How and Why You Should
Build a Corporate Blog
Lionel Menchaca
Chief Blogger, Dell Inc.
April 30, 2009

DIRECT2DELL
OBJECTIVE:
Engage customers by
sharing information
that matters to them
RESULTS:
– Direct2Dell exists in 5 languages
– About 200K page views per month
– Almost 1,000 posts since July 2006
– Over 25,000 comments
– More than 100 contributors

1. BLOG LANDSCAPE
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CURRENT BLOG LANDSCAPE
 According to their 2008 report,
Technorati indexes about 133
million blogs
• A 2008 Center for Marketing • According to SNCR, in 2009
Research study showed that 81 (about 16%) Fortune 500
39% of Inc. 500 companies are companies maintain a blog
blogging

WHY BIG CORPORATIONS ARE SLOWER
TO ADOPT BLOGGING
 Fear of losing control
 Lack of executive support
 IT security concerns with allowing access
to social media sites
 Legal hurdles and other fears
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2. WHY BLOG?
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REASONS TO BLOG
© Hugh McLeod
 Customers trust their friends and family more than they
trust you
 A blog done right can go a long way to humanize a
company
 Engaging customers through blogs and other social media
tools builds credibility and their trust in you
 Customers will talk about your brand with or without you

3. HOW DELL DOES IT
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HOW DELL DOES IT – OUR BLOG
POLICY
 Dell’s blog policy is simple: be transparent
and abide by Dell’s Code of Conduct
 WOMMA’s Code of Ethics is also a core part
of Dell’s policy

HOW DELL DOES IT – RULES OF
THE ROAD
1. Understand that customers are in control
2. Remember that real conversations are two-way
3. Think before you talk, but always be yourself
4. Address any form of dissatisfaction head-on
5. Be aware that any conversation can become global at any
time
6. Don’t be afraid to apologize, then do what’s necessary to
help Dell avoid making that mistake in the future

HOW DELL DOES IT – WHAT GOES
THROUGH LEGAL
 Any issue that is safety-related (all posts related to
the battery recall)
 Any post that calls out a competitive product by
name
 Any post about a Legal issue (Ex. A Tale of Two
Processors in China)
 Any post that explains how we will support many
customers based on an issue (Ex. the NVIDIA GPU
issue)
 When in doubt, apply some common sense

HOW DELL DOES IT – COMMENT
MODERATION
Dell publishes more than 97% of the
comments submitted to our network
of blogs
1. No profanity
2. No personal attacks directed at other community
members or Dell employees
3. No solicitations for Legal action
4. No comments that contain private customer
information

4. WHAT’S NEXT
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WHAT’S NEXT?
Blending of e-commerce and
community sites
 Agree with Jeremiah Owyang’s Irrelevant Corporate
Website concept that community content will
augment our Dell.com content

WHAT’S NEXT?
Content Syndication = go where the
conversations are happening
Dell Community
600,000 users per
quarter
Dell.com
Over 100 million
users per quarter
Total online population
= more than 1.5 billion

Thank You
Lionel Menchaca
www.direct2dell.com
Twitter: @LionelatDell
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