Dell Eats Twitter’s Lunch With 22 Twitter Channels
Published by Rodney Rumford August 12th, 2008 in Branding, business, twitter.
I authored a blog post earlier tonight about how I could not quickly or easily find a human from Dell on twitter. My readers were kind enough to remind me about richardatdell I reviewed his tweets and it sure looks like he is doing a bang up job of listening, responding, interacting and really using twitter quite well. Kudos to Richard!
With over 1500 followers, following almost 1600, and nearly 2700 updates; it is fair to say Richard really embraces the twittersphere on Dells behalf. Notice the balance of followers to following ratio? It is indicative of someone that uses twitter as a 2 way listening, and communication tool rather than a broadcast tool. He is responsive, engaging and listens.
The problem that I was having was that there were quite a few Dell name derivations on twitter and it was difficult to ascertain what they were all for. Dell actually has 22 “Official Channels” on twitter. Each channel is serving a potentially different audience interest in Dell.
Luckily, after I read through several pages of Richards tweets, I was pointed to this resource page and Dell has quite a diverse and cohesive presence on twitter. All the Dell channels are meant to support different purposes; some in foreign languages. I would venture to say that this is the first major North American brand that is actually reaching out to non English speaking users of twitter. (Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish) Granted these are simply rss feeds of their blogs posts in different languages being distributed in different languages; but it is a huge leap in the right direction.
It would appear that there are many Dell employees on twitter which all have similar twitter names: meganatdell, edatdell, debbieatdell, etc. It is confusing at best for who you should interact with. I suggest that on the dell page that they list the names of the people that are interacting on twitter on dells behalf and let us know what areas they are involved in. That would really help twitter users to connect with the appropriate person.
Much in the same way that there are different phone numbers that consumers are directed to; Dell could implement a twitter directory for reaching out to the appropriate person. That is assuming that Dell truly wants to use twitter as a toolset to engage with consumers. Their use case and objectives might be different than how I envision it. An alternative way to convey this knowledge would be to have a channel set up simply as a directory with tweets that list the appropriate person to follow on twitter based on the users needs.
A parting thought here is that most of these automated channels do not have huge numbers of followers. Why? Most users do not want information from a rss feed that is re-purposed for consumption on twitter; that is why they have feed readers. They have no opportunity to interact; and that is where the gold lies in twitter. People do business with people.
See more about Dell & their massively spread twitter presence here. I suggest they put Richards picture and twitter link on that page as well. 
Dell has 22 channels on twitter.
Our Upcoming Twitter Knowledge Package: Publish Date: August 30
9 Responses to “Dell Eats Twitter’s Lunch With 22 Twitter Channels”
- 1 Pingback on Aug 12th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Oops.. I saw this post after I commented on your previous one. Glad you checked out @RichardatDell. He’s our very own social media tour-de-force.
And like I mentioned in your previous post, if someone goes to a Dell Twitter property, they will generally see at least one (or more) Dell individuals in the Following list who is the real voice behind it.
In other words, go to any properties and look for the face.
Thanks,
Lionel Menchaca
http://www.twitter.com/lionelatdell
Lionel,
Thanks for the response.
I love seeing companies embrace these technologies for customer service - I wonder if they’re also utilizing FriendFeed. I don’t think it will be long before we start seeing some of these companies release customer service and tracking tools to handle and manage all these networks.
hi there
Always good to get feedback. The far right column does name people or at least point people responsible for specific areas. Fluentsimplicity.com also has pretty complete listing. I hope that helps
Dell also sells via Twitter: I’ve seen presentations by @RichardatDELL and Bob Pearson that have mentioned that Dell has sold over $500K attributed to Twitter. Not huge, but a nice contribution, nonetheless.
Hi Rodney
Wanted to clarify couple other things….while our presence on Twitter may seem confusing, we try hard to make it make sense…and we will keep working to do that.
It is why we have the page listing areas of responsibility http://tinyurl.com/6qtdsw…see the lower right hand side for individual contacts.
And, if you cant figure out the right contact, we are pretty darn good about keeping in touch with each other and letting Twitterers know who they need to contact or getting one of us in touch with you.
Are we perfect at the “Twitter firehose”? No we are not…but we work hard at it.
As a rather large company, we want to also be in keeping with the Twitter “premise” of human connections….so a lot of people doing different things, yes. Also for us, its a lot of people keeping in touch with customers. Thats important from our perspective.
Its why Direct2dell and other “properties” also have people associated with them and why we participated in this listing here:
http://blog.fluentsimplicity.com/twitter-brand-index/dell/
Finally you mentioned at the “atdell’s”. In Nov. of 2006 we announced our online policies regarding transparency for Dell employees active on line. Its here: http://tinyurl.com/y3br42. Its why either in profile or names you see “ABCatDELL”. Its part of being clear about who we are and what we represent.
Richard,
Thanks so much for responding and helping to clarify how Dell is engaging via twitter.
These new technologies offer biz opportunities and challenges and you guys are right in the middle of the mix and adapting which is really great to see. Indeed the fire hose is tough; especially for a global brand like Dell.
You are doing many things right. Keep up the good work. You are an example that many businesses can learn from. Continue making those human connections.
Cheers!
You hit the nail on the head by focusing on Dell (I wonder if @Zappos will be jealous?), Rodney. I wish that other organizations would promote transparency and open communication. Retailer are hip to take advantage of social apps, but many are locked in old patterns. Focusing on positive examples is a great way to bring others into the mix.
I see your point about the perception of an automated account (e.g. a robofeed). The part of me used to conservative organizations understands when branded accounts don’t follow; it tells me lawyers and the reputation police are involve somehow.