My company, GasPedal, recently hosted BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media, in San Francisco. The fantastic event featured eight case studies on corporate social media from some of the world’s biggest companies. As we gear up for our next BlogWell in Minneapolis on Aug. 13 — featuring case studies from McDonald’s, H&R Block, Wal-Mart, CME Group, General Mills, Ford, and Progressive — I’m sharing some key lessons from San Francisco.
Here’s what we learned from Lionel Menchaca, Dell’s chief blogger, who shared keys to Dell’s strategy for blending community and e-commerce:
- Syndication is key. Dell’s communities see 600,000 visitors per quarter — an impressive number until you compare it to Dell.com’s 100 million. To share their valuable community-generated content with a larger audience, they’re working to syndicate it across Dell’s corporate and sales sites.
- Navigating between community and shopping sites should be seamless. Dell has begun implementing a single user-identification process to make it easy for visitors to move between Dell’s various sites.
- Most customers aren’t social media experts. As Lionel puts it: Most customers don’t know the difference between a blog, a forum, and a wiki — and they shouldn’t have to. Dell has merged these elements into a single, simpler platform.
Twitter
Facebook
Linkedin
RSS
Hi,
I see several major issues with Dell's social media programs:
1- it seems to assume that the community activity will take place on their properties. this, to me is wrong. There are fairly active communities (plural), some of them made up of Dell's target ( small business owners, hard gamers, PC fans …). These communities develop outside brands and what brands should really do is to become a trustable and influential member in these communities.
2- their twitter campaign is just what they used to do on the front page of Yahoo. there is nothing "social" in it, … except that it uses Twitter as a channel.
there is no community participation into it, nor dialog.
A few $M as a result is not what I would call great. My bet is that any marketing program at Dell should bring a two digit direct revenue figures.
Actually, I wonder if Dell is not just marketing to the social media community.
Best
Andy – great post. As someone who has purchased 20+ dell laptops, deskops and printers over the past two years I appreciate what Dell is trying to do. The opportunity I think they are missing it to not just have a single sign on, but an integrated customer profile where a customer can earn a reputation, connect with friends and share the passion and expertise with the broader Dell customer base. Viewpoints (the company that I am the CEO of) has built such an integrated community experience for Sears at MySears.com. This community has been around for less time but has far more users than Dell's so it might be worth a closer look.
Dominiq, those are great points. While we do use Twitter to message out special offers and promotions, that is just a small part of how we use it. As you can see from Twitter.com/DellOutlet and Twitter.com/StefanieAtDell, there is also a lot of dialog going on and even more behind the scenes in DM. We have found vehicles like Twitter and Facebook to be a great for talking to customers, answering questions, resolving issues, and truly engaging with people.
Dell is also using Twitter and Facebook in other ways, so customers can Fan or Follow accounts that are most relevant to them: (www.dell.com/twitter and http://www.dell.com/facebook).
So, yes, Dell does use social media as a marketing tool, but that’s just a small part of how we use this space. Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Stef
Dominiq: The importance of having conversations wherever they occur is not lost on me.
I agree with many of the points you raise and definitely understand and agree that our Dell Community site is a small portion of the bigger universe. It’s a point that I made in the presentation as well.
We learned that lesson a long time ago by starting to enter conversations on individual’s blogs and tech forums where customers were complaining about Dell tech issues. We did that for four months before launching the Dell blog in 2006. Soon after that, we started having conversations about the Dell brand wherever they occurred. We also have lots of folks who converse with customers on a variety of different levels.
Sometimes we struggle in keeping the balance between discussing topics on our own sites vs. out there. In the scheme of things, it’s more important for us to be “out there.” I just think that in the future, the line between our own community properties and the places where customers have those discussions will be more connected than they are now.
Happy to chat with you… will be discussing this topic tomorrow in case you’re interested: http://is.gd/1Tbs3.
I have had the absolute WORST experience recently while trying to buy a computer with Dell. Their website kept freezing during my order. When I got on the phone with a sales rep, they weren’t able to give me the same discounts as on the site. Then, they sent the wrong color. Twice. When I tried to return it they told me that it was likely that I’d never get the right color, because they just “ship what they have” in the warehouse. And then, they didn’t send packing slips or return labels for either computer. Safe to say, DELL is dropping the ball in customer service. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to be part of a DELL community. I convinced my mom (who the computer was actually for) to put down a few extra bucks and save herself the hassle by going with Apple. A decision I’m sure she won’t regret.