Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, are widely used today as primary marketing tools. They provide companies with a more direct approach and way to increase presence among potential customers. In turn, customers also provide feedback directly or indirectly via comments, tweets, videos, or pictures, which can be useful or damaging to a company’s image. The ability to monitor and respond to such feedback is provided through simple searches or more complex analytics services, such as Google Analytics. We have even seen legitimate news sources, such as CNN, use them in their news segments.
Many companies have already established their presence through a variety of Social Media services. Dell has chosen to take it a step further. While the NSA is busy tapping into our phone conversations and tracking our movements, “Big Brother” Dell wants to know what you’re tweeting about and why. Today, Dell officially launched their Social Media Listening Center. The purpose of the new center is to provide Dell with the ability to track and monitor all things topics related to Dell. They’re hoping that it will help improve Dell’s consumer outreach and better their (outsourced) customer support. So be sure to comment and tweet your gripes away. They’ll greatly appreciate it. While this might seem like overkill, Dell isn’t the first to do this, as Gatorade was the first to launch such a program.
While the Dell “command center” may appear to be a glorified customer service call center, it is an interesting approach towards helping companies understand their brand presence. They can utilize trends and better understand where they stand among consumers. It shouldn’t be a surprise to see other listening centers pop up soon. I also have no doubt that they will be monitoring this post as soon it is published.
Written by Daniel T.