The document outlines Dell's strategic use of social media to enhance business operations and customer engagement, highlighting milestones from 2005 to 2011. It emphasizes the importance of listening, engaging, and acting on customer feedback through various platforms and internal collaborations. Key lessons include the integration of social media across business functions, empowering employees, and understanding the ROI of social media initiatives.

1. Leverage Social Media
to drive business
Simone Versteeg
PR & Corporate Communications Manager EMEA Dell Services – @simoneversteeg

9. Dell’s Direct & Online Heritage: Critical Enabler
Leader in online
First to sell complex First company to frictionless
configurable items hit $1M a day in commerce from
online revenue order to delivery
One of the first One of the first
companies to Early adopter of
to launch online social media
discussion forums launch online
support

10. June 2005 – August 2006: Several Online
Issues = Offline too

11. Five years of experiments and experience
February 2006 December 2006 October 2007 May 2008 June 2009
Dell named #1 most
Michael Dell Asks Ratings and Michael Dell quote in Business Week Dell Outlet achieves Global Twitter
Why don’t we reach out and help Jeff Jarvis story quote, “These conversations are social brand in
reviews on $0.5M in sales via Twitter revenues of $6.5 M
bloggers with tech support issues? going to occur whether you like it or not. Do you want ranking of 100 top
Dell.com Community team active on Twitter
to be part of that or not? My argument is you brands
absolutely do. You can learn from them. You can Small Business
improve your reaction time. And you can be a blog launched
better company by listening and being involved in
that conversation.”
August 2006
Blog outreach
expands beyond
March 2008 March 2010
tech support February 2007
Accepted Solutions China Micro-
IdeaStorm Launched January 2009 June 2009 Blogging
A voting based site allowing launched on Community
customers and others to submit Dell France begins Online Dell Organizes in to $2M+ Sales
ideas for Dell. Community Outreach 4 customer focused via Twitter
business units Social Media Listening
Command Center
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
July 2006 Dell Social Media and
Community University
Direct2Dell launched June 2007 April 2008 2009 launched/5,000 team
Today Direct2Dell exists in
Dell joins Twitter Inside IT launched Dell TechCenter members trained by
English, Spanish, Norwegian,
Blog focused on business end of year
Japanese and Chinese. January customers, and Cloud (Aug.)
Dell launches
2008 Computing.
EmployeeStorm Dell aligns
Internal Blogs Launched
organization Spring 2009 December 2009
for Employees. Altimeter recognizes Dell with
for success
Some Members of Huffington Post Blog
“Open Leadership Award for
Community and Innovation and Execution”
Conversations (Oct.)
deployed within each Dell
August 2006 January 2007 of the new Dell launches
Business units B2B pages
Blog outreach StudioDell launched Facebook
expands beyond Dell’s video and podcast site, (Jun.)
with helpful tips and tricks.
tech Support February 2008
Eventually expanding this into
the YouTube channel making Twitter expanded
November 2007
sharing easier.
DellShares launched
The first investor relations blog by June 2008
a public company.
Channel blog
launched
11 Global Marketing

12. Lesson 1: Opportunity of a powerful
ecosystem
Dell.com
External Communities Our Communities
Team Members
12
Rishi Dave | Inside Out

13. Lesson 2: starts with listening
to Be A Better Business, across the
Business
13 Confidential Rishi Dave | Inside Out
10/1

14. Lesson #3: Integrate where Customer & Business
Value are realized across all business functions
Marketing Online Presence
Product Development
• Demand Forecast • Ratings & Reviews
• Feedback Loop
• Lead Generation • Communities
• Early Warning
• Message Reach • Customer Stories
• New Product Ideation
Sales Customer Service Communication
• Collaboration • Listening • Rich Media
• Thought Leadership • Support Widgets • Brand Reputation
• Blogs • Outreach • Influence
• Reputation
Global Marketing

15. Lesson 4: Listen + Engage = Act.
It’s at the heart of all strategies…
But How to Scale?
Think of it as a tool,
not a channel
Global Marketing

16. Lesson 5: Empowering Employees:
Social Media & Community University
Principles
Policy
Governance
Training & tools
Rishi Dave | Inside Out

17. Lesson 6:
The quest for
a single ROI?
Business
Value across
the full
customer
lifecycle
17 Global Marketing

18. Lesson 7:
It is a
journey not
simply
“marketing
campaigns”
Rishi Dave | Inside Out

19. Planting
Seeds across
Business and
Functions
19 Global Marketing

20. Stronger and
Better
Business
Doing More
for Customers
20 Global Marketing

21. Internal Social Networks
• Dell is using Chatter to
increase cross-departmental
team collaboration
• Over 90,000 Dell employees
quickly and easily collaborate
around documents and
information like sales
opportunities, team projects
and campaigns
• Fosters relationships
• A hybrid of Twitter, Facebook,
Sina, Ren-Ren, Orkut
21

22. Look across the entire customer lifecycle. It can be
used everywhere …
• Insight: Social media improves Dell’s
reach and share of voice
Awareness
• Insight: SM keeps customers
engaged, provides solutions
and improves loyalty.
Research and
CLV (loyalty) Dell.com Consideration
Our External • Insight: Established causality
Communities Communities between social media activity and
• Insight: Social media based purchase
support improves sentiment
and correlates with higher
revenue
Demand / Lead • Insight: Social Media provides high
Support Business Value and contributes to
Gen and Sales
demand gen vehicle

23. Summary tips / insights
• Listen:
– Listen first- Listen and learn before jumping in
– Continue to listen – rapidly evolving
• Engage:
– Find your employee champions and involve them
– Train and protect your employees
– Figure out your business objectives, identify the appropriate data
to use for measurement
• Act:
– Engage in conversations that are already happening
– Look for opportunities to build relationships with influencers
– When building relationships, In-Person > Virtual

24. 6 Simple Takeaways
1. Consider social media impact across 6 key reputation
drivers
2. If content is king, then listening is queen
3. Why are you listening? Listen for the sake of making
changes
4. Return and report
5. Online influencers make for powerful advocates
6. When building relationships. In-person > Virtual

25. www.dell.com
www.dell.com/conversations
www.direct2dell.com
www.dell.com/twitter
www.ideastorm.com
http://www.slideshare.net/dell_inc
http://www.youtube.com/user/DellVlog
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellphotos/
http://www.facebook.com/dell

26. Thanks
&
Join the conversation
@simoneversteeg
Global Marketing