Social Media for Small Business: Dell’s New Facebook Community.
October 15, 2008 by Guru
Filed under social media
A couple of years ago when I was covering CES for MediaPost, my prized press pass landed me in the front row for Michael Dell’s keynote speech. As serendipity would have it, Mr. Dell wound up sitting next to me as he waited to take center stage. I couldn’t help but notice how nervous he was. You couldn’t blame him; the company was doing its damnest to recover from Dell Hell.
And recover they did. In his talk, Michael Dell managed to convince this skeptic and former Dell user that his company had turned customer-centric. From Idea Storm to carbon offsetting programs, Dell was power-listening to its users. And today, there’s more proof that this company is really getting it. Here’s the announcement from the WOM website:
Dell has joined with Facebook to launch a community and guide series called ‘Social Media for Small Business’ intended to provide SMB customers with insight on how they can leverage social media to expand their business. The community has been created as a Facebook Page and includes:
- Guides on how to use blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, “crowdsourcing” and other social media channels to cost-effectively reach and serve the “Connected Era;”
- “Screencast” introductions to social-media tools like Technorati, Netvibes and WordPress;
- A discussion board to spark conversation and idea sharing;
- A best-practice forum that features a different SMB weekly;
- SMB deals and news from Dell Small and Medium Business.
When I heard about Dell’s latest savvy customer-centric move, I was so impressed, I zipped over to order myself a new Dell desktop and discovered yet another shrewd user-friendly move: Dell offers a downgrade’ to XP on its Vista computers, if the buyer chooses.
Guru’s Note: Kudos to financial innovators like Visa and FiServ for reaching out to customers via social media. It’s way past time for marketers to adopt the ‘share, not sell’ mantra that most of the Web 2.0 world has long accepted. The Visa Business Network has partnered with Facebook, offering a content rich Facebook page for small business plus $100 ad credit to get started. And who couldn’t love them for their Signature VISA VIP Tent (and matching VIP toilets) at the recent Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park?
Fiserv’s MyMoney program, which initially is being sold only to credit unions, lets members of participating institutions view account balances and transaction histories and transfer funds online without leaving their Facebook page. This application is so highly regarded that it won The Banker magazine’s 2008 Retail Award for Online Innovation. Ain’t it grand when our major corporations are doing something for us, the small businesses of the world, rather than whooping it up at the St. Regis Spa, courtesy of our bail-out bucks?
