Aberdeen Group research firm is one of the premier analyst firms covering the social media landscape, and Dell is highly regarded as a world-class leader in social media strategy. Don't miss this rare opportunity to hear from both organizations in a live PRWeek/Visible Technologies webcast Interacting with Social Media to Strengthen Communication Strategies, featuring Jeff Zabin, Aberdeen Group research analyst and an industry case study from Bob Pearson, Dell VP of communities and conversations.

1. Blake Cahill
SVP of Marketing
www.visibletechnologies.com

2. Why Social Media Matters
Consumers are increasingly turning to online
communities and Social Media to form opinions of
brands and to make purchasing decisions
• A study by The Society for New Communications Research found:
– 81% of consumers believe that blogs, online rating systems and
discussion forums give them a greater voice regarding
customer care, but less than 33% believe that businesses take
customers’ opinions seriously
– 74% of respondents based their purchase intent of
brands on others’ experiences shared online
– 59% of respondents use social media to “vent” about a
customer care experience
• BusinessWeek recently reissued their 2005 cover
story on blogs to emphasize the importance of
social media and the need for social networking
2

3. It’s Chaos Out There!
HEALTHCARE
Newsgroups
Social Media Challenges
Uncontrollable environment
Where do I get started?
What can I glean?
Where is the ROI?

4. PR and Social Media
Currently the PR and Communications industry are
primarily focused on:
• Listening for mentions about clients’ brand
• Using Social Media for outreach and campaign publicity
• Monitoring and mitigating in the event of a crisis
Tomorrow - communications and PR need to evolve and
focus on:
• Real-time social media engagement to monitor and manage
brands effectively
• Influencer identification
4

5. Social Media PR Benefits…and risks?
• Speed - instantaneous dissemination of not just news, but
images, audio, video, and other multimedia content as well
• Reach - widespread coverage, enabling breaking news to
reach a much larger and broader reader base than standard
media outlets alone
• Perception - enhances both brand awareness and image
• Insight - gather input and feedback directly from target
audiences, for more effective reputation management,
products and services, campaigns, etc.
• Influence – identify key brand advocates and influencers to
engage with
5

6. Social Media Monitoring and Analysis:
Generating Consumer Insights from Online Conversations
Jeff Zabin
Research Fellow
Aberdeen Group
June 19, 2008
© AberdeenGroup 2008

7. Research focus
7 • © AberdeenGroup 2008

8. What companies are saying We monitor social media
because it provides unsolicited
and unbiased consumer
Inherent in the power of Web 2.0, the Both the customer you opinions about our products
emergence of online communities, and serve well and the and brands in real time.
the transfer of power from big, customer you underserve
centralized command-and-control have the loudest voices in
structures like corporations to large social media.
groups of disseminated individuals like Christine Stasiw Lazarchuk
customers is the need to move from Director, Global Market
push information to pull information.
Research
Sean O'Driscoll, General
Manager of Community A lot of social media tools
Matt Smith, Vice Support Services do a great job of telling you
President, Customer what’s being said and who’s
Insight Online dialog is a good way to saying it. What we really
get feedback and understand want to know is who’s
how consumers feel about our listening to the
Social media monitoring enables
brand and to get suggestions conversation and how does
us to track how our company is
for our business. it permeate outwards.
being portrayed. It’s a barometer
we use to determine the viral
spread of our messages and if our
tactics are working.
Cathy Halligan, Chief Adam Brown
Ed Garsten, Marketing Officer Director, Digital Communications
Manager, Electronic
Media Communications
8 • © AberdeenGroup 2008

9. What PR agencies are saying
The blogosphere came
along and completely
We understand what people get out of obliterated the models we
a conversation from both an emotional had for knowing when our
Using the capabilities of a
and utilitarian perspective, That way, clients were being talked
monitoring service, we’re
we’re better able to give people what about. But it also created a
able to build confidence
they’re asking for. It’s hardly a passive lot of new opportunities. In
with our own marketing
exercise. Participation is important the last two years, clients
team, to show them what’s
from a PR perspective. It’s not just a have been asking
happening on a positive,
matter of listening to what people say, proactively about
neutral, and negative tone.
but of giving them what they need and monitoring social media
That kind of data really
motivating them to participate in this and that's when we started
helps them feel comfortable
system of feedback even more turning to vendors for best-
going into this arena.
strongly and passionately. of-breed solutions.
Bryan Senser, Vice Davina Gruenstein, David Bradfield, Senior
President of Planning Management Supervisor Vice President and Partner
9 • © AberdeenGroup 2008

10. Birth of a benchmark
10 • © AberdeenGroup 2008

11. Top pressures
11 • © AberdeenGroup 2008

12. Top actions
12 • © AberdeenGroup 2008

13. Who uses social media insights
13 • © AberdeenGroup 2008

14. Metrics for determining
Best-in-Class
Time to marketing
information.
Customer satisfaction.
Actionable insights
derived from social media
monitoring and analysis.
Ability to identify and
reduce risk.
14 • © AberdeenGroup 2008

15. Year-over-year improvement in other metrics
15 • © AberdeenGroup 2008

16. Top capabilities – and where PR agencies can help!
16 • © AberdeenGroup 2008

17. jeff.zabin@aberdeen.com
Take the current survey:
aberdeen.com/survey/socialmediamarke

18. Chapter One – what we have
learned so far…
Bob Pearson PR WEEK
June 19, 2008

19. #1 – the online world is
undergoing its most
significant
transformation ever in
our history

20. GROWTH EVERY SECOND
2 Million
2 New Blogs e-mails Sent
7 PCs Sold
Created
7 People Logon For 11,000 Songs
1,157 Videos
the First Time Shared
Viewed on YouTube

21. #2 – Customers want to
speak with us in their
first language
English reaches 1/3 of the world in a good
day

22. Internet Usage by Language
Internet Usage by Language
English Chinese Spanish Japanese French German
Portuguese Arabic Hindi Korean Italian Russian
Dutch Swedish Norweigen Danish Rest of world
Swedish Norweigen Danish
1% 0.5% 0.3%
Dutch
Russian 2%
2% Rest of
Italian world
3% 8%
Korean
English
3%
Hindi 30%
3%
Arabic
4%
Portuguese
4%
German
5% Chinese
15%
French
Spanish
5%
9%
Japanese
7%

23. #3 – new countries have
formed that are not being
treated with the full respect
that their nation’s population
deserves…..

25. #4 – your new home page is
really cool…….but do you
know where it is?
AND DID YOU REALIZE YOU HAVE
HELP IN MAINTAINING IT?

26. Today’s Home Page

27. #5) Less than 1% of a person’s time
online will be spent buying a
product.

28. THE REAL WORLD OF OUR
CUSTOMERS ONLINE
Opinions are formed during the 99% of time
outside of purchase path
THE BROWSING
EXPERIENCE The Purchase
Experience
You poke around for
information when <1% of a person’s
interested and you go time is spent actually
to what you know (e.g., purchasing our
ratings and reviews, products
special reports)
Broadband users spend more than an hour and 40 minutes (48% of their spare
time) online, and more than half of this is spent accessing entertainment and

29. Our Key Learning’s &
Actions

30. #1 – The most important thing
you can do is help customers
with their technology
problems

31. DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY: ENGAGE IN
RELEVANT CONVERSATIONS WITH OUR
CUSTOMERS ONLINE 24/7 WORLDWIDE IN
ALL MAJOR LANGUAGES
Resolve Dissatisfaction Tell Our Story
• Identify online & resolve CE issues • Direct2Dell now leading blog & serves
• New monitoring system tracks 99% of as “Dell wire service”
online • One of top corporate blogs
• 6MM page views per month
• 65MM page views for all community in
first quarter
Join Conversations Share Content & Participate
• Enter conversations via blog posts (up • StudioDell – 127 videos produced in
to 100 per day) last three months
• Pay attention regardless of size of blog • IdeaStorm (9,100 ideas & 130 business
• Negative sentiment has dropped from improvements)
48% to 21% since August ‘06 • 173k members of ReGeneration
• Communities in 7 languages and
growing

32. #2 – Blogging is
global…..blogging is multi
-lingual…blogging is by
community of
passion….blogging is not
“one blog”

33. Outreach
OBJECTIVE:
Transparent, candid
and quick
communication
RESULTS:
6 million views last month
Available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese,
Norwegian...
New blogs for small business, consumer, IT, cloud
computing and more…..
DELL CONFIDENTIAL

34. #3 – would you rather do a focus
group with 10 people or listen to
100,000 people debate ideas for a
few months and ask them questions
throughout the process?

35. Listen
OBJECTIVE:
Encourage ideas,
feedback, input
and dialogue
RESULTS:
13,000 ideas (external and internal)
130 ideas in action externally
www.dell.com/ideastorm
DELL CONFIDENTIAL

36. #4 – Customers are partners
and partners join together to
make a difference

37. Partnering with
Customers
Free Recycling add $0
Support Reforestation: “Plant A Tree for Me” [add $2]
Recycling Kit and “Plant A Tree for Me” [add $2]

38. ReGeneration -- 173k members
DELL CONFIDENTIAL 38

39. #5 – Communities are more powerful
than individuals. Communities want
to help each other improve

40. Community solutions will decrease
calls and empower our customers

41. #6 – the online
experience at work
should be similar to the
online experience at
home
Web access for all….
Wikis, blogs and forums…..
Ratings and reviews…..
And more….

42. facebook meets
Dellbook
DELL CONFIDENTIAL 42

43. #7– Join your customer’s
communities and become part of the
solution

44. Direct to customer Q&A

45. #8 – you can see in real time if you
are relevant to a conversation or
topic…..it’s easy and free to see

46. From Dell Outlet to
Friends Lists…..

47. #9 – if you are dealing with an issue,
be truthful, transparent and diligent
in updating your customers

48. “We believe that the video Dell produced, as well as other
creative notification measures companies have pursued, are a
positive for consumers and for the impression customers have
of a recalling firm. “ – Scott Wolfson, Consumer Product Safety
Commission
48

49. #10 – Measurement requires thinking
outside the box. Don’t try to
measure with yesterday’s thinking

50. A New Set of Metrics
Awareness & Activity – SOV, visits, downloads and
more
Conversations – comment to post/ratio; screen
penetration; raw word increase/decrease; google
screen analysis
Community – frequency of return visits; frequency of
comments within visitors; idea generation

51. LEADERS WILL ENTER
AND BECOME RELEVANT IN
CONVERSATIONS THAT
OCCUR EVERY DAY IN
EVERY LANGUAGE ALL
AROUND THE WORLD ABOUT
THEIR COMPANY OR
PRODUCT
Companies that cling to the past may not realize
it, but they will lose relevance.

52. MESSAGE
EXPERIENCE
CONVERSATION
RELATIONSHIPS
AFFINITY
&
TRUST
WE BECOME
CONVERSATION
ARCHITECTS

53. Ten Digital Media
Observations
1) Messages are co-created in the marketplace. What
you announce is the start. The community completes
your message.
2) Customers don’t care about LOB’s. They gravitate
to their “community of passion”.
3) If you focus on english, you are not reaching 65% of
the audience. Ten languages = global.
4) When one billion new people enter a market in 4-5
years, they change it…….get ready for change
5) Great companies will excel in transparency. Others
will find you cannot hide.

54. Ten Digital Media
Observations
6) Ideasourcing allows the customer to walk our
hallways every day. Become their advocate.
7) Response to issues must happen in minutes and
hours, not days and weeks.
8) Language is no longer a barrier for news to travel
9) Your digital experience should be similar at work and
at home.
10) Gut feel and common sense matter more than ever,
despite the overwhelming feeling that it is all about
technology

55. Key Coordinates
www.dell.com/conversations
www.regeneration.org
Bob_pearson@dell.com