Reputation and brand in an instantly connected world

We’ve had some wonderful insights, perspectives and futuristic views during Amplify week but the audience who gathered to hear from Richard Binhammer was looking forward to hearing a real life case study of how one organisation, Dell, have engaged with social media.

Five years ago, Dell was mentioned in around 4,000 online posts per day. Today, Dell is mentioned in more than 25,000 posts every day. Richard describes Dell’s experience over this time as a ‘journey’, for both the company and himself. In fact, he confessed, that in 2006 when he was given the task of leading Dell into the social media sphere he went home and searched online to find out exactly what a blog was!

Dell is a pioneer in the online and social space. It was the first company to hit $1 million a day in online revenue, it’s a leader in online commerce, and was an early adopter of social media.

Richard explained that with the advent of the web, businesses were faced for the first time with a technology that is uncontrollable. It opens opportunities, and changes perspectives everywhere it reaches. At Dell, the online and offline worlds began to merge from around 2005. Negative posts which first sprung up in the online world begun to appear in traditional media. And at this point, Dell started their journey ‘down a road in a vehicle yet to be proven,’ said Richard.

It began with a mind-shift for the company. Richard explains that Dell had to face up to the fact that they weren’t at the centre of the online Dell universe. Rather they were part of an evolving infrastructure with a range of communities including customers and employees. Dell began listening to these communities and getting closer to their customers ‘to be a better business’.

Richard talked us through a range of online channels which Dell has used as tools to listen and engage with their communities. One tool which would probably terrify most companies is the ability for customers to rate and review Dell’s products on Dell’s own website. And of course there is always going to be bad reviews. But Dell uses this data to improve their business. Engineers read the reviews, and gain an understanding of problems which users face. This customer input leads directly to better products.  

This type of customer engagement was a common theme in Richard’s session. He spoke about how he sees customers in need as critical opportunities to help. By helping customers, they often turn from ranting complainers to raving advocates. Richard also touched on his experience of ‘the wisdom of the crowd’. Fans will often come to Dell’s defence when a product is slammed through social media channels. ‘

At the heart of Dell’s social media presence is the simple methodology, ‘listen, engage and act’. But the problem faced by many companies is how to scale this activity internally. Who has ownership for social media? Marketing? Corporate Communications? Customer relations? Product Delivery? Well, Richard believes that social media is a tool to be leveraged across the fabric of a company, with different functions, users and values. But of course, there must be an education process for employees who will be representing a company through these tools. At Dell, Richard explained, 8-10 hours of internal training are required for all social media ambassadors.

Richard left us with the message that social media is about business and people; the technology is just an enabler which will continue to change around us. It continues to be a journey for Dell… but certainly one which we all enjoyed learning from today.

The video of Richard Binhammer's session will be available on his Amplify speaker page soon.

Blogpost by Carla Ellerby from the Amplify team @carlaroo