Social & Digital Marketer

Thom
Brekke

15+ years building scalable social systems, AI-enabled workflows, and data-driven operations in entertainment technology.

Explore Work

Systems thinker, AI practitioner & social strategist

I'm a social and digital marketer who specializes in building the systems that make great work repeatable at scale. Over 15+ years in entertainment technology, I've developed a career at the intersection of three capabilities that are increasingly inseparable: social strategy, operational systems design, and data fluency.

I build AI-enabled workflows that accelerate insight generation and content operations — from automated trend reporting pipelines and Custom GPTs to live social dashboards built in Replit via API. I query data directly at the source using SQL, and I translate what I find into governance frameworks, playbooks, and moderation systems that teams can actually use.

I've applied that approach across global organizations, collaborating with EMEA and APAC teams to develop international brand standards, and leading live-event social operations at Fox where social listening functions as a real-time early warning system for technical issues during broadcasts.

AI Workflow Development Brand Voice Governance Social Systems & Standards SQL & Data Analysis Social Listening & Operations Global Standards & Enablement Live Event & Crisis Operations Editorial Content Strategy Cross-Regional Collaboration

Work History

Fox Networks
2019 – Present
Senior Manager

Senior Manager, Social Care Operations

Rebuilt Fox's social care workflow from the ground up, leading a back office team of 10+ agents through the design and continuous refinement of a moderation system delivering measurable improvements in queue efficiency, agent satisfaction, and issue resolution speed.

  • Owns the governance framework and template library that translates Fox brand voice into social care response across FOX Sports, FOX One, and additional sub-brands. When care data surfaces a recurring issue, coordinates with Marketing and Care to produce a brand-voiced, article-linked, personalizable response template; a live AI advisory layer (in-suite AI as the default with Claude Projects as a secondary backstop) reviews tone alignment and response-to-issue fit before send. Advisory, not blocking. 30–50% of weekly customer interactions move through the reactive template layer.
  • Built AI-enabled workflows for weekly trend reporting, combining Snowflake SQL data pulls and social API exports with AI-assisted analysis and human validation; created Custom GPTs and Gemini Gems with user documentation to enable repeatable brand voice rewrites across teams.
  • Developed standalone social data dashboards in Replit via secure API connections, giving stakeholders live performance readouts without requiring platform access.
  • Designed social listening topic architecture and care queue configurations reducing post volume requiring human evaluation from hundreds of thousands to hundreds or thousands daily, enabling agents to focus on genuinely actionable issues.
  • Managed social care operations across multiple Super Bowl broadcasts — surfacing real-time technical issues (audio failures, streaming delays, access errors) to Fox's engineering teams via social signals before they appeared in formal bug-reporting channels.
  • Reduced live agent escalations by directing users to targeted knowledgebase content; maintained a living knowledgebase updated reactively (new issues) and proactively (brand guideline alignment).
  • Trained and onboarded back office team on tools and workflows; incorporated regular agent feedback into queue structures and moderation processes.
  • Tools: Sprinklr, Khoros, Sprout Social, TalkWalker, NetBase, Snowflake, Databricks, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Replit.
Dolby
2016 – 2019
Manager

Manager, Digital Content, Communities, and Media

Managed internal and agency teams to generate, distribute, and report on content for Dolby's global social communities. Led community efforts reaching 1.5M+ followers worldwide.

  • Partnered with EMEA and APAC regional teams to develop a collaborative global social voice framework; built cross-regional content sharing workflows that amplified local influencer activations and marketing assets across international channels.
  • Reimagined social data practice by modernizing the listening, publishing, and BI stack, resulting in marketing-wide familiarity with key social metrics and nimble strategic decision-making.
  • Led data-driven creation of playbook documents ensuring fast, accurate moderation across product lines; drove social strategy for Dolby Cinema channel launches across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
  • Produced “What’s That Sound?” — a templatized YouTube content series that drove program-leading organic engagement: hundreds of thousands of views, thousands of comments, measurable subscription growth.
Dolby
2011 – 2016
Sr. Specialist

Sr. Communications and Social Media Specialist

Led social media from within Dolby's Global Communications team. Oversaw first-ever paid social campaigns, led influencer marketing exploration, and built 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.
  • Devised editorial calendars, partner launch campaigns, social promotions, and tailored PR announcements; managed sweepstakes and influencer partnerships internally and through agencies.
  • Laid early groundwork for international social collaboration practices that evolved into the formal EMEA/APAC global voice framework built in the subsequent manager role.

Selected
Projects

01
AI-Enabled Workflow Development

Building and documenting AI-augmented systems — from trend reporting pipelines and Custom GPTs to live Replit dashboards — that scale human judgment across teams.

View case study →
02
Social Listening & Care at Scale

Precision filtering systems that handled Super Bowl-level volume and turned social signals into a real-time technical early warning system for Fox broadcasts.

View case study →
03
Global Social Voice Framework

A bidirectional global voice framework built with EMEA and APAC teams at Dolby — incorporating regional expertise into consistent international brand standards.

View case study →
04
Content Development

“What’s That Sound?” — a low-cost, high-engagement YouTube series built around Dolby’s core audio DNA, delivering program-leading organic results.

View case study →
05
Insights and Reporting

Defining the metrics that matter before the campaign begins — and building the reporting systems that make post-mortem insights clear and actionable.

View case study →
06
Tool Selection & Implementation

Matching the right tool to the task — from enterprise social suites and data warehouses to bespoke lightweight dashboards when the standard options don’t fit.

View case study →
07
Brand Voice Translation Layer

The governance framework and template library that translates Fox brand voice into social care response across sub-brands — with a live AI advisory layer reviewing tone and response-fit before send.

View case study →

Building an AI-Augmented Social Operations Stack

Adopting AI tools is easy. Building reliable, repeatable systems with them — and documenting those systems so others can use them confidently — is the harder and more valuable work. Over the past several years I’ve developed a suite of AI-augmented workflows that address specific operational gaps, each with a human validation layer and documentation written for team adoption.

Weekly Trend Reporting Pipeline — Pulls quantitative metrics via social tool APIs and direct Snowflake SQL queries, feeds structured data into an AI analysis layer, and produces a consistent weekly trend narrative combining qualitative and quantitative findings. Human review validates AI output against known campaign context before distribution. Dramatically reduced manual production time while improving week-over-week consistency.

Brand Voice Rewrite Modules — Built Custom GPTs and Gemini Gems configured with brand voice guidelines and structured rewrite instructions. Paired with user documentation covering inputs, output evaluation, and editing checkpoints — enabling team members to produce on-voice content independently and at speed.

Production AI Validation for Customer-Facing Care — A live AI advisory layer that reviews tone alignment and response-to-issue fit on customer-facing care responses before they send. In-suite AI is the default validator; Claude Projects serves as a secondary backstop for complex or ambiguous cases and for agents still building fluency. Advisory, not blocking — agent judgment stays in the loop. The same workflow underpins the brand voice translation layer described elsewhere on this site.

Built a standalone social data dashboard in Replit, connected to social listening tools via secure API, delivering live performance readouts to stakeholders without requiring platform access or BI tool expertise.

The common thread: AI accelerates and scales human judgment, it doesn’t replace it. Each workflow is designed with that principle explicit — and documented so the system survives beyond any single operator.

Tools
ChatGPT / Custom GPTs Gemini / Gems Claude Claude Projects Replit Snowflake (SQL) Social API integrations
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Social as an Early Warning System — Live Operations at Scale

When Fox streams the Super Bowl, tens of millions of people are watching — and hundreds of thousands are posting about it in real time. Managing social care at that scale is a data architecture challenge as much as a customer service one. The signal-to-noise problem is brutal, and missing a real issue during a live broadcast has real consequences.

Across three Super Bowls, the World Series each year, and a FIFA World Cup — with another just around the corner — I built and refined a social listening topic architecture that solved two problems simultaneously: giving care agents a clean, actionable queue, and giving Fox’s engineering teams an early warning system for technical failures.

By separating technical complaint patterns from general game commentary, we reduced incoming post volume from hundreds of thousands to hundreds on game day — while ensuring streaming failures, audio problems, and access errors surfaced to engineering immediately, often before formal bug reports were filed.

A smaller, nimble team handled Super Bowl-level volume because the system was built to surface what mattered and filter everything else. The same architecture reduced live agent escalations year-round by routing users to targeted knowledgebase content — freeing agents for genuinely complex issues and reducing billed hours.

  • Post volume reduced from hundreds of thousands to hundreds on peak event days
  • Technical issues identified via social and escalated to engineering in real time, ahead of formal channels
  • Agent satisfaction improved through precision queue design that eliminated noise
  • FAQ deflection reduced live escalations and billed hours across peak seasons
Tools
Sprinklr Khoros Sprout Social TalkWalker NetBase
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Building a Bidirectional Global Social Voice Framework

When Dolby’s social presence needed to speak consistently across global markets, the easy path is to build a top-down playbook and hand it to regional teams. We took a different approach — one that produced stronger, more durable standards because the people closest to each market helped build them.

Working with EMEA and APAC regional teams, I developed a collaborative global social voice framework that treated regional expertise as an asset rather than an exception to manage. Regional teams brought deep knowledge of their audiences, cultural context, and local marketing opportunities. The framework’s job was to ensure that expertise expressed itself in ways consistent with the Dolby brand.

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, and central teams trusted those calls for the same reason.

The framework also created practical infrastructure: cross-regional content sharing workflows that amplified high-quality local assets — influencer activations, event photography, regional campaigns — across international channels, stretching budgets and strengthening brand coherence simultaneously.

  • Collaborative framework developed with EMEA and APAC regional teams
  • Cross-regional content workflows amplified local influencer and event assets internationally
  • Regional market expertise incorporated into globally consistent brand standards
  • Framework designed for team-level autonomy within clear brand guardrails
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Simple, Nimble, Audio-Centered Content for Dolby

A healthy social program requires a steady stream of content between the big campaigns. That need — high-quality, low-cost, original — led to Dolby’s “What’s That Sound?” series: a templatized YouTube format built entirely by the internal marketing team, designed around a core brand pillar and engineered to drive engagement.

  • Brand-anchored: every episode centers on sound — Dolby’s most ownable asset
  • Engagement-first: prompts viewers to answer a question, driving comments organically
  • Subscription-worthy: consistent format and cadence gave audiences a reason to come back
What's That Sound? — Dolby
Watch on YouTube

“What’s That Sound?” delivered hundreds of thousands of views, thousands of comments, an uptick in subscriptions, and a high average percentage viewed — proof that brand-aligned, low-cost content outperforms expensive production when the concept is right.

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Approaching Every Campaign as an Opportunity for Insights

Measurement is easy to defer until after the work is done — and that’s exactly when it becomes least useful. I build reporting frameworks at campaign kickoff, not post-mortem, so that success criteria are agreed upon in advance and insights are actionable rather than retrospective.

The bar for every piece of campaign collateral: does this contribute to the campaign goal, and can I measure it? If the answer to either is no, the work isn’t done.

That approach works regardless of toolset — from native platform analytics to direct Snowflake queries, from agency-provided data to AI-assisted trend analysis. It scales from a single YouTube series to Super Bowl-scale care operations. And it produces reports that deliver insights to stakeholders rather than overwhelming them with data.

Tools
Snowflake (SQL) Databricks Tableau Domo ChatGPT Gemini Replit Native platform analytics
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Selecting the Right Tools for the Task at Hand

The right toolset can be the difference between seamless operations and a series of unanswerable what-if questions. Over a career spanning enterprise social suites, data warehouses, and AI development environments, I’ve developed a strong instinct for matching the tool to the problem — and knowing when to build something custom instead.

I’m comfortable making tool recommendations, leading vendor evaluations, and onboarding teams onto new platforms — and equally comfortable building lightweight custom solutions when the enterprise option is overkill or doesn’t exist yet.

Listening & Care
SprinklrKhoros Sprout SocialTalkWalker NetBaseBrandwatch
Data & Analytics
Snowflake (SQL)Databricks TableauDomo
AI & Development
ChatGPT / Custom GPTsGemini / Gems ClaudeReplit
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A Brand Voice Translation Layer for Social Care at Scale

Marketing owns brand voice. Care owns customer operations. Every 1:1 social care interaction has to honor both — providing actionable help to the customer in a tone that matches their expectation from the brand. Leading social care at Fox, I operate the connective tissue between those functions: I own the governance layer and the template library that translates Fox brand voice into customer-facing care response across FOX Sports, FOX One, and additional Fox sub-brands.

When aggregate care data surfaces an issue surge — confusion about free trial redemption, casting difficulties on a specific device series, an issue accessing a feature — I coordinate with Marketing and Care to produce a brand-voiced, article-linked, personalizable response template. Agents adjust the template to fit the specific interaction. A live AI advisory layer reviews both brand voice alignment and response-to-issue fit before send: in-suite AI is the default validator, with Claude Projects as a secondary backstop for complex or ambiguous cases and for agents still building fluency.

Advisory, not blocking. Agent judgment stays in the loop. In any given week, 30–50% of customer interactions move through this reactive template layer; the rest run on evergreen templates governed by the same framework.

The ownership model isn’t flat. It’s an explicit three-layer structure: Marketing owns voice, Care owns ops, and I own the translation between them. Templates are sized for agent retrievability, retired by utility (when underlying workflows change) rather than on a fixed schedule, and the system signals upstream into Fox’s broader help content practice — more often driving edits to existing articles than net-new creation, but consistently feeding the gap-finding loop.

  • Three-layer ownership: Marketing owns voice, Care owns ops, governance owns the translation between them
  • 30–50% of weekly customer interactions handled through the reactive template layer
  • Live in-production AI advisory layer reviews tone alignment and response-fit before send
  • Same-day cycle time from issue detection to live response when a relevant help article exists
  • Multi-brand scope: FOX Sports, FOX One, and additional Fox sub-brands with distinct voices
Tools
Sprinklr Khoros Claude Projects In-suite AI
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B.A., Journalism
University of Oregon
Data Science Bootcamp
UC Berkeley Extension
2018