Bob Pearson, VP Communities & Conversations had some great points in this video that I wanted to highlight here. He was interviewed by Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester who published the video in a post on his blog, Web Strategy by Jeremiah.

Highlights for me were:

1. How core is social media to Dell? It is not just something they do, Bob states, “Social Media is a part of who we are”.

2. For Dell, social media is first and foremost about customers, “Social Media is a way to communicate with our customers more effectively”

3. It is impacting product design, “using social media to integrate customer ideas into our product design” (ex: www.ideastorm.com ).

4. Where is Dell going next?

a. Bob said they just finished chapter 1 which is, “how we integrate social media within Dell”.

b. Chapter 2 for Dell is “how does social media revolutionize the business infrastructure of a company”. We will hear more from Dell about this in 2009

5. What about Social Media in a recession? Bob states, “in a recession, social media becomes more important”. Dell sees a greater adoption in this kind of economic climate. Why?

a. It is not that expensive to do

b. It gets us closer to our customers

6. Customer Support. Dell sees that customers have a tremendous amount to share with each other and that this is a huge trend online that Dell is helping to facilitate, “we see ourselves as an enabler”.

7. Why is social media so important? “The corporate web site, Dell.com, is not really our home page.”, says Bob. “The new home page is Google, or Yahoo or MSN. Wherever people go to search – THAT is the new homepage”. When you see what comes up in the first page of results, “those are the people forming the impression about your company”.

8. My favourite quote from Bob, “What we see is that the web reflects reality”.

Solution partner brings local support to the UK market while providing more focused, regional guidance with social media monitoring, engagement strategy and tactics.

Radian6 has officially unveiled 6Consulting as an Authorised Solution Partner to provide local sales, support and training services to the UK market.

6Consulting have evolved from a leading Management Consultancy in Sales, Marketing and Customer Service transformation to well-regarded Social Media Monitoring and Engagement strategists.

Benefits to Radian6 customers in the UK:

•    6Consulting have in-depth knowledge of the UK market and a deep understanding of Radian6 and Social Media – and as such 6Consulting are able to provide more focused guidance in social media monitoring and engagement strategy and tactics

•    Local resources eliminates time zone difference between UK and North America, providing more efficient support to our customers

Co-Founder of 6Consulting Matthew Brazil said “We are delighted to be bringing the Radian6 platform to the UK market.  We currently work with a number of corporate, advertising, PR, brand and media clients – all of which have expressed interest and excitement supporting this partnership.”

6Consulting provide strategic guidance on the importance of social media monitoring, understanding that different organisations should be integrating different social techniques into overall business strategy.

CEO of Radian6 Marcel Lebrun said “The UK market is of great importance to us as a number of our Global partners have offices in the UK.  6Consulting are leading UK based Social Media Monitoring and Engagement Strategists that can not only support sales, support and training of the Radian6 platform but provide high level strategic consultancy to both Advertising/PR Agencies and Corporate clients.  We are thrilled to be working with them”

Global communications agency selects Radian6 to help drive social media strategy for international clients.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) November 13, 2008 — 360° Digital Influence – Ogilvy’s global social media and word of mouth practice – and Radian6 have successfully deployed Radian6 as the consumer generated media listening tool to all of the Digital Influence teams around the globe.

Radian6′s social media monitoring platform gathers real-time-as-discovered information from across the social web, including blogs, video sharing sites, boards and forums including LinkedIn Answers, and emerging media such as FriendFeed and Twitter.

360° Digital Influence provides strategy and execution of programs driven by social media and digital marketing to generate word of mouth for global brands. They are true social media strategists and practitioners. They needed a tool that made it easier to collect and sort conversations to create their client Conversation Maps and Influencer Audits.

“We need a day-to-day listening tool that looks across platforms and the social web, in multiple markets, sees the largest universe of consumer-generated content and conversations and lets our Digital Influence Strategists work fast,” says John Bell, Managing Director for Ogilvy’s 360° Digital Influence group. “We worked with Radian6 over the past year to deploy their tool to our complete global team. That’s the story – real implementation across the world.”

Ogilvy’s 360° Digital Influence and Radian6 will work together to refine the use and functionality of the tool in different markets throughout Asia, Europe and North America.

“A global social media strategy must include focused engagement strategies. Embracing user-generated content and evaluating the impact of key influencers is critical, and Ogilvy is a leader in this regard,” adds Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian6. “With Radian6′s user-generated influence and engagement metrics, the 360° Digital Influence Team can find, engage, and build relationships with those influencers. They can also deepen their understanding of what channels not only effectively deliver compelling messages, but how and why that delivery compels people to take an action.”

For businesses with global operations, Radian6 also supports nine international languages – including English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Korean, Japanese and Simple Chinese. In addition, platform users can filter results by language or by geographic region to segment and analyze results in all areas of the world.

“We have to understand how our clients are perceived and discussed by their customers in the marketplace,” explains Bell. “Our strategists can set up Radian6 quickly based on our clients’ keywords and lexicon. The snapshots we receive of what people are saying make it easier to apply our insight and execute strategic recommendations. Radian6 really helps our experienced strategists use social media to build our clients’ business.”

“We are delighted to have spent the last year working with the Ogilvy 360° Digital Influence team. They’ve been outstanding collaborators, providing us with invaluable insight about how the platform can be enhanced and adapted to meet changing market needs,” concludes LeBrun. “For the public relations industry to continue to evolve, it needs thought leaders like Ogilvy PR to share best practices and push the boundaries of what’s possible in social media. We’re excited that Radian6 is such an integral part of their practice.”

About Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Ogilvy PR) is a leading global marketing communications firm, with offices in more than 60 cities around the world. In its 27th year, Ogilvy PR provides strategic public relations counsel to a variety of clients across its consumer marketing, corporate, healthcare, technology, public affairs, social marketing and entertainment practices. The agency also offers biotechnology and government affairs expertise through its subsidiaries Feinstein Kean Healthcare and Ogilvy Government Relations, respectively. Ogilvy PR is part of the WPP Group, one of the world’s largest communications services organizations (NASDAQ: WPPGY, www.wpp.com). For more information, visit our Web site at www.ogilvypr.com.

About Radian6 Technologies

Radian6 provides the social media monitoring platform for marketing, communications and customer support professionals. The company’s flexible dashboard enables monitoring all forms of social media with results appearing in real-time as discovered. Various analysis widgets give users the ability to uncover the top influencers as well as which conversations are having an impact online. Visit www.radian6.com for more information.

For the Social Media Press Release version with video interviews with John Bell and David Alston click here.