Sprout Social Summit Focuses on Turning Social Data Into Action

Sprout Social’s first Social Intelligence Summit brought industry leaders together to discuss how information gathered from social media can inform decisions across a business. The sessions covered how teams can identify emerging signals, assess their relevance and turn findings into action.

In the opening keynote, Jay Schwedelson, founder of SubjectLine.com and CEO of Guru Media Hub, urged marketers to rely less on guesswork and pay closer attention to what customers and competitors’ customers are saying. Schwedelson said his agency runs about 40,000 campaigns a year. His argument was that social listening can help marketers identify what to do next, provided they act on the information quickly.

Speakers also addressed the internal processes that can slow a response. One takeaway was to settle approvals before a timely opportunity arises: teams should establish boundaries, identify who can make decisions and prepare a checklist in advance. Speed alone, however, is not a reason to participate in a trend. Marketers should consider whether it suits the brand, offers something useful and can be acted on in time.

Another theme was that social intelligence has greater value when it changes decisions outside the marketing department. The summit recap pointed to examples including all-day breakfast, the Ziploc cereal bag and Dubai chocolate. To make insights useful across departments, marketers need to present them in terms that match the priorities of leadership, legal, product and other stakeholders.

People featured in the discussion as both sources of information and potential channels for sharing a message. Fans, ambassadors, employees and community managers can help surface signals and extend a brand’s reach. For smaller teams, the advice was to begin within their existing area of influence: bring one signal to one team and work toward a single outcome.

Artificial intelligence was presented as a tool for tasks such as summarizing information and improving efficiency, rather than a substitute for human judgment. The summit takeaways called for people to remain involved in decisions and cautioned against content that audiences recognize as AI-generated.

What this means for marketers

Start with a social signal that could inform a specific decision, then share it with the team best placed to act. Set decision-making and approval rules early, and assess whether a trend genuinely fits the brand before responding.