Innovation Insiders: Inside Intel with Jennifer Lashua, global social media strategist

Rafe Ring: Everyone is talking about innovation—from Microsoft and Citibank to Philips and Coca-Cola—but each has a very different perspective on what it is. How do you view the innovation, and how is it playing a role in Intel’s global social media strategy?

Jennifer Lashua: Innovation is at the core of what we do and who we are as a brand, so it’s natural for us to carry this through to social media. For me this means being able to take risks and create opportunities for us to test and learn on both emerging and established social networks. We beta test new features on social networks; we’ve created our own social publishing platform, iQ; we quickly identify & participate in social trends and we aren’t afraid to have a little fun while doing it [see 'Harlem shake' video below].

Rafe Ring: You’ve been lauded in the media for creating social media innovations that have led to figures such as “17 million fans on your global Facebook page, 900,000 @Intel Twitter followers, and more than 44,000 subscribers to your Intel YouTube channel”. From a social-media perspective, what do you personally see as your most innovative development leading and increasing this kind of consumer engagement?

Jennifer Lashua: We’re actually up to 30 million Facebook fans and 2 million Twitter followers worldwide—and we cherish every one of those relationships. Someone is taking the time and creating a connection with us. They’ve publically said “I want to be affiliated with Intel”, and we really value this. When we innovate on social media, it’s all in thinking about our fans and followers: What’s important to them? What do they want from us? When do they want it? How do they want to engage with us?

I believe a lot of our success is in the way we use data to learn what resonates with our fans and followers and then giving them more of this content and interaction with the Intel brand. We have a very agile social media team—we are learning, adapting, and quickly executing on ideas every day.

Rafe Ring: A couple of years ago you developed the ‘Intel Social Cockpit’—data analytics tools. Given the pace of change and the ‘law of fiber’ (which says that capacity of bandwidth is doubling every nine months) how did the Social Cockpit tools evolve to be relevant today?

Jennifer Lashua: We evolve the Social Cockpit for every event and every major activity that Intel participates in, so it’s current and reflective of the current environment. We’re constantly updating feeds and APIs to reflect a current picture of social indicators. We’re also creating data where data doesn’t exist—for newer networks which don’t yet have insights dashboards or brand measurement tools.

Rafe Ring: Do you believe that innovation is completely intertwined with technology? How would you describe the relationship between the two?

Jennifer Lashua: I’ve seen some really innovative content that’s not necessarily tied to technology, but more and more, successful social campaigns are either embedded with technology, created by technology, or developed using social data and insights. The most successful marketers coming out of school right now will be the ones who understand technology and know how to use and interpret data. Marketing and technology are inextricably linked and I don’t see this changing.

Rafe Ring: Intel is the world’s largest chipmaker for PCs and the world is shifting away from PCs and moving to mobile devices. How does the relentless growth of mobile impact on your social-media strategy?

Jennifer Lashua: My strategy is to be where people want to be, interacting with them in the ways they prefer. There are more people accessing social networks via mobile devices right now—this is a strong trend which is even stronger outside of the US—so we’re taking a mobile-first approach to social content development. If it doesn’t work on a mobile device, we don’t do it.

Rafe Ring: Innovation by definition involves risk. Corporate shareholder return can be an uncomfortable bedfellow with risk taking. What is the relationship between risk and social innovation, and how is that managed inside Intel?

Jennifer Lashua: Risk-taking is one of our core values, so it’s rewarded on various levels. I also think creative and innovative ideas are best cultivated in an environment where trust, teamwork, a strong desire to succeed, and individual empowerment are present. This describes the dynamic within the social-media team (both in US HQ and with our regional and local counterparts worldwide), and I think this is absolutely a key factor in our success. Innovation isn’t so much a process as it is the way we work on a daily basis.

Rafe Ring: It's a given employees will make mistakes as part of the social innovation process. Innovation inevitably leads to some failures. In your experience what has been Intel’s biggest social media failure—and what did you learn from it?

Jennifer Lashua: Behind every brand post or tweet is a live human being, and yes, sometimes mistakes do happen. And all brands also need to take measures to protect ourselves from external factors and news that might affect our social communities, so we have a 24x7 monitoring and crisis-management system in place.

One key learning for me is that we shouldn’t make programs too complicated, or ask our audiences for too much time or engagement. Social Media is all about lightweight interactions that ladder up to deeper connections over time, not all at once from a single experience.

Rafe Ring: Can you talk about any regionally focused innovations that are specifically designed to meet the changing needs of your consumers in Asia?

Jennifer Lashua: To engage with our local social communities in Asia, we feel the best way to do this is through local social-media managers creating locally relevant conversations and content. While we do use global campaigns to communicate with audiences around the world, some conversations are more meaningful when led from a local perspective. Our team is structured with a global/local framework, allowing us to do both.

Rafe Ring: Finally, what advice you would offer C-level executives who want to foster a culture of innovation inside their own organisation?

Jennifer Lashua: It’s very meaningful to lead by example and to embrace technology and social media by actively using it. Our CIO, Kim Stevenson, is a great role model for employees by taking an active role on Twitter. I also really admire the social presence our former EVP and chairman of Intel China, Sean Maloney—who was learning Chinese and learning social media at the same time—created for himself on Weibo. Seeing company leaders who are willing to go beyond the “safe space” and test and learn themselves makes employees feel empowered to do the same.

Recognizing employees who innovate is also an important way to show those employees and others in the organization that taking risks, learning, and innovating is a welcome part of the company culture. Andy Grove, past Intel CEO, is famous for his views (and the title of his book), Only the Paranoid Survive. He encouraged us to constantly think about what’s next, to be ready for the future, to create it. The book was written over 15 years ago but this advice absolutely holds true today, especially in the fast-paced world of social media.

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