Dell commands social media from new centre

Social networking conversations monitored around the world

Tweet about Dell and chances are the computing giant will see it.

The PC vendor recently opened a 'social media command centre' in Round Rock, Texas, where a team of analysts oversee incoming Twitter mentions, segment them into categories and study the data to decide how best to take action; more than your average media monitor.

The company’s analysts are responsible for tracking trends, such as new Dell product launches and financial results. Negative tweets are flagged red while positive ones are flagged green.

Dell spokesperson Maria Lopez told Computerworld Australia the command centre ran on social media collection and analysis software from Radian6.

“This tool allows us to go into specific needs,” she said. “For example, the product group wants to listen about product tweets. We monitor any product news and as the team sees something go viral, they respond. We also have people around the world who listen.”

She gave an example of a Dell product which attracted a number of negative tweets.

“We recently did a pre-launch of a product. In a couple of tweets, people said the touch pad gets hot. We sent that feedback to the Product Group, they made some changes and stopped shipping the product.”

Other teams monitor trending topics in different languages.

Dell also uses a Twitter account called @dellcares to interact with customers.

“We’ve got thousands of employees on Twitter," Lopez said. "They not only engage with customers but interact in different ways. We are empowering our customers to use social media and target their specific needs,” Lopez said.

According to Dell, 30 per cent of people who have problems with their computer become Dell advocates because they got their issue resolved in a timely fashion via Twitter.

Hamish Barwick travelled to Texas as a guest of Dell.

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAu

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