What is your job title? How do you use social listening in your work?
I currently work at IQVIA in the capacity of Director - Offerings Management, Social Media Intelligence. I oversee this business at IQVIA, and I have been closely involved in establishing this workstream at IQVIA in the past 13 years. IQVIA has a strong focus on healthcare. My team and I deliver social listening insights to a variety of clients in the healthcare space which include pharmaceutical, consumer health, medical devices, biotechnology, and dermo-cosmetics companies. We perform in-depth analysis of public-only social and online posts related to molecules, brands, consumer health products, companies, diseases conditions and events. These social insights, which represent the voice of patients, caregivers, and physicians, help our clients make informed decisions during various stages of their research and product commercialization process, thus enabling patient-centric support and engagement initiatives.
What’s your background? How did you get into social listening?
In terms of education, I have an industrial engineering degree and MBA with specialization in Global Business Management and Marketing. For a long time, I worked in international marketing and then in internet marketing. I was interested in the insights and analytics that made marketing more effective. My first foray into digital and social media marketing in the healthcare space was with a medical devices company in California. At that time, many companies were investing in building analytics capabilities and one of those opportunities came my way. Social intelligence was a nascent but promising analytics discipline. I was tasked with establishing the social intelligence services business from scratch. This seemed like a fascinating assignment and there were few companies in this space. This was an opportunity to be a pioneer in the social intelligence space and I pursued it. There were several challenges in the beginning but eventually, we took risks, explored, learned and succeeded.
What’s been the project you’ve been most proud to work on?
Over the years, I worked on many fascinating projects. A project that I am most proud of involved conducting social media-based research to discover patient insights related to humanistic burden which were difficult to find in traditional research. We ensured that our research met scientific research criteria and provided robust findings. These insights were used to support the launch of a therapy used in treating chronic pain. This was a strong validation of the idea that social insights can not only complement traditional research but also at times provide novel insights. This research was presented at scientific conferences and published in medical journals.
What’s the biggest misconception about your work?
There are many misconceptions about my work. One is that there are always abundant social posts from patients and physicians about in-market pharmaceutical, consumer health and Med Tech brands and it is always possible to get the right insights from social media. While this can be true for most widely used products, it's not always true for a long tail of other products.
Any nightmare clients? Why? (No names)
I have been fortunate to have worked with the best clients in the industry.
Is there anything that you’re doing with social data that you don’t see others doing? Any missed opportunities?
One thing I have noticed is that many researchers or brands tend to focus on the “known” and somewhat unwilling to explore the “unknown” when it comes to social insights. For instance, most social insights reporting programs tend to focus on providing standard and well-established metrics where investment is relatively easier to justify. Few explore novel approaches or set out to find previously undiscovered insights. In my opinion, that’s a missed opportunity. In recent times, we have been experimenting with such ideas and publishing research to generate awareness. Certain insights which typically come from non-social research methods established over the years, are not readily sought from social research. Also, sometimes, strict regulation and compliance requirements in certain industries tend to discourage heavy investment in social intelligence. Brands have a lot to gain by monitoring both the positive consumer experiences with their products and the challenges faced by consumers, either related or unrelated to their product.
Who has made a lasting impression on you? Any SI heroes?
Everyone in the Social Intelligence Insider 50 list has been doing inspiring work. The sheer diversity of companies adopting social intelligence is impressive.
How do you think the social intelligence industry will evolve in the next few years?
I think the social intelligence industry is at a fascinating stage of evolution. Several things are happening. For instance, while advancements in technology, especially in advanced analytical techniques, use of NLP and Generative AI have brought efficiency to the analysis process, they have also raised expectations from social insights and there is pressure to deliver on those expectations and generate tangible output. At the same time, newer tools with such AI capabilities are entering the market although they are not mature enough to justify replacing existing infrastructure. These tools will have to establish differentiation quickly so that investment can be justified. In the meanwhile, there is an explosion of content in the short video format such as TikTok videos, YouTube shorts and Instagram reels and monitoring such content hasn’t fully matured. I have seen new tools which have video monitoring capabilities and those will see quick adoption. Overall, in terms of evolution, we will have to adapt to these changes and quickly put in place technology configurations, processes and methodologies to continue to support businesses with actionable social insights.
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