CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, VP of Social Media and Communities
Written by Francois Gossieaux on March 4, 2010 – 6:52 am -
My CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, the CMO at Dell, came with a bonus in that Manish Mehta, the VP of Social Media and Community for Dell joined us as well. I hope you will enjoy this CMO 2.0 Conversation as much as I did.
Erin is responsible for Dell’s Global brand strategy, social media, global communication, as well as for the talent development of the Dell marketing teams – where she focuses on reinvigorating the way Dell marketing works. She has been with Dell for 11 years, while Manish has been with them for 15 years. Manish is in charge of social media and communities, including dell.com, their intranet and their extranet.
One of the first things we discussed was the role of social media and communities within Dell’s business strategy – and how they got to become one of the leaders in social media adoption. On the one hand, dealing with customers directly through social media is a natural extension of what the Dell brand has been all about for the past 25 years – having a direct relationship with the customer. On the other hand it was also precipitated by what has come to be known as “Dell Hell”, when prominent blogger Jeff Jarvis and others had some not too flattering things to say about Dell in public forums. The latter incident gave them no choice but to jump full force into embracing the social on a large scale. As Erin said, it wasn’t a question of test, learn, and measure, it was actually a question of survival – with their brand under severe pressure. In hindsight, Erin believes that this has been a huge benefit for Dell, saying that you cannot get into social media by just putting a toe in the water – you are either all in and it becomes part of your culture, or you’re not.
As we argue in our upcoming book, the Hyper-Social organization, we could not agree more. Companies that successfully embrace the social are those, like Dell, that make it part of the fabric or DNA of everything they do – it cannot just be managed as bolt-on programs to existing strategies. It is also interesting to note how companies like Dell and IBM, which have managed to totally transform themselves, were able to do so only after “near death” experiences (and those are my words/observations, not Dell’s). Dell truly rebuilt itself with the customer at the core of everything they do – how they sell, how they market, how they service and support, how they communicate, and how they design new products.
The scale at which Dell interacts with customers online is staggering – with billions of connections every year through the purchase path, the support path, and through the community path of learning how to use technology and achieve more with it. All that cross-functional customer interaction required them to set up a cross functional governance council, with member representatives from across the entire company – business units, marketing teams, service organizations, and product organizations. They meet on a regular basis to share the learnings, and to make sure that the learnings become embedded within all company processes.
Next we talked about the lessons learned from listening to what is being said about the company in the marketplace and from deciding how and when to engage in those conversations. As many other successful Hyper-Social organization CMO’s told us, they do not always engage. Listening is incredibly important, but often times hearing, learning, and acting upon what is being said are the real keys to success – not direct engagement. It is also important to realize that in this new world, notwithstanding that you can have a common brand spirit, you cannot really have a singular voice of the company anymore. At Dell they have 100,000 team members who are experts in what they do and who will speak out in their own voice.
We also spent a fair amount of time talking about how best to measure the impact of social media and community initiatives – especially in view of the recent announcement that Dell sold $6.5M worth of products through their Twitter channel last year. Obvioulsy being engaged in social channels such as Twitter is not all about generating revenue (although that is a nice side effect). At Dell they try to gauge many other things, including level of engagement/connectedness, sentiment, the value that they are adding in the customers’ buying decisions, and whether they add value in how customers utilize their technology better.
Lastly we talked about some of the recent changes that Dell made to their IdeaStorm environment, and how they felt the need to expand their successful online suggestion box concept with directed and time-bound innovation jams called Storm Sessions through which they ask the community questions in real time, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, and sometimes for hours. They have found this real time learning capability, which they use both inside and outside, to be extremely powerful.
Other things that we discussed include:
- The importance of assigning roles to employees who engage in social media – making sure, for example, that technically unqualified employees do not attempt to respond to tech issues
- The challenges associated with integrating acquisitions within your corporate culture (specifically the acquisition of Perot Systems, which increased the number of employees at Dell by 40%).
- How making the social part of the fabric of the way they do business changed the way they think about market segments – thinking more about customer clusters or tribes rather than classic demographically based segments
- The importance of ratings and reviews in leveraging the social as part of your business
- The two types of customer interactions that happen online – disgruntled ones where you need to turn their sentiment from a negative to a positive, and fans, who are brand amabassadors and who you want to engage to influence the influencers
- The importance and risks of status in communities
- How talent acquisition shifted from looking for people with existing expertise to people who can develop new capabilities
As usual, you can listen to the full podcast below.
Tags: beeline labs, cmo 2.0, dell, erin nelson, francois gossieaux, manish mehta
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March 4th, 2010 at 6:52 am
Q&A: CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, VP of Social Media and Comm… http://bit.ly/98NP7n (#Marketing)
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 4th, 2010 at 8:05 am
CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, VP of Social Media and Communities: My CMO 2… http://bit.ly/98NP7n
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 4th, 2010 at 10:48 am
[...] As usual, you can listen to the full podcast on the CMO 2.0 site. [...]
March 5th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Just a point of correction, but Dell acquired PEROT SYSTEMS – not PRO SYSTEMS.
(specifically the acquisition of Pro Systems, which increased the number of employees at Dell by 40%).
March 5th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Typo: (specifically the acquisition of Pro Systems, which increased the number of employees at Dell by 40%).
Should be: Perot Systems
March 5th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Awesome article – CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, CMO at Dell & Manish Mehta, VP of Social Media & Communities – http://bit.ly/9rx0I9
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
RT @TrendTracker
Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe Rt @IamPramit #sm
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
RT @TrendTracker: Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe Rt @IamPramit #sm
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
RT @TrendTracker: Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe Rt @IamPramit
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media | http://bit.ly/cToDOe | RT @TrendTracker @Hadel
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media | http://bit.ly/cToDOe | RT @TrendTracker @Hadel (via @pramitjnathan)
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
RT @pramitjnathan: Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media | http://bit.ly/cToDOe | RT @TrendTracker @Hadel
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media | http://bit.ly/cToDOe | RT @TrendTracker @Hadel @pramitjnathan
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe Rt @IamPramit #sm /via @TrendTracker
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe Rt @IamPramit #sm /via @TrendTracker @HowellMarketing
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
RT @TrendTracker: Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe Rt @IamPramit #sm
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, VP of Social Media and Communities…http://tinyurl.com/ybsrb5a
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 5th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
RT @TrendTracker: Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe Rt @IamPramit #sm
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 6th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe /via @IamPramit @TrendTracker @DrJeffersnBoggs
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 8th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
RT @TrendTracker: Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe Rt @IamPramit #sm
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 9th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Great article with the CMO of Dell re social media: http://tinyurl.com/ybplxzn
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 9th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
RT @merihall Great article with the CMO of Dell re social media: http://tinyurl.com/ybplxzn
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 10th, 2010 at 8:30 am
CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, VP of Social Media and Communities: My CMO 2… http://bit.ly/98NP7n
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 10th, 2010 at 8:49 am
Dell shares insights on how it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 10th, 2010 at 8:49 am
RT @SchlegelSaid Dell shares insights on hw it does Social Media http://bit.ly/cToDOe
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 10th, 2010 at 9:00 am
RT @bgalera: CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, VP of Social Media and Communities: http://bit.ly/9rx0I9
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 10th, 2010 at 9:01 am
CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, VP of Social Media and Communities: http://bit.ly/9rx0I9
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 10th, 2010 at 9:15 am
RT @bgalera: CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, VP of Social Media and Communities: http://bit.ly/9rx0I9
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 10th, 2010 at 9:22 am
CMO 2.0 Conversation with Erin Nelson, CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, VP of Social Media and Communities http://ff.im/-hgACw
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 10th, 2010 at 10:53 am
A great conversations with Dell CMO and VP of Social media http://bit.ly/bVHoRa
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 10th, 2010 at 11:20 am
RT @StPeteratDell: A great conversations with Dell CMO and VP of Social media http://bit.ly/bVHoRa
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 10th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
We use Goog’s ProtoBuff for the same reason on Hadoop. More flexible, space and time efficient than thrift.
This comment was originally posted on Hacker News
March 10th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Thrift’s compact protocol is a fairly recent addition and is both dense and fast. What are the flexibility advantages of Protocol Buffers?
This comment was originally posted on Hacker News
March 10th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Protocol Buffers are flexible because they support ‘optional’ fields. So we can change the structure of Protocol Buffer without breaking the system.
This comment was originally posted on Hacker News
March 10th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Thrift has the exact same feature as I discussed in my post.
This comment was originally posted on Hacker News
March 11th, 2010 at 11:39 am
the value of social media/communities in large companies, connecting with customers, measurement and more
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
March 11th, 2010 at 11:39 am
the value of social media/communities in large companies, connecting with customers, measurement and more
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
March 19th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Podcast interview on our social media approach with Dell CMO Eric Nelson & VP of social media Manish Mehta – http://bit.ly/biWzCA
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 27th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
[...] As usual, you can listen to the full podcast on the CMO 2.0 site. [...]
July 24th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
[...] media as an experiment, they now have truly made it part of the fabric of their company. Like Dell, they realize that you cannot just play by putting a toe in the water – at some point you [...]
July 24th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
[...] media as an experiment, they now have truly made it part of the fabric of their company. Like Dell, they realize that you cannot just play by putting a toe in the water – at some point you [...]
June 18th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
[...] previous CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, the VP of social media and communities, during an earlier CMO 2.0 Conversation. Karen confirmed that social media absolutely has to be built into the fabric of the company and [...]
June 20th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
[...] previous CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, the VP of social media and communities, during an earlier CMO 2.0 Conversation. Karen confirmed that social media absolutely has to be built into the fabric of the company and [...]
June 21st, 2011 at 12:00 pm
[...] previous CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, the VP of social media and communities, during an earlier CMO 2.0 Conversation. Karen confirmed that social media absolutely has to be built into the fabric of the company and [...]
February 1st, 2012 at 5:50 pm
[...] But I do not agree with Point III. I think that when successful, social needs to become part of the fabric of the company. If you give “ownership” to a department then you will end up with one more silo. Customer support needs to embrace it, IT needs to embrace it for their knowledge management and innovation, HR needs to get on board, product development. It is not just marketing and communications. You want to be like IBM, where there is no corporate twitter feed, no corporate blog, but where the employees — all employees — are encouraged to be the face of the company. See my interview with Erin Nelson, the former CMO at Dell where she talks about that http://www.cmotwo.com/2010/03/04/cmo-20-conversation-with-erin-nelson-cmo-at-dell-and-manish-mehta-v…). [...]
February 2nd, 2012 at 1:56 am
[...] But I do not agree with Point III — A Single Department Should Own Social Media. I think that when successful, social needs to become part of the fabric of the company. If you give “ownership” to a department then you will end up with one more silo. Customer support needs to embrace it, IT needs to embrace it for their knowledge management and innovation, HR needs to get on board, product development. It is not just marketing and communications. You want to be like IBM, where there is no corporate twitter feed, no corporate blog, but where the employees — all employees — are encouraged to be the face of the company. See my interview with Erin Nelson, the former CMO at Dell where she talks about that http://www.cmotwo.com/2010/03/04/cmo-20-conversation-with-erin-nelson-cmo-at-dell-and-manish-mehta-v…). [...]
February 5th, 2012 at 11:46 pm
[...] previous CMO at Dell, and Manish Mehta, the VP of social media and communities, during an earlier CMO 2.0 Conversation. Karen confirmed that social media absolutely has to be built into the fabric of the company and [...]
February 26th, 2012 at 4:44 am
Dell have been remarkably great effortlessly their recent laptops as well as what we really like concerning them could be the option to pick from a massive selection of colors to match your …Alienware for Free
May 14th, 2012 at 10:53 pm
[...] This article was originally posted by Francois Gossieaux on: http://www.cmotwo.com/2010/03/04/cmo-20-conversation-with-erin-nelson-cmo-at-dell-and-manish-mehta-v… [...]
June 11th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
[...] But I do not agree with Point III — A Single Department Should Own Social Media. I think that when successful, social needs to become part of the fabric of the company. If you give “ownership” to a department then you will end up with one more silo. Customer support needs to embrace it, IT needs to embrace it for their knowledge management and innovation, HR needs to get on board, product development. It is not just marketing and communications. You want to be like IBM, where there is no corporate twitter feed, no corporate blog, but where the employees — all employees — are encouraged to be the face of the company. See my interview with Erin Nelson, the former CMO at Dell where she talks about that http://www.cmotwo.com/2010/03/04/cmo-20-conversation-with-erin-nelson-cmo-at-dell-and-manish-mehta-v…). [...]