Wow. About a year ago, I gave Dell a hard time about linking its social media efforts to measurable business results and more specifically, Michael Dell, in an interview with Steve Lohr (NY Times) where he could have at least made reference to how social media is being leveraged as a secret weapon to win the hearts and minds of disenfranchised customers and turn around Dell’s (then) battered reputation.
Since that time, there have been many Dell social media success citings, but the best I’ve seen so far is this article in this month’s Fortune magazine piece “Michael Dell ‘Friends’ his customers.” The writer, Jon Fortt, points out the financials are still not yet proven, but the tone of the piece weighs heavily in favor of Dell’s efforts.
“The real question is whether customer-friendly operations like IdeaStorm translate to better financials. The jury’s still out on that.”
We recently had a nice chat with some folks at Dell regarding their Twitter use that is generating revenue as well as good will for areas of Dell’s business. Check out Shel Israel’s piece in Businessweek on Ricardo Guerrero’s (@ggroovin) pioneering efforts with the Dell Outlet (@DellOutlet).
Alas, progress marches forward. Look at how far we’ve come in a year. Yet, when Michael Dell can point to its social media efforts directly linked to regaining its number one position in the PC market, we will all have a party on Twitter. On that glorious day, my enterprisey friends, we will have arrived. I’m chill’n the champagne in advance.
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Love the fact that Dell is making such advances in the use of web2.0 tools for their business strategy. It’s particularly interesting to see the widespread use of twitter at Dell. Twitter is such a powerful tool for community building, more so than Facebook, I believe. It’s especially interesting to see the tool connect Dell with clients. I believe many companies will only see adoption of these types of tools inside their companies when they see the value of linking them outside their company to their markets and to their customers. That may be the best way for those of us who believe to begin to get our companies to use these tools.
Great post, Susan. It’s really encouraging to see the recognition all of our friends at Dell are receiving for their tireless efforts. It seems very logical to make the quality of relationships the priority and then let the financials follow. Maybe I’m old-fashioned in that regard?
You should really follow richardatdell on both twitter and friendfeed, he’s a tireless company advocate and gives me hope for Dell’s new direction.