Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

Corporate Blogging

Intel Social Media Conference, July 12, 2011

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Back in 2005…

Source: Wikimedia Commmons http://bit.ly/oKxpvD

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Then this…

Source: Susan Beebe on Flickr: http://bit.ly/nFiVyh

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Then listening + online outreach, April 2006

Source: Direct2Dell, November 2006

• “My name is John, and I am a customer advocate at Dell headquarters.”

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Direct2Dell blog, July 2006

Source: Direct2Dell, July 11, 2006

This post was on the second day the blog was live

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Direct2Dell blog, July 2006

Source: Direct2Dell, July 11, 2006

This post was on the fourth day the blog was live

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Then reputation outreach, August 2006…

Source: Geoff Livingston on Flickr: http://bit.ly/oeyRfe

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Dell Online Activity Timeline

SDC/ DCF Direct2Dell

Blog Outreach

Corp. Rep.

IdeaStorm

1996/ 1997

August 2006

April 2006

July 2006 February 2007

• Support.dell.com preceded Dell.com

• Dell Community Forum

rooted in break/ fix activity

• Humble beginnings• Established foundation

for Direct2Dell content• Extended DCF and

Direct2Dell’s reach

• Also humble beginnings• Helped grow Dell’s

credibility and grow Direct2Dell’s readership organically

• Community-driven concept that caught on quickly

• Was among the first crowdsourcing experiments by a brand

• Extended two-way communication with customers

• Content influenced by online conversations helped build our credibility

Outreach

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Objective: Customer RelationshipsFrom this:

“DELL SUCKS. DELL LIES. Put that in your Google and smoke it,”

- Jeff Jarvis on his blog, BuzzMachine

To this:

• Drinks with Dell

• Dell Hell: The End?

• Jeff Jarvis’ BusinessWeek story: Dell Learns to Listen

• RESULTS: Dropped negative blog posts from 49% to 22%

“You can’t fake it,” says Lionel

Menchaca.

“That change in perception just doesn’t happen

with a press release.”

Five years of experiments and experience

August 2006Blog outreach expands beyond tech Support

August 2006Blog outreach expands beyond tech support

December 2006Ratings and reviews on Dell.com

July 2006Direct2Dell launchedToday Direct2Dell exists in English, Spanish, Norwegian, Japanese and Chinese.

February 2006Michael Dell AsksWhy don’t we reach out and help bloggers with tech support issues?

January 2007StudioDell launchedDell’s video and podcast site, with helpful tips and tricks. Eventually expanding this into the YouTube channel making sharing easier.

February 2007IdeaStorm LaunchedA voting based site allowing customers and others to submit ideas for Dell.

June 2007Dell joins Twitter

Dell launchesEmployeeStormInternal Blogs Launched for Employees.

October 2007Michael Dell quote in Business WeekJeff Jarvis story quote, “These conversations are going to occur whether you like it or not. Do you want to be part of that or not? My argument is you absolutely do. You can learn from them. You can improve your reaction time. And you can be a better company by listening and being involved in that conversation.”

November 2007DellShares launchedThe first investor relations blog by a public company.

January 2008Dell aligns organization

for success

February 2008Twitter expanded

March 2008Accepted Solutions launched on Community Dell France begins Online Community Outreach

May 2008Dell Outlet achieves $0.5M in sales via TwitterCommunity team active on Twitter

Small Business blog launched

April 2008Inside IT launchedBlog focused on business customers, and Cloud Computing.

June 2008Channel blog launched

January 2009Dell Organizes in to4 customer focused business units

Spring 2009Some Members of Community and Conversations deployed within each of the new Dell Business units

June 2009$2M+ Salesvia Twitter

2009Dell TechCenter

June 2009Global Twitter revenues of $6.5 M

December 2009Huffington Post Blog

March 2010China Micro-Blogging

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Altimeter recognizes Dell with “Open Leadership Award for Innovation and Execution”

(Oct.)

Dell Social Media and Community University launched/5,000 teammembers trained byend of year(Aug.)

DelllaunchesB2B pagesFacebook(Jun.)

Dell named #1 most social brand in ranking of 100 top brands

Social Media Listening

Command Center

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Direct2DellContent Strategy

1. Product and Event posts –Focus on useful posts that provide an inside look on Dell products; same for events that Dell members are part of.

2. Systemic issues – Use @Dell on Twitter as for initial reaction, use Direct2Dell as the primary communication tool with customers.

3. Thought Leadership posts – Continue guest posts from thought leaders across a wide variety of topics. Have Dell authors contribute to other blogs.

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1. Write about topics that matter to your customers, especially the tough ones

2. Provide context for a range of customers

3. Write to educate and serve

4. Be authentic, be human

5. Let your passion and personality show through

6. Provide an inside look

7. Don’t be afraid to disagree… if you can back it up

How to Blog the Right Way

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Lessons Learned: What Goes Through Legal

• Any issue that is safety-related (all posts related to the battery recall)

• Any post that makes a direct comparison to a competitive product

• 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 systemic issue (Ex. the Intel Chipset Issue)

• When in doubt, apply some common sense

If still in doubt, contact Lionel Menchaca or Susan Beebe

in Corporate Communications

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Anatomy of a Systemic Issue: Intel Chipset issue

• January 31: Social Media Listening Command Center gave me and Susan the heads up on the Intel news just after it was published

• Began working with internal product teams soon after

• Our internal Comms point people work with key stakeholders in the business units to share details internally with Sales, Customer Service and Technical Support teams

• February 2: I worked on the blog post simultaneously and published the first post on Direct2Dell

• Ultimately published six total posts on the chipset issue to keep customers informed

Questions?

Thank You

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How to reach me

• http://direct2dell.com

• @LionelatDell

• https://profiles.google.com/lionel.menchaca

• lionel_menchaca@dell.com