Organisation: Dell
Industry: Information Technology
Web References:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/07/how-dell-really-listens-to-its.php
http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/about-dell-social-media
http://www.businessinsider.com/is-dell-the-worlds-most-social-company-scorecard-2011-6
http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/d/corp-comm/make-a-difference.aspx
How Dell differentiates itself as the world’s most social company
Social media is not a mere a tool for Dell. It’s an extension of the company’s brand, which is all about enabling people everywhere to use technology to grow and thrive. It uses social media to listen, learn and engage with their customers. It is used in their internal collaboration, product development, social commerce as well as talent acquisition.
While Dell’s commitment to social media is sizable, its transparency and its willingness to take its lumps, learn from them, and do its best to improve on past behavior is noteworthy.
Dell enables each employee to make a big impact. Their ‘Make a Difference’ online community is a good example of how Dell’s expertise in social media can easily be the catalyst for enabling the organization to do their greatest work.
Some of the social media tools embraced by Dell include Salesforce.com’s Chatter tool for internal social networking as well as a number of internal blogs and instant messengers.
Dell’s Radian 6 based monitoring and management tools record about 25,000 social media events for the company each day, and they make a serious point of engaging with and responding to those things as quickly as possible.
With almost 600,000 Facebook fans on the consumer site alone, Dell is easily in the top 1% of technology companies.
Five Reasons Why Dell Is The World’s Most Social Company
1. They are passionate social listeners
Dell uses sentiment analysis to identify issues with their brand and products in order to proactively solve customer support issues. They monitor consumer trends for potential R&D benefits. And they analyze their industry’s social stream to stay informed of competitor impact and activities.
2. They have social media university
Dell now has trained social experts worldwide to help their customers – to listen and engage in 11 languages.
3. They turn customers into brand advocates
The strategy begins with publicly thanking their customers for buying Dell. It then continues with identifying industry influencers and nurturing them.
The Dell team claims to be working with influencers and evangelists to give them early access to announcements and product information. This in turn builds advocacy by making them feel like Dell insiders.
4. Dell executives are social
Having top executives actively supporting and participating in social media increases transparency with customers and employees which lead to higher sales (people want to do business with people they learn to trust).
5. Dell’s community is active and involved
An empowered community attracts new community members thus enlarging and strengthening it.
The Make a Difference online community is a good example of how Dell’s expertise in the power of technology and giving can come together with the passion of their team members.
Lessons for others
- Hyper-transparency
- Listen, learn and engage
- Turn customers into brand advocates
- Collaborate with employees using internal social networking
Submitted by : Jayarani Jayaraman, SMBP Student, University of Waterloo
To contact the author of this entry please email: jayji9@yahoo.com
If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Programme Director, Social Media for Business Performance.