Thom Brekke · Social, Operations & Data v · 2026 · Spring ed. Los Angeles — CA
Social Systems · AI Workflows · Brand Voice

Thom Brekke.

Fifteen years on social and digital teams in entertainment technology — building operational systems for social at scale, AI workflows with human judgment in the loop, and the translation layer between brand voice and customer-facing response.

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A social strategist who builds the systems behind the work and interrogates the data they run on.

I’m a social and digital marketer with an operations bent and a knack for translating guidelines across systems. Over 15+ years in entertainment technology, that’s meant building listening architectures that filter signal from noise, care queues that handle hundreds of thousands of mentions a month, and the brand voice translation between marketing intent and agent-level response. AI accelerates the repeatable parts; documentation keeps the systems usable beyond a single operator.

At Fox, I lead social care across FOX Sports, FOX One, and additional sub-brands — owning the translation layer between Marketing’s brand voice and customer-facing response, with a live AI advisory layer (in-suite AI plus Claude Projects) reviewing tone and response-fit before send. At Dolby, I built a global voice framework where EMEA and APAC contributed to the standards rather than just consuming them. I query Snowflake directly when stakeholder reports stall, and I document every workflow so the system survives beyond me.

Tab. 01 — Capability index 09 entries
01 Social strategy brand voice · organic · community programs
02 AI workflow development LLM tools · custom GPTs · production validation
03 Operations design queue systems · workflow architecture · cross-team ops
04 Social listening & care topic architecture · moderation systems · signal filtration
05 Data fluency SQL · Snowflake · Databricks · self-serve dashboards
06 Brand governance template systems · multi-brand standards · voice translation
07 Live event operations Super Bowl-scale · real-time escalation · broadcast support
08 Global standards EMEA · APAC · cross-regional voice frameworks
09 Content development editorial series · organic engagement · YouTube

Three roles, two companies, fifteen years.

Fox Networks
Los Angeles — CA
Senior Manager, Social Care Operations

Leads social care operations across FOX Sports, FOX One, and additional sub-brands. Rebuilt the workflow from scratch, owning the governance framework that translates brand voice into customer-facing response, with a live AI advisory layer reviewing tone and response-fit before send. Manages a back office team of 10+ through three Super Bowls, the World Series each year, and a FIFA World Cup.

  • Owns the governance framework and template library translating Fox brand voice into social care response across multiple sub-brands. In any given week, 30–50% of customer interactions move through the reactive template layer.
  • Built AI-enabled workflows for the repeatable parts of the job: weekly trend reporting (Snowflake SQL plus social API exports under human validation), Custom GPTs and Gemini Gems for brand voice rewrites, and a live API-connected social dashboard in Replit. Each tool keeps a human validator in the loop. Documented for team adoption.
  • Designed listening topic architecture reducing incoming post volume from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of actionable items daily, enabling agents to focus on issues that need them.
  • During live broadcasts, social signals surface technical issues (audio, streaming, access) to engineering ahead of formal bug-reporting channels.
2019 — Present
Dolby
San Francisco — CA
Manager, Digital Content, Communities & Media

Led global social communities reaching 1.5M+ followers, managing internal teams and agency partners across Dolby’s social content practice. Built bidirectional global standards and modernized the data stack.

  • Built a collaborative global voice framework with EMEA and APAC regional teams, including Dolby India and Dolby Middle East, where regional expertise shaped the standards rather than rules handed down from headquarters. Cross-regional content sharing workflows amplified local influencer and event assets across international channels.
  • Modernized Dolby’s social listening, publishing, and BI stack, building measurement frameworks that tied reporting to marketing-wide decisions.
  • Created “What’s That Sound?”, a templatized YouTube series anchored to a core brand pillar, that scaled to hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of comments without external production budget.
2016 — 2019
Dolby
San Francisco — CA
Sr. Communications & Social Media Specialist

Led social media from within Dolby’s Global Communications team. Oversaw Dolby’s first paid social campaigns, early influencer partnerships, and social blueprints for sweepstakes and event activations. Created and enforced social voice across paid, earned, and owned on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube — translating Dolby’s brand voice for consumer audiences.

2011 — 2016

Selected projects.

§ 03.1

AI-Enabled Workflow Development

A suite of AI-augmented workflows, each built to close a specific gap in social operations. Weekly trend reporting combining Snowflake SQL and social API exports under human validation. Custom GPTs and Gemini Gems for repeatable brand voice rewrites. A live AI advisory layer (in-suite AI plus Claude Projects) reviewing tone and response-fit on customer-facing care responses before send. The principle is the same in each: AI accelerates and scales human judgment, it doesn’t replace it. Each workflow is documented so the system survives beyond any single operator.

AI workflows
2019 —
§ 03.2

Social Listening & Care at Scale

Managing social at Super Bowl scale is a data architecture problem as much as a customer service one. The listening topic architecture I built across three Super Bowls, the World Series each year, and a FIFA World Cup separates technical complaint patterns from general game commentary, reducing peak-event volume from hundreds of thousands to hundreds. During broadcasts, streaming failures and audio problems surface to engineering ahead of formal bug reports. Year-round, the same architecture routes users to knowledgebase content and reduces live agent escalations.

Social ops
2019 —
§ 03.3

Brand Voice Translation Layer

Marketing owns brand voice. Care owns customer operations. Every 1:1 social care interaction has to honor both. The governance layer I own at Fox is the translation between them — a template library that propagates brand voice into customer-facing care response across FOX Sports, FOX One, and additional sub-brands. A live AI advisory layer reviews tone and response-fit before send (advisory, not blocking; agent judgment stays in the loop). 30–50% of weekly customer interactions move through the reactive template layer; the rest run on evergreen templates governed by the same framework.

Brand ops
2019 —
§ 03.4

Global Social Voice Framework

A collaborative global voice framework built with EMEA and APAC regional teams at Dolby (including Dolby India and Dolby Middle East), where regional expertise shaped the standards rather than serving as an exception to manage. The result wasn’t a rulebook; it was a shared language. Regional teams could make judgment calls independently because they’d helped shape the standards behind them. Cross-regional content workflows amplified local influencer and event assets across international channels.

Global standards
2016 — 2019
§ 03.5

Insights & Reporting

Measurement is easy to defer until after the work is done, which is exactly when it becomes least useful. I build reporting frameworks at campaign kickoff so success criteria are agreed in advance and post-mortem insights are actionable rather than retrospective. The approach scales from native platform analytics to direct Snowflake queries to AI-assisted trend analysis. The bar for every piece of campaign collateral: does this contribute to the campaign goal, and can I measure it?

Analytics
Ongoing
§ 03.6

Tool Selection & Implementation

Instinct for matching the tool to the problem, from enterprise social suites and data warehouses to lightweight dashboards built when the standard options don’t fit. Comfortable making tool recommendations, leading vendor evaluations, and onboarding teams onto new platforms. Equally comfortable building custom solutions when the enterprise option is overkill or doesn’t yet exist.

Systems
Ongoing
§ 03.7

“What’s That Sound?” — Content Development

A templatized YouTube format built entirely by Dolby’s internal marketing team, designed around the core audio DNA: brand-anchored, engagement-first, subscription-worthy. Every episode centers on sound (Dolby’s most ownable asset) and prompts viewers to answer a question, which drives organic comments. Delivered hundreds of thousands of views, thousands of comments, and measurable subscription growth — without external production budget.

Content
2013 — 2016