through since I also worked on the brand side. I was mainly responsible for helping our clients launch social media programs and campaigns globally, and integrating paid social, employee advocacy and influencer marketing.
In 2018, I was hired by Zeno Group, a global integrated communications agency, to build out a B2B digital team on the West Coast. During this time, I saw that there was a need to innovate the way we were using social data, and integrate other data sources including media intelligence, and audience analysis.
Today, I oversee a global analytics team of almost 40 analysts, strategists, and data storytellers.
What's your proudest achievement of your career to date?
My proudest moment in my career has been the last four years working at Zeno. I am proud of what we have built. I am proud that we have experienced exponential growth, especially during the pandemic. I am proud to lead a team that supports each other, genuinely enjoys working together, and embraces innovation.
What does social intelligence mean to you?
I won't bore you with the textbook definition of social intelligence. What I will say is that social intelligence should be actionable and be presented in a way that others can understand. working at an agency, I have several internal and external stakeholders that don't necessarily understand the value of social data and how it can be used to inform the work that they do every single day. It is my job to ensure that data is packaged and visualized in a way that anyone can understand.
What's been the biggest challenge you've faced while trying to get brands to integrate social intelligence within their growth strategy?
Social intelligence is still a new concept. Most people think that it is synonymous with social listening, and I understand why. In the early days of social media, there were vendors like Scout Labs, Radian6, Sysomos, and BuzzMetrics and Collective Intellect that used language like social monitoring, social listening, or brand monitoring to describe the services they provide. Even today, analyst firms like Forrester refer to it as consumer intelligence, not necessarily social intelligence. All that said, I don't think that many brands understand the difference between monitoring social media mentions so that community managers can engage with advocates and detractors, and social intelligence. In my opinion, social intelligence can be used to find market whitespace. This is very different than social listening.
What do you think is the biggest missed opportunity for social intelligence?
The biggest missed opportunity for those who are practitioners of social intelligence or the vendors that provide the tools, is that they're not looking beyond social media as a data source. I am a firm believer that you can use the same methodologies for analyzing articles, media coverage, subreddits and review sites, that you would analyzing social media conversations.
I also think there is a disconnect in the market around audience analytics. It wasn't until just a few years ago that many social intelligence vendors started incorporating audience analysis.
What's on the cards for you and your team/organisation in 2022?
Innovation. In 2021, our team launched a global analytics certification program, which is meant to enable and empower Zeno employees use data to inform daily decision making. The 16-module video training series includes Boolean logic, audience analytics, understanding media intelligence, and effective use of data technology partners. Within the first two months, over 100 employees were certified.
In 2022, we are planning on launching phase two of the certification program which is more focused on advanced analytics.
How do you see social intelligence and its use evolving?
At Zeno, we are using social intelligence in innovative ways. Sadly, a lot of it is manual because we are blending data from other technology platforms. I am hoping that in the near future, some of these platforms will start to understand the value of integrating and innovating the way that they are pulling in data and from which sources.
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