How did you get into social intelligence? What was your career path to your current position?
My path into social intelligence started circa 2018 when I received a login to the premier social media measurement platform during that time. Up to that point, my work had been largely focused on analyzing news coverage and corporate reputation surveys. After I began working steadily in the platform, I discovered the power of analyzing long tail conversations and general social trends, consistently experimenting with how to marry those data to other business KPIs. Those experiments and “mind shift” from news data to social media cemented my passion for fusing social intelligence data with other KPIs.
I started my career as a media analyst focusing on quantifying and telling data rich stories about how brands in the automotive industry were being covered by the news media. Over the past decade my role has shifted into focusing on developing new tools and methods to best deliver insights to our leadership to inform decision making.
What do you think makes you successful in your work?
Being an active listener and never saying ‘no’ to a request. My background is in Library Science and we are trained to direct patrons on where to find answers if we as Librarians can’t directly answer their question. This type of approach and attitude (I believe) has helped build trust and respect amongst my colleagues. My team and I also take pride in the quality of insights we provide which has helped build long term equity and deep trust amongst our colleagues for the counsel and recommendations we provide.
What are the key skills that have contributed to your success?
The ability to toggle between the more granular aspects of data analysis while still detecting shifts in the higher level trends. I’ve also worked very hard to build deep knowledge around my industry to ensure that our insights remain holistic and cover every angle.
What motivates you in your work? What makes you want to keep working in social intelligence?
When our team’s insights have direct influence on business decision making.
Social media conversations change by the minute, so every day provides a new perspective. Longer term, the ability to look at several years of social data and combine with other business KPIs to tell richer data stories.
What makes social data special compared to other data sources?
Two things for me:
- The amount of data. With millions of conversations taking place each day there is no shortage of information to analyze. This can also be overwhelming for some but coming from a research background I love working with a strong sample set!
- Emotion/sentiment. Social media – particularly forums – can provide an unvarnished perspective into how consumers truly perceive your brand and use your product
What does being a social intelligence evangelist mean in the context of your work?
Providing analysis and perspective directly from the voice of the customer. I believe amongst all the data companies analyze, the voice of the customer is most important. My job is to evangelize within our company the importance of evaluating social media intelligence (voice of the customer) alongside other business data.
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