“Engagement” is table stakes when it comes to understanding and leveraging the intelligence that social media offers brands. In order to go deeper, you need sophisticated listening protocols, data and analytics infrastructure and a plan for democratizing that intelligence so that brand leaders can use it. Those were just some of the key takeaways from one of the highlights of this week’s MediaPost Pharma and Health Insider Summit. Danny Gardner, GSK’s Analytics Manager, US and NA Social Intelligence Lead brought us inside how GSK cultivated its consumer brand social listening post in house. 

The baseline metric of social media has always been engagement – the “What” people are interacting with, not the “Why.” Understanding sentiment, conversation, the reality of how people integrate products into their everyday lives, that is the next level marketing insight that is available to brands, but only  if they set up the tech and infrastructure and analytics to ask the right questions. Danny gave us one of the most comprehensive views into how a smart listening post evolves and produces new and unforeseen insights about how consumers really interact with products and where brands have a shot at adding genuine value to their customers’ lives.

To get the most from brand presences on social you need sophisticated listening protocols, data and analytics infrastructure and a plan for democratizing that intelligence so that brand leaders can use it. Those were just some of the key takeaways from one of the highlights of last week’s MediaPost Pharma and Health Insider Summit. Danny Gardner, GSK’s Analytics Manager, US and NA Social Intelligence Lead brought us inside how GSK cultivated its consumer brand social listening post in house. Engagement – the “What” people are interacting with, does not tell you “Why.” For that you need the tech, infrastructure and analytics that ask the right questions. Danny showed a smart listening post evolving to produce unforeseen insights about how consumers really interact with products and where brands have a shot at adding genuine value to their customers’ lives.