In a span of 2 ½ years Dell's Stefanie Nelson helped build a following of over 1.6 million users and a $6 million dollars revenue stream for Dell through Twitter. The effort is perhaps one of the most widely covered case studies of how a Fortune 2000 brand used social media to drive sales – appearing in the WSJ, Inc. USA Today, Bloomberg and more. Now, Stefanie shares her secrets with the PMN membership detailing how @DellOutlet did it. Her advice includes:

• Start with a clear strategy and objective – i.e. “Help move inventory bubbles quickly.”
• Identify a target audience – i.e. “Price-conscious US residents in the market for a computer.”
• Post content that is relevant to your target audience, but also helps you achieve your objectives - “Use this coupon code for 15% off…”
• Get support from the top – social media is not only accepted at Dell, but encouraged.
• Look for quality followers over quantity.
• Start with existing customers – Tell them you are on Twitter & why they should follow you.
• Listen and respond – RT and build awareness among non-followers.
• Cross promote among partners, divisional efforts to grow audience.
• Be relevant and regular – post a minimum of once a week so you stay top of mind.
• Don’t forget the social in social media: Start a conversation and engage. Answer questions…people get really excited when you respond.
• Add additional objectives over time – i.e. “building customer advocacy.”
• Try something new or unique – Dell was one of the first and was innovative.
• Be flexible & willing to change direction based on trial and error.
• Track, Track, Track – determine the best time of day, frequency, and offer types that drive response. Also look at ROI metrics and sentiment.
• Stick to it – it doesn’t happen overnight. 

Stefanie answered many attendee’s questions including – how big a team Dell needed to support their Twitter effort, Dell’s social media & employee engagement policy, Dell Outlet’s multi-channel integration and cross promotional efforts including the email/social media connection, what offers work best and Stefanie’s ah ha moments that highlighted the potential of the medium. To download the presentation or listen to the replay click here.

Once again, special thanks to Stefanie Nelson for sharing her thoughts with our PMN members

‘Til Next Time

Gen Y has spoken once again. In the latest PMN and Pace University survey we explored Gen Y’s usage and attitudes toward texting, mobile marketing, email, social networks and more. The results were enlightening. While Generation Yers do indeed spend considerable time on social networks, when asked what they would least like to give up for one week, only nine percent said social networks! In fact, the media Gen Y apparently can’t live without was…drum roll please….yup, old-fashioned email and texting.



So what’s going on here? Could it be that there is a clear division across media that includes “nice to have” non-essential sites (like Twitter and facebook) and “must have” productivity and communication tools (like email and texting)? Should Twitter and facebook be worried given they are considered less of a necessity? While no one is asking Gen Y to choose, the question is an important one for every social network and/or community player – what should you be doing now to avoid becoming just another community causality like GeoCities. For more information about our latest survey, visit the PMN website or check out some of the news coverage and let me know what you think.

Gen Y Holds Tight To Email And Texting
eMarketer: November 4, 2009 

Probing GenY'ers
MediaPost: October 27, 2009

Tech Additions: Email and Texting Top Social Media In Gen Y [Study]
Mashable: October 20, 2009

‘Til Next Time

I love the fact that brands are now conscious about building communities. They’ve finally realized that the social internet matters and that these communities have and will continue to have an enormous impact on their brand, sales, and future success -- whether they like it or not.

The latest to announce a new online forum/community is Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) with their new Freestyle Voices website. The site officially makes NCL the first cruise line in the industry to allow guests to connect and participate with each other. It gives users the ability to post their own opinions, reviews, pictures and personal stories about their NCL cruise vacation. And it seems to be working. In just a short period of time NCL’s Freestyle Voices is a vibrant community with more than 3,500 questions submitted, 200 stories posted and over 770 shore excursion reviews. But what I like best about the NCL Freestyle Voices is the following:

1. It’s not a separate community/url: Freestyle Voices is part of the NCL main website and heavily promoted on the homepage. This allows NCL to take advantage of the close to one million unique individuals who visit the NCL website each month. Furthermore, quotes from happy cruisers help NCL do the selling. In a world where people are turning to other people for the things they need rather than brands, this is great marketing.
2. It’s flexible and fully integrated: Users of the Freestyle Cruise can not only share their stories amongst themselves but also have the ability to link to those stories, photos, etc. to other social networks like Facebook -- so that people who don’t visit NCL, can view the experience. This also enables the customer and NCL to reach a larger audience.
3. It’s a database & viral tool: NCL doesn’t stop the conversation there. NCL encourages visitors to Freestyle Voices to sign up for the Inside Scoop, their company newsletter offering the latest updates on cruise specials, hot destinations and vacation planning. Visitors can even share the page/site with others across a multitude of destinations including delicious, newsvine, Twitter and more.

What the NCL site (and others like it) demonstrate is that it is not just about the popular social networks (i.e. Facebook), its about being and building community everywhere your customers are, including your own web site – especially your website since that  is where you'll likely to find your best customers.

‘Til Next Time

Riding around my suburban neighborhood this summer, I will occasionally see an enterprising youngster set up on the sidewalk selling fresh lemonade in the afternoon sun. It gets me thinking about how challenging and satisfying it is to take an adverse situation and turn it into a positive – particularly in the world of business. Wouldn’t it be great to take negative chatter about your brand and convert it into something that promotes it? Well, Frank Eliason from @comcastcares has done just that by “socializing” customer service. By embracing Twitter and using the micro-blogging service Frank and his team respond to customer problems and issues in a timely and efficient manner. The result has been amazing - what could have been a legion of frustrated customers is now just the opposite – Comcast brand advocates. Many have sat up and taken notice, including BusinessWeek, which has called him “the most famous customer service manager in the U.S., possible the world.”

That’s why I’m really excited to announce that Frank has agreed to lead the PMN’s next webinar on October 21, 2009. In this interactive session, Frank will share his thoughts on the importance of listening and participating with customers and how you too can leverage interactive tools like Twitter to converse and ultimately convert customers into brand advocates. The addition of Frank to the impressive line up of PMN speakers -- including Charlene Li, Ron Shevlin, Steve Rubel and Dave Evans -- continues our mission to provide marketer with the very best know-how necessary to start marketing with customers rather than at them. We hope to see you at the Webinar and for those of you wanting to learn more about how to leverage the power of Twitter for your business check out TWTRCON DC the following day, October 22, 2009 where dozens of other leading brands will be sharing their thoughts, advice and stories.

To register for the PMN webinar on October 21, 2009 featuring Frank Eliason from @comcastcares click here. To register for TWTRCON DC Early Adopter pass, just $395 on October 22, 2009 click here. Til Next Time.

I'm very pleased to welcome George LeBrun to the PMN family. As you may already know, last week we announced that George along with Bill Hanifin joined the new PMN advisory board. I’m very excited to have these two highly successful thought leaders on the board as we continue to build out additional benefits for our members. Both George and Bill will also be regular contributors to our blog.

Up first is George. Last week George and I spoke about some of the emerging challenges for marketers given the growth of new channels such as social networks and the micro-blogging site Twitter. Given George's experience as a lawyer I asked him to share our conversation on the topic with our members. The below post is a topic both George and I will be spending a lot more time on in the weeks and months ahead and it is an important one for marketers to not only acknowledge but address. We hope it gets you thinking and if we can be of any service, please do not hesitate to reach out. In the meantime, please join me in welcoming both George and Bill to the PMN Family.

Enjoy,
Michael
________

Participation Blurs The Line Between Who Owns Traditional Corporate IP
By George LeBrun

Large public companies have been struggling with a variety of issues around social media. One of the more recent to come to light is more of a legal nature. Most employees sign agreements that anything they think of or work on during their employment belongs to the company. It's typical "work for hire" contract language. But as we know, social media changes everything. So, if I blog or twitter as part of my job and I amass a large group of followers and then I leave my job - who do my followers belong to, me or the company? The company would argue that the followers belong to them and that the list of people is their IP, but what happens if the lawyers try to enforce that. Even a legitimate legal claim could backfire on them causing severe brand dilution.

When companies are trying to establish their corporate policies around the social media, they need to stop taking a "this is how we do it" attitude. The social web requires rethinking all of your traditional business rules and practices, it no longer matters how you did business last year, last month, or yesterday, but how you will do business tomorrow. This particular issue affects multiple business units and raises many questions. Should HR and legal be discussing re-writing their employment contracts? Can one agreement cover all situations? The company can argue that they provided the platform, but was the employee speaking for the company or him/herself, was blogging part of the job description, was it being done on company time? Should companies have plans and policies in place to purchase the list of these social followers? Does the company suffer from brand dilution when an employee leaves a company and no longer provides that communication between the company and its customers?

These are just a few of the questions that come to mind as more and more companies like DELL and Zappos start to encourage a large number of their employees to participate in the conversation with their customers...And what happens, if anything, to high-affinity brands like Apple who have a policy of not allowing employees to communicate in any way with its customer base. It is a hot issue for sure and one that Michael Della Penna and I are tackling head on as part of SuiteDialog/Rule 13's social media practices. For more information on SuiteDialog & Rule 13 visit the websites or drop us an email at info@thepmn.org.

Gen Y is like Ohio in my mind…so how Gen Y goes, so does the rest of us…eventually that is. And if that is indeed the case, then Twitter has some work to do. A recent survey of Gen Y consumers found that only 22 percent are using Twitter. This study compares very closely with another recent survey by Pew which found about 19 percent usage among 18-24 year olds in Nov/Dec. Probably lower than you would have expected right? With this generation, Twitter faces a ‘glass half full’ scenario. When asked whether they maintain an active profile on a social network (i.e. facebook, MySpace or YouTube), an overwhelming 99 percent of Gen Y indicated they did. It’s clear that Gen Y has an appetite for social networking, but still hasn’t fully embraced micro-blogging. Could it be that between texting and social networking there is little need? Could it be that social networks are more interesting and engaging given the array of applications now in use? Maybe, but one thing is certain, if Twitter is to have any real staying power, then Gen Y needs to be convinced of its advantages over texting and leading social networks. Twitter obviously provides a richer experience by enabling users to click-through to interesting articles, websites, videos, etc. Gen Y also needs to realize that Twitter offers users the opportunity to connect with others they don’t know – including experts users normally would never have the opportunity to interact with.

Marketers also play a major role and responsibility in how this communication channel evolves. To do that, it is critical we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. That is – don’t spam. Let’s learn from email’s spam crisis – respect the channel, be relevant, timely and funny. Find a voice that works for your brand and provide insight that your followers will benefit from and appreciate. In the end it is really about creating value and a positive experience for your followers. Finally, I encourage you to also watch your stats including follow/un-follow numbers and survey followers to understand their interests.

For more information on Gen Y and Twitter including who they follow, visit our website.

And that is exactly what CVS Caremark is hoping with its new community “For All the Ways You Care.” The campaign officially launched last year with TV ads and an innovative contest that celebrated and honored women’s roles as nurturers and caregivers. It takes another step forward this week with a new and enhanced community website. An email invitation received on Monday officially announced that website along with a series of new community features that invites users to participate with others and the CVS brand. New member features include personalized profiles, customizable stories, forums and support groups, and resources.

It’s a great concept and an admirable effort but success is all in the details and execution. While CVS and its agency Hill Holliday should be commended for expanding on a good concept and successful contest that humanized the brand, there are a few lessons to be learned here. First a look at the traffic using Compete tells an interesting story. The site is struggling. After hitting a high of 35,000 unique visitors in December with the support of national TV ads the site now hovers around half that. That compares to over 4,000,000 monthly unique visitors for CVS.com. Next, referring url data on Compete site shows the majority of the traffic is coming from sites associated with the CVS brand - www.cvsadvisors.com (and advisor site and panel for CVS) and www.hhcc.com (Hill Holliday the agency). So what should CVS.com do to build the community site and facilitate sharing and interactions among visitors?

1. Leverage Existing Assets: With 4 million monthly unique users, CVS may have benefited more by integrating the program into www.CVS.com or at least promote it on the homepage. A visit to CVS.com’s home page today showed no mention of the “For All The Ways You Care” program – missed opportunity. And although I received a solo email announcing the official launch because I signed up for the alert, CVS should leverage its existing programs and communications including its ExtraCare loyalty program to further promote the effort.

2. Build, Listen, Grow, Activate: CVS has little to no presence on Social Network sites such as facebook, YouTube, etc. CVS.com’s Twitter presence is limited to a handful of twitter accounts with few followers – the largest of which CVSPharmacy has 464 followers but no posts. Part of being successful is being there. Social Networks are a great opportunity to listen and learn and best of all they cost little other than the time and effort you put into them. While “For All The Ways You Care” may be central and critical to CVS’s long-term community strategy it would certainly benefit from a presence on and integration with other CVS communities across the leading social networks.

3. Define and Refine Goals, Objectives, Target Audience – If the goal is to build a vibrant online community CVS need to rethink its approach. To do so across today’s social internet requires a deep understanding of the audience and where to find them. Are they creators or spectators, as an example? Knowing this will dictate the approach, tactics, content and ultimately success of the program.

4. Tactics - After knowing the audience, think about the tactics. Imagine if the $169K that CVS spent on just one Extreme Home Makeover :30 TV ad was applied to targeting key influencers online. My guess is we’d be seeing a ton of growth. Time to funnel a lot of the big budget into online marketing and communications to grow and engage the community.

5. Partner – Picking the right partner to grow participation is critical. While Hill Holiday created a very strong concept, it’s critical that CVS partners with agencies that understand the social web and how to grow participation.

Overall good idea that is struggling, but certainly capable of getting better with some additional thinking, new tactics and a lot of listening.

Using one of its most unique approaches to date, 1-800-Flowers is setting its sights on “influencers” - mommy bloggers that is - to encourage participation and spur sales during this Mother’s Day. The outreach program which started this month is targeting approximately 24 “mommy bloggers” who according to a recent Brandweek article will fill eight archetypes of motherhood. Chosen bloggers will receive a bouquet of flowers and a discount code to share with their readers. Additionally, the company will recognize select bloggers through its own blog with “floral lifestyle expert” Julie Mulligan across various categories (Do-It-Yourself Mom, On-The-Go Mom, Pet-Lover Mom, etc.). The lucky few selected will also attend a cocktail party in their honor with 1-800-Flowers CEO John McCann and will be encouraged to write posts about the recognition. To launch the program, 1-800-Flowers will support the effort across other social media and interactive outlets including facebook, their twitter account and a dedicated microsite (www.spotamom.com).  Visitors are also being encouraged to submit their own nominations for mothers that deserve some recognition at www.spotlightamom.com. While the campaign does not include social media advertising the program will lead up to an extensive campaign that will include TV, print and online starting April 20th. Ads will feature CEO Jim McCann giving flowers to moms in various everyday locations.

For those of you looking to close the loop and measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts, 1-800-Flowers has done a lot right here. First, the use of unique discount codes will allow them to track redemptions. Additionally, traffic to their microsites www.spotamom.com, along with submitted entries to www.spotlightamom.com, will be a great barometer of the program’s success.

So the question of the week is…Is 1-800-Flowers crossing the line? The difference may be in the details -- i.e. disclosure. However, is giving gifts and schmoozing with mommy bloggers to influence blog editorial pushing the boundaries? Or just great relationship building? Are bloggers like trusted reporters or not? And should they be held to a similar standard? Are we in danger of damaging “trust” in social media outlets? Clever or careless? We’d love to hear your thoughts. In the meantime, we are happy to see the Blog council has a free Disclosure best practices toolkit – you can download it here. Trust is a terrible thing to waste, so think it through and cover your bases before launching a similar effort.

‘Til next time.

In case you haven’t already heard, The PMN officially announced our next webinar, “The New Rules Of Customer Service – Participate or Perish” featuring social media guru Steve Rubel. For those of you who don’t know Steve, he is the SVP, Director of Insights at Edelman Digital and authors the popular Micro Persuasion blog on digital trends. In addition to his blog, Steve is actively followed by more than 20,000 people on Twitter and writes a bi-weekly column for Ad Age.

Having known Steve for more than 13 years, I can say without a doubt that our members are in for a treat. There are few people better qualified to help our members understand how to leverage the power of participatory marketing to grow customer relationships and marketing results. Given Steve’s cult-like following, I encourage you all to register early as space is limited. I also want to thank our newest sponsor – TNS Cymfony, a leader in analyzing market influence in social and traditional media. TNS Cymfony joins a growing roster of market-leading sponsors, including recent additions StrongMail and Goodmail.

In addition, for those of you who missed Charlene Li’s fantastic webinar “How To Spark A Conversation Revolution – And Keep Your Job!” in January, you can view the archived webinar and presentation on the member section of our site (membership now required). I also encourage you to check out our Question forum where Charlene responded to attendee questions. Finally, if you haven’t registered for next month’s webinar “Everything They’ve Told You About Marketing Is Wrong,” featuring respected industry analyst Ron Shevlin and sponsored by Goodmail , you can do so by visiting our website.

’Til Next Time