Has the perception of social intelligence changed within your organization since you won last year’s SI Insider 50? If so, how?
Yes, it has. We have proven that we can answer meaningful business questions by utilizing social data, going beyond the usual suspects of mentions, likes, etc. Social intelligence, along with insights from other sources, has guided us in: launching and tracking new campaigns; how to engage with consumers; how to enter a specific fashion style space (and who our main competitors are); how our brands are perceived and if our branding initiatives are moving the needle towards the brand values that are important to us; assessing which new talents to partner with and which new brands to collaborate with. These are just to name a few.
What’s the most interesting social listening project you’ve worked on in the last year?
There have been quite a few. Unfortunately I cannot share much details but one of the highlights would be shaping the go-to-market strategy for a new collection aimed at a specific fashion style. Social insights helped us understand who owned that space, where our brands were positioned, how consumer behaviour changed in the past 2 years and how to best get our message across to consumers by efficiently cutting through the noise from competitors and new players.
What do you think makes you successful in your work?
The right tools can only take you so far. It is important to keep pushing forward, constantly think outside the box and ask yourself what new data or insights can you bring to the table. This also keeps the main stakeholders always interested in what you have to say or share, making it easier to influence change within the organization. Last but not least, hiring the right talents to support you. I have an amazing, albeit small, team and we constantly challenge each other and discuss new ideas. Our “share of social wardrobe” and using “brand attributes” as a more precise way to measure brand sentiment were born out of those brainstorming sessions.
What are the key skills that have contributed to your success?
I see my job as 45% creativity, 45% detective work and 10% textbook. It’s obviously important to have access to the best tools and have a good knowledge of how to use them to their full extent. However, that’s only a very small part of the job.
Creativity plays a huge role in a successful social insights career. Say you’re Netflix or Disney+ and you’re interested in what movie genres people are watching at home so that you can better curate content on your platform and commission new content for 2023. You can always use internal data but that only gives you insights on your existing customers. But what if you used a high volume hashtag such as #movienight to capture all the movie genres, actors, directors, movie titles and weekday that people are watching and that created a big enough emotion to warrant a social media post? This principle can be applied to any other industry as well.
Finally, asking the right questions, no matter how absurd they may sound at first, can lead you to very interesting insights. That’s where the detective work comes in. How will hybrid work impact the way people dress? Why has the Preppy style grown so much in the past 2 years? Why are searches for premium brand growing amid rising inflation and energy bills? Once you start following all the breadcrumbs on not only social but on the Digital landscape, you go down insightful rabbit holes.
Bonus tip: Search data is Social Intelligence’s best friend!
What makes social data special compared to other data sources?
Social data can be dangerous and misleading if we’re not careful. However, while Search data gives us intent, Social data gives us a more human, qualitative context. When combined, these two are the Jagger & Richards of Consumer Insights! You can get to highly actionable insights at a fraction of the time (and cost) of more traditional market researches. It can show you the path to elevate your brand from engaging with a consumer (a transactional connection) to engaging with a person (a much more relatable, emotional connection).
What motivates you in your work? What makes you keep wanting to work in Social Intelligence?
It’s such a dynamic space. Things are constantly changing. And we’re likely only experiencing Social Intelligence’s infancy. There is still so much that can be done, across several industries. Only a few brands have gotten social marketing right. It’s like a treasure hunt: the insights are out there; we just need to follow the clues. The trick is knowing what is a clue and what is noise.
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