[Podcast] From Data to Decisions: Jasmine Bansal’s Tips on Harnessing Social Listening for Product Launches and Strategic Success

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Podcast Transcript

Jackie Cuyvers [00:00:07]:
Welcome to the Women in Social Listening and Insights podcast, where we showcase the incredible work of women working in the field of social intelligence. My name is Jackie Cuyvers, and I’ll be your host for this journey. In this podcast, we’ll be speaking with women from enterprise, agencies, and academia who are leading the charge in the world of social listening and insights. Together, we’ll be exploring their careers and the challenges they’ve faced and overcome and the innovative solutions they’ve developed. Our goal is to provide valuable insights and advice to our listeners who are passionate about this field and committed to advancing their careers. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out, you’ll find inspiration and guidance in these conversations. So sit back, relax, and get ready to learn from the women who are shaping the future of social intelligence. Let’s get started.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:01:00]:
Today, I’m joined by Jasmine Bansal. Jasmine, please introduce yourself.

Jasmine Bansal [00:01:06]:
Hi, everyone. My name is Jasmine Bansal. I work at a bank of Montreal, also known as BMO. It’s one of the top 10 banks in North America. And I work within the social media, team at the bank. I have the social intelligence program and we look at all things, social listening. And we’re kind of working as the eyes and the ears of the bank to understand what’s going on for the bank, the competitors, the industry, the market in general, and just the lay of the land, all depends, everything. I worked there as a senior manager, and I have and I have a small little team. So we are trying to capture everything at all points of time related to social listening for the bank.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:01:54]:
Can you tell me a little bit about your background and how you first got into social listening and social intelligence? What did your path look like?

Jasmine Bansal [00:02:03]:
That’s a very interesting question because I don’t have a linear path when it comes to, working in the social intelligence field. I kind of just stumbled upon this field. So back in the day, I was working at craft, Canada in the consumer insights department. So consumer insights was kind of making sense of all the call center information that we were getting people calling in and, talking about what’s happening with their products and whatnot. So social, social media was an upcoming field and I’m talking like a decade back. I don’t wanna date myself, but it’s been, more than a decade now.

So at that time, social intelligence was just picking up, and that was another way where people were talking about the brand. They were going online and sharing their opinion and being the big brand.It was, I wanted to kind of capture that essence and include it into the day to day understanding of consumer insight. I think that was that it was as simple as that being there at that point of time kind of made me not made me, but introduced me to the field of social listening. And then I started working at that point of time. And as in when I started working in social intelligence, it made me more and more curious about what it is. How do we make more sense of the data? What are the different ways where in which we can look at the data that’s coming unsolicited from all these sources where people were just going, you know, all out and sharing what how they feel and what they what they want, what they like, what they don’t like. So that was the first foray into the social listening side of things. And, I loved it ever since I’ve been working in the same field. From there, kind of moved into the agency side of things and which cemented my love for this field because at the agency too, we were just starting this whole idea of social intelligence.

It was basically a moderation agency, but then we introduced social intelligence and reaching out to clients and sharing them what we can do in in this field and the kind of insights can that can be derived. And then from agency, moved into the banking industry, and I’ve been here. So I look forward to many more years in this journey.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:04:34]:
It sounds like you really love social listening and insights, and, you know, you’ve you’ve had this path that’s gone through brand side and across agencies and industries, but what really inspires you in your work?

Jasmine Bansal [00:04:48]:
A lot, I would say. 1 is just it’s a new thing every single day. That’s the bottom line. It’s not repetitive in nature. There’s every day, it’s a new thing. There’s an issue today. There is another issue tomorrow. Something great comes up, and then there is something which is which is not so great, I would say.

So it’s just the newness and the excitement, and you don’t know what you’re going to get into every day. I think that’s what keep it exciting. And it inspires me to go into work every day. Another thing that really motivates me is how people get excited looking at the data. It’s such a real, a new field, and we’re still in the very starting phase of this industry. So it’s exciting to see when you present data and you present insights from social to different stakeholders, they’re like, oh, really? Oh, you can you can look at that? Oh my god. I didn’t think about this kind of thing. So it’s that kind of introducing people to insights from this field and their reaction to it that motivates me a lot too. So mix of both those things.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:05:57]:
I think that that that feedback or the gratification about how impactful those data driven insights is is certainly, you know, fantastic acknowledgment of what can be done and how useful and impactful social listening and insights can be. So love that. Can you describe your current role and how you use social intelligence?

Jasmine Bansal [00:06:18]:
So like I said, I manage the social intelligence program at the bank, and social intelligence is now slowly becoming an important part in which the bank views customer input and each year this is increasing. And why do I say that? Because now more and more people are getting to know about the power of social. We’re living in a world where people are taking on to social. There are new channels, there are new ways in which people can communicate and more and more people are realizing that you cannot ignore this part of research. And I call it a research because it is a research field. It may not be the traditional way of getting insights from data or getting insights from what people are talking about, going out for surveys, holding focus groups. Definitely not that, but it is still a way where you are reaching out to people. You are understanding what they are saying, and then you are trying to derive some meaningful insights.

And as the days go by more and more people are realizing the importance More and more, people are realizing that this is an interesting, a fast, a quick, and almost real time way to gather feedback, so why not use it? And at our bank also, we are using it more and more. We are using it as a form of proactive research where if you’re going to do something, you take a look at the lay of the land, what’s happening currently with respect to industry, with respect to competitors, just to kind of guide you if you’re moving in the right direction, we use this at as a reactive form of understanding consumer feedback. And then we also use it as a form of kind of keeping a pulse on important issues in topic to mitigate any sort of crisis that may occur towards the bank, because if something goes wrong or if something is not working, social is the first place where people go and react. So multiple ways where we’re using social intelligence at the bank. And I absolutely love it because coming from a place where it was just reactive and you have to like educate and push your cost. Look, we have this kind of data. We, we, you should be using this data. There’s so much insight in there to a place where it is being well accepted and it’s forming a part of the fabric where you’re trying to understand the consumers.

Jasmine Bansal [00:08:55]:
It’s an amazing place to be.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:08:58]:
How do you approach collaboration and teamwork in social intelligence projects? You mentioned you have a team there. So do you have any insider advice on how how best to do that?

Jasmine Bansal [00:09:10]:
My only advice would be educating your stakeholders. That’s the only way you can work together. And I think within the team itself, it’s important to communicate openly. Social intelligence is such a fast paced area that you cannot hold the information to yourself. Just one person. If one person has the information or one person is working on a project, it’s gonna get lost. What if you’re not able to make it one day into the office? Or what if you’re not able to access your internet is not working? Things could really go wrong. So I guess the biggest part is having an open channel of communication with your entire team, working super closely, keeping everybody informed what’s happening, what’s not happening, doing doing chats with your team at a regular interval so that everybody is at the same pace.And then at the same time, educating your stakeholders as well, that look as a team, we’re working on this. This is where we are. This is what we agreed. This is what we are going to do for you. So collaboration and communication, I think are the 2 important parts of this of this field.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:10:25]:
Can you tell me perhaps about a time where your work or your research has challenged conventional wisdom or something that stakeholders thought they knew?

Jasmine Bansal [00:10:35]:
Oh, this is an interesting one. I would say one of the most important example for that would be at a time when I was working at an agency. It was just that we were working for a global brand. They were sold on the idea of social listening and getting to know what consumers are saying about their brand from this way. So we were doing an extensive research of what they are doing. They had launched a new brand campaign and that campaign was, was a global camp, a 100% a global campaign. But to start with, they were just trying to gain idea about how that campaign is doing and what’s working, what’s not working and how to address phase 2 of that campaign based on data in North America. And we’ve seen when there it’s, for North American companies or bigger companies, they usually try to focus on their home country.But the data that we were getting from within the home country was not would not have been reflective of what people are feeling about that campaign in different parts of the world. So we kind of challenged them on that. We said, look, you know, we know you just want to focus on North America, but, your campaign is running in Africa, Asia, Europe, everywhere. So let’s try and look at another another area as well and try to see what’s happening there. That was the hardest sell because they did not want to go and see. They’re like, oh, in the past, everything has worked what we’ve done in North America. And by extension, it has worked different parts of the world. But because that campaign was an emotional connect kind of campaign, it wasn’t not hardcore product sell or a feature sell.

It was more building a community of their clients and bringing them together that we thought it would not be right to look at the data from within North America and then, you know, by extending it to different parts of the world. So just selling that, and then we looked at the data from Asia. Oh my God, Jackie. It was totally different. The way that people were reacting to that campaign in North America was extremely the opposite of Asia because there was a different trying to tell that users were totally different. It was a car company and the way they were using the car in one part of the world was totally different for other part of the world and what having a car meant. Because in North America, we consider car as a mode of transportation. You need it.

You can’t function without a car. So it’s kind of like one of those things, which is which is a given that you will have a curve. But back in the day, in Asia, a lot of people were getting into the car market. So buying a car was a very, very emotional experience. It was like a whole family was involved, and they would they celebrated buying that car as a, as a totally different kind of manner. So I think understanding your audience and not being leery to the fact that what has worked in the past would work in the future was the biggest learning from this kind of, project.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:13:46]:
It’s funny how, focused, not just clients, but, you know, many individuals can be when, you know, you’re just thinking from your individual perspective. Can you tell me about a time when maybe you had to pivot or change direction in a project due to unexpected findings?

Jasmine Bansal [00:14:06]:
I would say again, it was a, it was a time when I was working in my previous role and it was just, we were launching something new and the way we were addressing it was selling the advantages of the product. But the field that was we got from reading multiple Reddit threads around it because it was a popular thing that we were going to launch, and we were just going to talk about the advantages. And it was around a partnership. So we were talking about the advantages and how that partnership is bringing, we’re going to bring it to life, but we had read threads around it. And it was so interesting. People were not talking about the product. People were talking about as if they are a part of a community, as they, as if they were all, you know, in it together and they were all to get excited for it together. So we kind of like, maybe our communication needs to change.

It needs to move more around the idea of building a community related to this product or related to this announcement, rather than just talking about the features advantages and what we can bring to the tea table. So kind of changing the product slash service lens to a lens of building the community that, okay, you, you are thinking like a community. We are going to jump in. We will be a part of this community and we are going to help build nurture this community even further. So I think that was, that was really interesting.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:15:47]:
I think it’s so great. Probably one of the best things about this type of role that we get to listen to people and learn and actually take action that matters or that can have impact. One measurement is, you know, that impact that you’re having, but, like, how how do you measure the success of social intelligence projects? Are there any any kind of metrics that you live by?

Jasmine Bansal [00:16:13]:
No. I think metrics metrics depend from project to project. So the success for me would be if my stakeholders are happy. If they think that they’ve got something meaningful for the for the scope they’ve set for me And if the end result is something meaningful and something actionable, then I think that would be success for me. Metrics. Yes. And no, sometimes I use the, you know, everybody loves sentiment. Despite the disclaimer that I always put out, look, it’s all automated and it may not be a 100% though.

We do have a lot of tools now that are doing really good in the sentiment area. But then everybody loves to know the sentiment. So I think that would be something that I would always share with my stakeholders. But then again, like I said, that would not be a criteria for success because depending upon what the project is or what the, you know, the event or topic is happening, sentiment could be all over the place. So just ensuring that the stakeholders are getting what they need in a timely fashion would be a successful intelligence project. It’s it’s a short faced thing, right? Like you can’t take too much time when it comes to looking at what people are talking about for your product or your service on social media. It, it changes every single day. So the timeliness is very varied.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:17:40]:
Can you give an example of or walk us through kind of, you know, project that you worked on and learned from it, or or even maybe give a comparison of, like, a quick hit project like you’re talking about, you know, something where you’re getting an answer in a day versus something where you got answers over weeks. What does that versus something where you got answers over weeks. What does that difference look like for you?

Jasmine Bansal [00:18:00]:
So let’s say, for example, if we’re launching a new product, right, any any brand is launching a new product, a quick success would be right when you launch it, there is a team who’s constantly monitoring what’s going on on social media and try from within those conversations, try to figure out if there’s anything that’s not working. I’ve had these experiences in the past when a product is launched and maybe, you know, the website has broken or they’re not able to fill in the information. They’re required to fill in a form, but they’re unable to. So getting these small little tidbits of feedback and making sure it’s conveyed to the teams right away has helped them so much in the past. Because the last thing you want when you’re launching something new is that your consumers are not able to consume it. Right? So if your customers are not able to consume it, then your launch itself takes a pushback. So supporting teams on an ongoing basis in real time or when they are launching something has always proven really helpful. Because sometimes they are able to figure out these things, and once we convey them, they quickly gather their teams and do the fix.

And most of the time, it’s a technical fix that is required when new new products are launching.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:19:22]:
How does social intelligence, in your view, contribute to not just monitoring those launches or campaigns or experiences, but go beyond that to help shape business strategy or business growth? And what impact do you expect your work or social intelligence projects to have on a company’s financial performance?

Jasmine Bansal [00:19:44]:
Oh, that’s a great question. I think we are at a place where we are beyond just monitoring. That is where what social intelligence started with. And it’s my opinion. We started at a place where we are just monitoring reactively. Something happened, we monitor, we let our interested parties know, and then they take it from there. But currently, and as I am progressing in my career too, and I see in and even in my current organization, social intelligence is is way beyond that. It is now come up as a it’s at a place where we are using it more as proactive means.

And whenever we are using something proactively, that definitely helps in contributing to business ideation, business planning, business strategy. What what are we going to do in the future? So that whole shift from a reactive medium to a proactive medium itself, I think, contributes a lot towards the business planning and strategic, thinking. So for example, you know, you want to and I’m going to give a hypothetical example that a business wants to launch a product in the market. It’s not a net new product. It’s, it’s something that’s already there. To do that, social intelligence can help understand various things even before you are launching and planning of what you bring to the market. Social intelligence can, a, and help you understand what is the the market feeling about that kind of product. So generally, like, what are the other competitors doing? How do people use that product? Is it is it well received, or is there anything that is lacking that people are talking on social about? So that will help you decide the strategy around that product.

What would be the calm strategy around? If rather than focusing just on the product, what are the things that people are talking about on the Reddit threads and in x and x y z that we need to focus on. If people are talking a different language and a different use case for the product that we are going to be launching, then let’s communicate that. Like so that’ll form a part of their communication strategy. To then in terms of even the product itself, what is the problem that we are going to solve? Right? So in the traditional forms of research, the way we used to go about is build a questionnaire based on our understanding. So it was all prop brand understanding that they would build a questionnaire and ask for, what do you want from this? What do you want from that? Or how would you like it to be? Now in that kind of scenario, there is some sort of preconceived notion that we have around those things, and we are asking questions based on that. But in a social environment, we’re not giving any sort of feedback. We’re not giving any sort of food for thought on the basis on which our customers can formulate their examples or their, feedback. We are just scanning what they’re already talking about.

We’re just looking at that. So that is totally unsolicited without any sort of, you know, a starting point, so to say. So whatever is coming from the other side, the social side is truly and purely what is going on in the consumer’s mind without them being given a push or without them being given an direction in which they can think about things. So that kind of feedback is super helpful when companies are thinking of expanding, when think companies are thinking of building new products, because you are identifying what the consumers actually need without even you asking them about it. So you will be fulfilling a need that is already there, which to me is super powerful. As more and more companies realize this fact, we see that this, our field of social intelligence, it’s gaining more and more popularity. That is a reflection of what is happening. A change or a shift is happening where social is being is is an important part of strategic decision making, strategic planning, and how it’s going to impact the bottom line.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:24:23]:
So how do you most effectively invade these strategic insights to your stakeholders? I mean, what’s more important, do you think? The storytelling or the data visualization?

Jasmine Bansal [00:24:33]:
Oh, storytelling. I think a little bit more important. I wouldn’t say it’s a lot more important, but I I think it’s the storytelling. Data visualization without a story does not have much to say. Yes. If there are huge changes in the data, yes, there is some we can easily see from, the visualized data. But then what is going behind these peaks and troughs? What is it that people are saying? I think that’s the beauty of the social data. You’re adding context to a lot of things that we are seeing, And that is where professionals like you and me come into place.

We’re not just grabbing the data and putting them in beautiful charts and, you know, presentations. We are adding context. We are adding the backstory. So that backstory is what is more important, and that is what’s going to be super helpful for our customers.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:25:31]:
So you shared a little bit about, you know, not just taking one perspective in particular on global brands or campaigns. So how do you ensure that those in insights that you’re sharing and recommendations are relevant and applicable across different markets or languages?

Jasmine Bansal [00:25:51]:
So, again, it comes back to the same, same thing. Kind of try to find the insights from the market that you’re working in. I think that’s important. And from a language perspective too, it is, you know, in my past experience, I’ve realized that having people in the market who can support you with understanding what’s going on is way better than using Google translate. So in one of my projects I did use started using global Google translate to kind of understand what’s going on in a different market. But again, you lose the context. And I think context is very important. So using people or collaborating with the local who can help you understand what it exactly means.

What’s the context and add more colors to the whole story or the insights that we have gathered is super important. So I would say going local, collaborating with the local folks. And and I know it’s not possible at all points of time. If you’re working as an agency, you probably have people who are from one point of from one geographic location, and you may not have locals if you’re looking at, for a global brand. But then there are so many, you know, ways you can do that. You can get somebody hire somebody to work for you on a contract basis, and there are freelancers. There are so many freelancers who offer these services, different parts of the world work on a project basis. So I, I, I encourage that we partner with those or collaborate with those kind of folks who are in the local market and then provide the right kind of insights with all the context that is required.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:27:39]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that not just the language expertise, but the cultural understanding, cultural context is really important to understanding developing the right insight. So how do you stay current with the latest developments in social intelligence, and what resources might you rely on?

Jasmine Bansal [00:27:58]:
My one of my biggest resources, the SI Lab. Okay. So I, I love what, social intelligence lab does and the way, you know, they’re bringing all the information together. It’s not a paid advertising. That’s the disclaimer. It’s not a paid, but I love the work that Gillian does and her team puts together. There’s always so much to learn. And honestly, like, I go in, I look at every single day.

I look at what’s the latest and the greatest because there’s one or the other article. There’s some sort of discussion, conversation, deep dive, whatnot, everything is available. So that is that. And then a little bit old school, I kind of like to read news and see what’s happening because while everything may not be directly related to social intelligence, but just getting a pulse on what’s going on on day to day basis around the world helps me get a better perspective on so many things for my work too. So just doing those 2 things and Reddit, Reddit is an amazing place to get to know any sort of information. You can quickly go down the rabbit hole and on Reddit and go from one topic to other topic, to other topic, to other topics.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:29:13]:
I think you you need to have, the cultural fluency to be able to win a game show as you do to be, you know, an effective social listening expert. Because, just understanding your your local pop culture and actors and cultural references and everything are are part of the job. Are there any I mean, I think the SI Lab is great, but are there any books or blogs or podcasts you would recommend to other social listening or insights professionals?

Jasmine Bansal [00:29:45]:
I don’t read a lot of books outside of fiction, so that’s my go to place for relaxation. But I do listen to podcasts. Just I just search on Spotify, social media, social listening, business. So I can’t remember any on top of my head, but I, it, it depends. I’m not, you know, I would not say that I’m a avid follower or listener to 1 podcast. Whatever is the mood. I just search it on Spotify and listen to podcasts.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:30:18]:
Okay. You mentioned Reddit. Is are there any particular subreddits that you’d recommend or are willing to recommend?

Jasmine Bansal [00:30:26]:
Oh, personal finance Canada. That’s amazing. And I think I’m there because because of the nature of the work. I’m in banking for a long time now, so that’s the go to place.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:30:37]:
Very cool. I’ll have to check it out. How do you see the field of social intelligence evolving over the next 5 to 10 years?

Jasmine Bansal [00:30:45]:
Oh, I think we’re gonna reach our teenage years in the next 5 to 10 years. We’re still in that infancy stage. I feel like we’re like, you know, we’re moving towards our teenage years. So the initial perk where we were just learning to kind of crawl, walk and talk that is done. So now it’s, we’re at a place and we will be, for the next few years at a place where we’re going to develop a personality and we’re slowly going there. With a lot of And we’re slowly going there with a lot of understanding that’s happening around businesses for the, and the need for social media intelligence and the real time nature of data that comes through it. People are loving it from what I see and they want more and more out of it. So the next few years will be kind of identifying what would be the, the key areas as an industry that we’ll be focusing on moving away from just monitoring to the thing that we talked about for the strategic insight and planning.

I think that is still we’re in the works and that is kind of the area that we’ll be focusing on in the next few years to just being a strategic partner to our stakeholders, to the people we are working with. So developing a personality would be what I would say.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:32:09]:
Can you share any advice for people interested in pursuing a career in social listening and insights?

Jasmine Bansal [00:32:17]:
The only thing I would say is be curious. Be aware of what’s happening. You we you know, as a social intelligence person, you need to understand different aspects of the business. When you’re working or you’re focusing on a product, you are very much focused on just one single product. You know, the ins and outs, you know, everything about it, but being a social intelligence professional, you kind of need to make an effort to get, to understand different parts of the business, not just one product, have a better understand have an understanding of all the product. You don’t need to be subject matter expert, but you need to know whichever industry you are working in, whichever company you are working in, you have a decent understanding of the industry over, how it works. You have an understanding of the different components of your company, the different businesses that are being run for your company, and, and try to be able to think how you can help. Right? A lot of the times, what we have to do is we have to educate our clients because they don’t know what social can do and what social cannot do.So the willingness to be able to go out and educate and tell them what you bring to the table is a critical skill set.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:33:42]:
Knowing what you do now and having your experience on brand side and agency side, how would you advise future women in social listening and insights to perhaps pursue the optimal educational path or career experience to get to this type of role?

Jasmine Bansal [00:34:01]:
Oh, that’s a great question. It’s important to be curious. It’s important to be wanting to know more, and it’s important to be wanting to share too. Even if, you know, you hit roadblocks where people might say, oh, I don’t know if I’m ready for social. You need to be ready to tell them and pursue and educate. I would say for an educational, like I haven’t had the most linear path, so I wouldn’t comment on the education part, but what I really find helpful, which in my career has been my time at an agency. I would highly recommend everybody to work at an agency, especially for our field, because you deal with so many different clients and so many different issues in so many different apps that you kind of try to, you, you get really good at figuring out what would work for what kind of client or what would work in what kind of scenario. So I, in, when I talk to people in my organization too, that’s kind of what my feedback is that work in an agency, not for any other reason, just to get more experience and a varied kind of experience.

That’s the thing, because working on a brand side is very different from working at an agency brand. You are very much focused on a given group of businesses and, which are similar to a large extent. But when you’re an agency, you are working with, you know, varied clients and their varied task and the various, some of the clients maybe where you have to be super careful in terms of the legalities of the things. Some of the clients, you don’t have to worry too much. So varied experiences were just gonna help you in your career.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:35:50]:
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Jasmine, for sharing your experience and your path to social intelligence. I really appreciate you taking the time and and sharing your own insights.

Jasmine Bansal [00:36:04]:
Oh, thank you so much, Jackie. It was absolutely wonderful to to talk about it. I love talking about it and thank you for the opportunity and thank you for giving all of us the platforms like this, where we can talk about our experiences and talk about all of things social.

Jackie Cuyvers [00:36:24]:
And that’s a wrap for this episode of the Women in Social Listening and Insights podcast. I hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation and taken away some valuable insights and advice from today’s guest. If you like this episode, please be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Spotify so you never miss an episode. And don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn for updates and additional resources. I’d like to take a minute to once again thank our interviewee for taking the time to join us on the show today and sharing her story and insights with us. Your contribution to the world of social intelligence is truly invaluable, and we’re so grateful for you sharing your time and expertise. And finally, if you listeners know of anyone else who would make a great guest on our show, please don’t hesitate to introduce us.