Dell’s Journey in Conversations and  Community

Liana FreyDirector, Communities and ConversationsSeptember 9, 2009

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“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 be a better company by listening and being involved in that conversation.”

Michael Dell,BusinessWeek, Oct. 2007

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Our Objectives:

• Build the Dell brand

• Listen, learn and engage

• Rapid innovation

MORE THAN TWO YEARS AGO, WE STARTED THIS  JOURNEY

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DELL WAS AN EARLY ADOPTER AND INNOVATOR IN ONLINE  SOCIAL NETWORKING SPACE…

1 Forrester, “Future of Social Web”

Social Network

Platforms

Sponsored Offsite

Properties

IdeaStorm

Blogs

Forums

1995 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Social RelationshipsUsers find each

other online

Social FunctionalityUsers interact in new ways online

Social ColonizationSocial not limited to “social sites”

Industry Evolution1

Digital Nomad

Regen.org

900K+ Followers on Twitter today

Blogosphere Outreach

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WHERE WE STARTED

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FIND THE RIGHT TRAFFIC

• Do you know where the relevant conversations  are?

• What is the search experience like?

• Which communities matter the most to your  customers?

• Where is the maximum volume of meaningful  traffic?  

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HOW TO FIND CONVERSATIONS

•Embrace the basics of online monitoring

•It’s not expensive, often free and very insightful

•Radian 6, Google Alerts, Netvibes, Yahoo Pipes,  Google Reader, Google Blog Search, Technorati

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ACCEPT THAT YOU NO LONGER CONTROL  THE CONVERSATION

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KEY LESSONS ALONG OUR JOURNEY

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1. ENGAGEMENT SURPASSED OUR  EXPECTATIONS

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400,000 forum posts107,000 IdeaStorm votes

30,000 customer reviews15,000 Accepted Solutions

3,300 Ideas

2,500 customer resolutions

2,400 blog comments

PEOPLE WANT ENGAGEMENT

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2. OPEN SOURCE IDEAS  TRANSFORMED THE WAY WE 

OPERATE

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CUSTOMER-INSPIRED LAPTOPCOLOR OPTIONSA LITTLE ZING TO BUSINESS LAPTOPS

13.3-INCH DISPLAY COMPACT, BUT BIG ENOUGH TO FIT A FULL-SIZED KEYBOARD UNDERNEATH

eSATA PORT LETS USERS CONNECT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES AT FAST SPEEDS

BACKLIT KEYBOARDFOR WORKING IN THE DARK

FINGERPRINT READEREXTRA SECURITY APPEASES JITTERY MANAGERS

BETTER BATTERY LIFEUP TO 19 HOURS ON A SINGLE CHARGE

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EMPOWERED OUR CUSTOMERS TO  SHARE THEIR KNOWLEDGE 

Solved button  added to 

Original Post;  clicking it will  take user to 

Accepted  Solution

Solved button  added to 

Original Post;  clicking it will  take user to 

Accepted  Solution

Accepted  Solution Post 

Turns Green  and logo 

added 

Accepted  Solution Post 

Turns Green  and logo 

added 

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3. CREATED COMMUNITIES AND  ENGAGED WITH THEM BOTH ON 

AND OFF OUR SITE

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OBJECTIVES:

Listen to customersInsert Dell’s POVResolve issues

RESULTS:

OFF DELL.COM ONLINE  OUTREACH

• Responses on hundreds of blogs

• VERY positive customer responses

• Negative sentiment online quickly cut in half 

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OBJECTIVE:

Encourage ideas, feedback, innovationand dialogue

RESULTS:

BOTH ON AND OFF SITE IDEASTORM

• 11,500 ideas generated by the community

• 650,000 promotions of ideas

• >300 ideas Implemented by Dell

• Created a Facebook App and ability to post ideas directly to a Facebook profile

www.ideastorm.com

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4. TRANSPARENCY AND AUTHENTICITY  ARE KEY

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WE STRIVE FOR 100% ACCOUNTABILITY

• “Now's not the time to mince words, so let me just say it... we blew it. In this case: instead of trying to control information that was made public, we should have simply corrected anything that was inaccurate. We didn't do that, and now we're paying for it.” – Lionel Menchaca, Dell Chief Blogger

• “Dell does good, then bad, then apologizes” – The Viral Garden

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5. SOCIAL MEDIA IS NO LONGER THE JOB  OF JUST THE SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM

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SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOW PART OF  EVERYONE’S JOB

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Early Days- Incubation Today-Distributed Mode

Central Team

Incubated all social media activity in Public Relations

CentralStrategy

Team

Sales

Mktg.Service

and Support

Product Group

Embedded in the business

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6.  PRIORITIZATION AND MEASUREMENT

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7. SOCIAL MEDIA HAS BEEN MOST  SUCCESSFUL WHEN ADDRESSING SPECIFIC 

BUSINESS NEEDS

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OBJECTIVE:

Created @DellOutlet to quickly move inventory and increase awareness

RESULTS:

TWITTER

• @DellOutlet

is in top 50 Twitter accounts (360k followers)

• Sold more than $3M in revenue

• Now 35 official Dell accounts + many more personal accounts

• More than 1M followers total

www.dell.com/twitter

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8. GLOBALIZATION

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• Build the Dell Brand‐

Tell

the Dell Story

• Listen, learn, and engage

• Address issues head‐on

• Share

Dell’s point of 

view

• Rapid Innovation in social 

media

WE CONTINUE TO EVOLVE OUR GOALS…

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Our brand is living‐

engage 

with customer to build

the  story

Listen, learn, and engage

– Address issues head‐on– Evolve

Dell’s point of view 

through collaboration

Rapid Innovation in all areas of 

the company‐

product  development, customer 

research, marketing programs

THEN NOW

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KEY COORDINATES

• www.dell.com/community

• www.facebook.com/dellsocialmedia

• www.ideastorm.com

• www.dell.com/twitter