Liz Brown Bullock, Director of Social Media and Community, Dell discusses how your employees are your biggest assets in building customer relationships via social media. This presentation covers 10 key ideas to ensure your employees are strategically connecting their social media efforts to the company and customer objectives, plus additional best practice tips for employee success at Dreamforce 2012.

1. What Do I Tweet About?
Make Your Employees Worth
Following
Liz Brown Bullock, Director of Social Media & Community, Dell
@lizbbullock

2. Liz Brown Bullock
Director Social Media & Community, Dell
@lizbbullock

3. Business is
socializing
with
purpose
Graphic thanks to Gapingvoid.com Hugh MacLeod
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4. Five year journey of embedding social to be a better business
February 2006 December 2006 October 2007 May 2008 June 2009
April 2011 Dell
Michael Dell Asks Ratings and Michael Dell quote in Business Week Dell Outlet achieves Global Twitter
Why don’t we reach out and help Jeff Jarvis story quote, “These conversations are
named #1 most
reviews on $0.5M in sales via Twitter revenues of $6.5 M social brands in
bloggers with tech support issues? going to occur whether you like it or not. Do you
Dell.com want to be part of that or not? My argument is you
Community team active on Twitter
ranking of 100 top
absolutely do. You can learn from them. You can Small Business
improve your reaction time. And you can be a blog launched March 2010
August 2006 better company by listening and being involved in
Blog outreach that conversation.” Launch @DellCares;
expands beyond March 2008 today 24/7 11 languages
February 2007
tech support IdeaStorm Launched Accepted Solutions January 2009 June 2009
A voting based site allowing launched on Community China Micro-
Dell Organizes in to $2M+ Sales Blogging
customers and others to submit Dell France begins Online 4 customer focused
ideas for Dell. Community Outreach via Twitter Dec 2010 launched
business units
Social Media Listening
Command Center
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
October 20101
July 2006 Altimeter recognizes Dell with
Direct2Dell launched June 2007 April 2008 2009 “Open Leadership Award for
Today Direct2Dell exists in Dell joins Twitter Inside IT launched Dell TechCenter Innovation and Execution on
English, Spanish, Norwegian, January Blog focused on business Listening
Japanese and Chinese.
Dell launches 2008 customers, and Cloud
Dell aligns Computing.
EmployeeStorm Spring 2009 December Dell Social Media and
Internal Blogs organization Community University
Launched for for success
Some Members of 2009
Community and launched/5,000 team
Employees. Huffington members trained by
Conversations Post Blog
August 2006 January 2007 end of year
deployed within each
Blog outreach (Aug.)
StudioDell launched of the new Dell
expands beyond Dell’s video and podcast
February 2008 Business units
tech Support site, with helpful tips and June 2010
tricks. Eventually expanding November 2007 Twitter expanded
Dell launches B2B pages
this into the YouTube channel DellShares launched
making sharing easier. June 2008 Facebook
The first investor relations blog by
a public company. Channel blog
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6. How companies organize for social media:
• Holistic: Everyone is in customer service and support and any employee
who wants to be social is enabled
• Best Buy’s Twelpforce is an example
Source: Survey of 140 Corporate Social Strategists, Altimeter Group, November 2010
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8. Make your
employees
worth
following…
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9. Your social strategy needs as much forethought as any
other business process
Idea 1: Write up a plan
1. Planning
According to CRM industry
analyst, Brent Leary:
“Strategic users are almost 4. Measuring 2. Listening
3xs more likely to execute
activities for engaging prospects
than informal users (53% vs. 19%)”
3. Engaging
Source: Brent Leary’s Strategically Social: 5 Keys to Becoming a Social Business
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10. Questions to Ask in the Planning Stage:
• What are the organizations’ goals?
• What is the business plan?
• What is the current relationship with our customers?
• What is the relationship we want with our customers?
How does social media support these goals?
Idea 2: Tie social media to your business and customer objectives
I think it starts with understanding what the organization’s goals
are…part of the problem is that too many people want to jump into a
Facebook “strategy” or a Twitter “strategy” – Shel Holtz
Source: Shel Holtz: http://labs.openviewpartners.com/shel-holtz-talks-content-and-social-strategies/
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11. Remind yourself of the plan:
• Idea 3: Write down your plan. Stick on your wall for daily reminders.
Source: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/sharing-is-the-cornerstone-of-social-media-success/
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12. Embedding social to Dell’s purpose:
• Deepening our customer relationships and helping our customers
thrive
• Dell encourages thoughtful and customer focused interactions at every
touch point
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13. Questions to Ask in the Listening Stage
Idea 4: Identify and target your community
• Use Twitter’s search function & other tools to find keywords in
hashtags, handles and bios relevant to topic, company and event
– What are people saying about your brand?
– What are the popular topics about your brand?
– Who are the advocates, detractors and influencers in your industry?
– Where are the conversations happening?
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14. Listen, Learn, Engage & Act
Dell’s Social Media Listening Command Center
25,000 posts a day
Global Marketing

16. Standard conversation values for engagement:
• Authentic
• Personal
• Transparent
• Inclusive
• Honest
• Conversational
• Educational
It’s not just about being out
there and participating, it’s
about being authentic and
bringing value
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17. Content rules – 80/20
• People more likely to do business with a friend
• You need to make friends to influence people
• Follow 80/20 rule: 80% to support others and
20% self promotion
• Being real on social media makes 80% target
easy to reach
• When you share a great article or blog
post, use their twitter name
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18. Identifying good content to share:
• Idea 6: Follow @GuyKawasaki (twitter)
– What publications do you already read?
› Follow their Twitter account
– Follow customers, partners and your industry
thought leaders
– Follow industry experts and thought leaders in
social media
– Stay up to date with industry blogs on
Google.com/reader
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19. Online curated sites for relevant content:
Idea 7: Vary your content and keep target audience in mind
Lionel Menchaca’s, Dell’s Chief Blogger, recommendation:
techmeme
Guy Kawasaki recommendations:
Smartbrief (customize industry topics
for daily top stories via email)
Stumbleupon (customized by your
interests includes photography)
Alltop (top stories by popular media)
My recommendation:
LinkedIn Today
@LinkedInToday (twitter)
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20. Schedule posts via BufferApp.com
• Idea 8: Avoid pushing
the same content to
all your platforms
• Buffer: Available for
Twitter, Facebook &
LinkedIn
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21. Increasing fans and followers:
• Idea 9: Adopt a relationship mindset. Just as you do with
your friends, engage fans and followers in meaningful ways
– Keep asking questions
– Create virtual projects
› Brainstorming for a campaign or raising $$ for disaster relief
– Celebrate follower activities & achievements
– Add value
› Give sneak peeks, exclusive content and special promotions
– Complete the circle
› Tie off the communication: Thank them for reaching out and ask if
you can be of additional assistance
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22. Build stronger relationships by bridging social & in-
person
• Idea 10: Take advantage of in-person interaction to deepen relationships
• Events are powerful opportunities to build relationships
• Recommended tools: Twitter & Slideshare
– Offer inside access by “live-tweeting” during the event & use hashtag
– Join conversations to share your thoughts and opinions
– Connect with influencers attending or covering the event
– Post-event, share presentations on Slideshare
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23. Top Ten Ideas:
Idea 1: Write up a plan
Idea 2: Tie social media to your business and customer objectives
Idea 3: Write down your plan. Stick on your wall for daily reminders
Idea 4: Identify and target your community
Idea 5: Sign up for Listening tools if you haven’t already…
Idea 6: Follow @Guy Kawasaki (twitter) for content inspiration
Idea 7: Vary your content and keep target audience in mind
Idea 8: Avoid pushing the same content to all your platforms
Idea 9: Adopt a relationship mindset. Just as you do with your friends, engage fans and
followers in meaningful ways
Idea 10: Take advantage of in-person interaction to deepen relationships
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24. When you rock, the world pays attention…
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25. Thank You
Q&A
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