Social media: IBM and Dell

96% of Generation Y has joined a social media

Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months

If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 4^th largest: China-India-USA-Facebook!

Wiki has over 13 million articles

There are over  200 000 000 blogs, 54% of bloggers post everyday content

25% of search results for the World’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content…

 As explained in the movie “The social network”: “Social media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate”.

Nowadays more and more companies are exploiting new technologies, which allow them to connect with their customers and employees in an effective way. Blogs, wikis, virtual worlds, forums, RSS and tags represent the new frontier to convey information.

Social media enable firms to get instant feedback, which can be measured by membership, clicks on a website, or mailing lists. It is important to incorporate social media into a marketing strategy not only to increase sales, but to keep customers engaged through company trends.

IBM is an example of how blogs can be used to improve the relationship with employees and share information with them.

When IBM decided they to start using blogs, they didn’t just create one, they established an entire network. IBM originated a way and allowed their employees to write about their experiences, what they’re working on, or any other topic of choice.

IBM capitalizes on the intelligence of their employees to give consumers insight into what happens behind the scenes. By giving the industry experts they’ve hired a voice, IBM is able to highlight the people behind their products. Users get to see how IBM operates, and are given a direct connection with IBM staff. Leveraging the employees to write about what they love conveys the corporate dedication to the industry. At the same time it adds in a great personality and it is a recipe for social success. Ingraining social media into the culture of a corporation means that every consumer interaction is personal.

IBM uses both blogs and RSS. An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed is simply a subscription to updates from a Web site or Web page. RSS can subscribe to more blogs, monitor more social networking pages and allows you to be automatically notified as soon as updates are made.

 

Like IBM, also Dell thinks that social networking should be part of marketing mix for small and medium businesses. Dell considers social networking as a very accessible marketing tool. It’s easy to do internet searches and identify blogs or forums where your products or issues pertaining to your business are being discussed. Moreover, it’s a very cost effective way to carry out market research and engage directly with the customers ensuring to be as responsive as possible to their needs.

The innovation introduced by Dell is IdeaStorm. IdeaStorm is the company’s own open community platform designed to solicit ideas and feedback, and let customers determine what’s most important to them. Dell has a strong track record of responding to issues and ideas that have been suggested on IdeaStorm. One well publicised example was the suggestion to preinstall Linux on Dell desktops and laptops, something Dell now offers customers.

IBM and Dell improved the relationship with their stakeholders simply listening to them. As a consequence, they transformed the one way communication into a network of interactions aimed at increasing the level of satisfaction both of customers and of employees. This strategy benefits the companies’ reputation and represents a positive word of mouth.

Going back to the beginning of this paper, now it is easier to understand why social media cannot be defined a fad.