In the first episode, she talked about how they endeavor to make their content inventive and influential enough so that their “tech savvy and forward-leaning” audience takes the conversation offline with their friends.  In our last episode Ellen describes some of the metrics they use and how they came to create the Bravo “Talkbubble”, which is a mashup of various social media components all working in concert to provide a virtual ‘TV Viewing Party’ around Bravo show premiers.

As we continue the series in the ROI of Social Media podcasts, we encourage you to subscribe to the RSS or notices via email.  You will want to hear every minute of these insightful conversations with business marketers successfully deploying innovative social media solutions.

In this episode, Guy recognized that, like other participants in our interview series, Bravo has found that the use of social media has supported interactions that allows brands to connect more often with their audience and to increase their exposure without overwhelming them.

In an example of this power to increase the touch points with viewers via social media, Ellen points out that of the 92 messages posted during a Talkbubble session, it is very possible that those messages will be reposted / re-tweeted over 400,000 times around the world and that the audience will not think that they are being spammed or feel overwhelmed in the flow of messages.

Nonetheless, the Bravo Team does try to space the messages and make them relevant.  One of the ways they do so is to enlist the help of the Bravo-lebritites to drive even more engagement, all of which satisfies the consumers desire to feel like they’re involved with the lives of the people they see on the screen.

Ellen expands on the increase in the messaging that is possible with a social presence and we ask “How much Bravo can one person get?”, and if it is even possible to satiate the desire of the consumer or fan to engage with a brand like Bravo?  It’s a serious question that she and her team work hard to make sure they understand the answer to so they do not overwhelm a fan.

Where is social media going for Bravo though?  Social is part of their DNA and social is a critical outlet for the brand to ‘make the conversations happen’ is what Ellen tells us.  They are always on the lookout for new ways to connect to the audience, regardless of platform.  Social is likely an urgent part of the Bravo tool set and will be a part of everything they do from now on.  It lets you touch base and talk to the audience which is so important to the Bravo brand; it’s a part of everything they do.

Right now everything is new and exciting in social media and with the level of engagement for the team, the real challenge is understanding what the audience is saying about the brand in the social media eco-sphere qualitatively and giving fan what they want in the social channel.  As new platforms come along, they want give their fans what they want – an exciting interaction.

They watch the conversation closely looking for cues to see what they need to act on to support their fans and increase ‘the brand width of engagement’ or range of interaction with the audience with their fans.  You can find Bravo online, mobile and offline – they want to wrap the consumer with as much Bravo as they want, anywhere they want.

Play / Download Ellen Stone / Bravo Networks – Episode 3 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

For an MP3 file of the entire episode and (eventually) the transcript of the podcast, we invite you to visit and join our community site relating to the book at www.TheROIofSocialMedia.com and to explore best-practices in the ROI in Social Media.

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a great interview who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview them and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

The Podcast and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This podcast / transcript was developed from a live recorded interview on April 7, 2010 between Ellen Stone Ellen Stone / Senior Vice President of Marketing with Bravo Media, Guy Powell and Steven Groves.

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, which is available from SourceForge.net, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

The transcripts are sponsored by Social Marketing Conversations and the introduction Voice Talent is Ms. Cynthia Propst.

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In this episode Ellen talks about how they use mobile to connect to their audience.  Their first iPhone app was developed around the Top-Chef shows and they shared with the consumer, the restaurants and shopping venues the contestants liked to eat at and shop in.  The app evolved into ‘Guides by Bravo’ where Bravo celebrities (‘Bravo-lebrities’) share their preferences for shopping, dining and entertainment in various cities like LA, NY and Atlanta.

Subscribe to the RSS or notices via email, if you want to make sure you do not miss a minute of this series with Ellen Stone and other social-marketing savvy business marketers.

The #1 goal for Ellen and her team is to have a high level of engagement with the audience – there are a lot of quantitative metrics, but not as many qualitative.  The qualitative metrics are very important and include –

• how many people become fans of the show
• how often Bravo becomes a top trending topic on Twitter
• # of Bravo-lebrity tweets get comments or are re-tweeted
• what are fan talking about
• how long the topic stays alive
• page views during the shows

The Bravo team took the idea of a TV Viewing Party and produced an idea they call the ‘TalkBubble’; which a multiplatform (online / offline / broadcast) media event that uses Facebook connect and Twitter to help fans enjoy Bravo shows when they are debuted.  The events include Bravo-lebrities, which encourages audience participate and features real-time interactions.  Bravo can see in real-time how the audience is responding to the show while it is being broadcast.

The metrics for TalkBubble vary a bit, but it includes page views, # of tweets, and other qualitative criteria that are somewhat proprietary.  As they see it, TalkBubble is taking social media to the next level connecting the audience and show celebrities in a unique and immediate way.

With capabilities like TalkBubble in place, the Bravo team can focus on the key elements in crafting a successful campaign – for Bravo that means they take more time with the message content and how it is crafted; it cannot be too corporate and it needs to mimic the tone of the show / brand and not push selling. 

Ellen and the team feel it is important to monitor and understand the # of messages being posted and what’s already trending.  If they try to compete with news, they want to make sure that to audience doesn’t perceive Bravo posts as spam; Bravo knows they need to break through the clutter and noise of the message stream. 

Play / Download Ellen Stone / Bravo Networks – Episode 2 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

ROI of Social Media Community Site

Guy Powell and I are avid about uncovering the ROI of marketing.  It’s work we are both passionate about and enjoy.

To support our work in exploring the question of ROI in marketing and social media, we’re launching a community site using the Ning platform at www.ROIofSocialMedia.com where we will be posting a wide variety of content for our readers and fulfilling our commitments we made in the ROI of Social Media book to provide fresh and updated content around the question of ROI in marketing and social media.

We have set the community as open for anyone, but a membership is required to access content like the complete episodes of all the podcasts and as comprehensive a list as we can possibly generate of social media monitoring and measurement technology and tool vendors. 

Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

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Bravo Networks has made social media a part of their DNA and with really powerful results.  In this podcast series with Ellen Stone / Senior Vice President for Marketing for Bravo, she shares some of the work that she and her team have undertaken to develop some award winning brand concepts and programs. 

You’ll want to subscribe (to your email or RSS reader) so you don’t miss a minute of what is an excellent podcast series on how Bravo has adopted social media to extend their relationship with the audience in powerful, productive and profitable ways.

In this episode Ellen describes the Bravo brand and the five entertainment categories they focus their programming and content on ; they are food, fashion, design, beauty and pop culture.  She also shares that they see that the audience for Bravo really expects a connection in social media and she uses the terms ‘tech savvy and forward leaning’ to help describe the audience.

Their goal in content generation is to provide inventive and influential content that engage the audience and that the audience then talks about it with their friends.  As a pioneer in social content, Bravo was one of the earliest brands to get involved in social media with their connection with MySpace in 2005. which Ellen points out as proof that social is really a part of their DNA at Bravo.

The partnership with MySpace was for shared content around show premiers, building & maintain buzz around a series, and promoting branded products (such as cookbook, clothing.)  Their work today includes leveraging Facebook, Twitter and a wide variety of new properties to better connect to their audience.

In the way of a true market leader, she suggests that their biggest obstacles is also a benefit too – it is that with the social environment changing so quickly, they get to / have to decide where and how they use social media to connect to their audience in ways that are helpful to the brand, have the audience talking and impact the audience with the messaging they want to get out there.  With the growth in social it hard to determine just what tools and tactics will work best early & impact-fully.

Play / Download Ellen Stone / Bravo Networks – Episode 1 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

ROI of Social Media Community Site

Guy Powell and I are avid about uncovering the ROI of marketing.  It’s work we are both passionate about and enjoy. 

To support our work in exploring the question of ROI in marketing and social media, we’re launching a community site using the Ning platform at www.ROIofSocialMedia.com where we will be posting a wide variety of content for our readers and fulfilling our commitments we made in the ROI of Social Media book to provide fresh and updated content around the question of ROI in marketing and social media.

We have set the community as open for anyone, but a membership is required to access content like the complete episodes of all the podcasts and as comprehensive a list as we can possibly generate of social media monitoring and measurement technology and tool vendors.  

Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

Related posts:

• How to Give Consumers All They Want From Your Social Presence – Ellen Stone / Bravo Networks
• How Innovators Takes Social Media to the Next Level – Ellen Stone / Bravo Networks
• Strategy: The Graying of Social Networks

We start out this episode with Steve telling us just how he feels about the use of the term “virality”.  At the time EVERYthing seemed to be intent on ‘going viral’ and it was a holy grail of digital marketers to get the content to ‘go viral’.  According to Steve it’s a potential outcome of a successful initiative, but he is more interested in substantive measures and measurements that show that the brand moves more deeply into the consideration set of the consumer; Steve suggests that virality is more a function of reach or awareness.

Steve explores the concept of driving trust and reputation to a brand and shares the concept that measurements and insights are situational.  Yes, standards and best practice studies are important, but the ROI is situational relative to the client and really should tie into the drivers that already exist for the clients business.  In the era where we can measure anything, ROI is situational and particular to the client.

The aspect that pushes for delivering more valuable metrics and ROI are being driven by clients and agency.  Clients want to understand what’s working and agencies are adopting tools and tactics that deliver the goods.

Steve explains the ‘Crisis of Attention’ plaguing marketers when asked what can hinder reach in social media.  The crisis of attention is saying that human attention is finite and people will make choices and what people will select to place in their sphere is often dependant on things like –

• life stage
• interests
• personal situation

These are all factors of reach or what Steve refers to as “Surface area”.  For 2010 and beyond, marketer will need  the areas to focus are based around time -

• when
• how long
• what time of day

…and qualitatively, what the mindset the consumer is in when they receive the message. 

Mobile is an area that Edelman is driving clients to, supported by the studies released by Morgan Stanly and Gartner statement that most web content in the very near future is going to be consumed primarily on mobile devices.  For several months he’s been able to leave his laptop at home and work almost exclusively on a smart phone and he has some really powerful insight on what’s important when it comes to mobile – in a few words, less serendipity and more focus on the brevity of the message, an aspect that will help social grow even more.

For measurement tools, Steve makes a shout out to Radian6, Sysomos and Trendrr but predicts that before long it is likely that Google will move to make similar information more available for possibly even a lower price. 

As we wrap up, Steve suggests a consumers backlash in 2011 that will drive an enhanced need for managing their personal data that marketers have access to.

Play / Download Steve Rubel / Edelman Digital Episode 2 Podcast Here

He is available at steve.rubel@edelman.com, on Twitter as @SteveRubel and as a life streamer at SteveRubel.com.

This is the final episode of the two part podcast with Steve Rubel.  Guy Powell, Jerry Dimos and I want to thank him; we appreciate her perspective and taking the time to share it with us in our podcast interview!

Usually, we’ve been posting links here to the entire episode and the transcript of the podcast.  Starting next week we are opening a community site relating to the book (today it is at www.TheROIofSocialMedia.com) and the exploration of ROI in Social Media – you’ll find the content being posted there in the near future.  We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a great interview who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview them and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

The Podcast and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This podcast / transcript was developed from a live recorded interview on January 18, 2010 between Steve Rubel, SVP for Edelman Digital and Director of Insights for Edelman, Guy Powell and Steven Groves. 

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, which is available from SourceForge.net, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

The transcripts are sponsored by Social Marketing Conversations and the introduction Voice Talent is Ms. Cynthia Propst.

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He was kind enough to spend some time with us as we kicked off the podcasting series back in January, but the content got misplaced and recently was found as I had to rebuild my system from a crash – so I’m tardy in posting, but nonetheless Steve’s comments and his insights are timeless so we’re very happy to bring you this episode in our podcasts with industry executives and innovators – this is episode #53 actually!

We open the discussion asking Steve about how Edelman handles the  question of ROI for their clients.  He tells us that while he is not directly assigned to accounts, he helps connect digital programs to public relations and shares and example in the work they did for Ben & Jerry’s when they introduced a flavor called ‘Flip’.  The ROI for the client in that case was an increase in awareness of the product and how it drove engagement with the audience, demonstrated by a buzz in the social ecosphere and in blogs.

Steve suggests that there is a natural synergy between PR and social media and with digital media being much more measureable.  He shares some of the measures they use, which include -

• reach
• engagement
• reputation
• sentiment

…and for some clients -

• trust

The basis of the measures are really rooted in the traditional metrics they’ve used for PR and then adopting it to the resources they can bring to bear.  Steve suggests that social and digital are much easier to measure than traditional.

The model is that that every campaign has an agenda and the campaign kicks off with some kind of outcome in mind.  Edelman tailor the outcome to the business objectives of the client and then employs various tools that help measure the outcome and how well it meets the clients stated business goal.

The change in measurement reflect the change in the audience.  More and more people are getting involved in social media and the ability to breakout social from traditional media elements is getting harder, Steve suggests that all media is social, all social is media and that the trend line suggests that more people are consuming media through digital channels than traditional, with the notable exception of television. 

In 10 years, Steve predicts that all tangible forms of media will be gone and people will engage in digital almost exclusively.  his observation is that social is more addressable than anything previously and that the measurement will become more powerful and sophisticated.  The real questions we’re trying to address are what is needed, how do we use them and what are the standards that can be applied that are common from brand to brand, media type to media type and venue to venue – the best practices are emerging.

Play / Download Steve Rubel / Edelman – Episode 1 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

To support the work in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, and a LinkedIn Group.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

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Michael is the Director and General Manager for the Global Small and Medium Online Business at Dell, and is responsible for the overall online business and strategy for Dell SMB worldwide.  When he spoke with us from his offices in Stuttgart Germany, Guy Powell and I were able to find out a great deal about how Dell manages and measures their social marketing and their online presence.

In our first episode, we learned about the Four Pillars of the online marketing strategy they employ and in episode 2 we heard about the five Customer Value Drivers and the five key metrics they apply to measure the success of their online efforts.  In our last episode, Michael shared how Dell works hard to present a broad offering of online communities and communications options to support the B2B and B2C initiatives and to give customers a chance to have their voices heard and to drive the innovations in products and services they want to invest in from Dell.

In this episode, we wrap up the conversation with Michael with him sharing how Dell is absolutely committed to social media as a fundamental tactic because they see success in it and they see how well the customer base responds to it.  He also points out that the massive increase in social engagements in other geographies, away from North America, to other regions that including Brazil, Russia, India and elsewhere.

A second area of focus for Dell is an increased effort on Search; Michael suggests that search is where customers are looking for information and they expect to increase and improve their presence in search engine marketing (SEM) and as for a business like Dell, you should ‘fish where the fish are’ with paid advertising in the search engines.

The next key element he suggests will be businesses targeting market influencers.  Influencers can expand your exposure and credibility in social media and influencers provide a multiplier effect to your efforts – he sees Dell and other companies beginning to target those influencers with a more consistent and focused effort.

The fourth element he shares is an encouragement for businesses to development an engagement ecosystem of online and offline media assets that present a cohesive and consistent message for customers so that the marketing message carries between them seamlessly.

Next is the topic of mobile computing and this is getting to be a red hot space for businesses wanting to adopt social media.  Mobile is a big area for deployment of social media, particularly in light of the migration of social activity to other geographic areas that will have different connectivity models, one where mobile devices will be the dominate access tactic.

He restates that ‘Marketing is the New Finance’ and businesses wanting to improve revenues and reduce costs need to look to more efficient marketing to do so, but not without some metrics and measurement.  As social becomes a bigger part of the marketing mix, businesses need to understand how to engage and further to grasp the idea that a social campaign is not as streamlined as traditional marketing campaign.  Social media is still a bit of a jungle and businesses need to be prepared to handle a few mistakes along the way.

Lastly, and possibly most important is that Michael makes it clear that social media is not a gimmick for him and the team at Dell – it is a way of working and a way for we, as humans to interact with one another more and to deliver a higher degree of service to customers.  He suggests that if a company understands that, they can excel in their respective marketing effort, but social needs to becomes a part of the culture and not just a shtick or PR stunt – those efforts are a sure way to get your brand called out or worse, ignored.

Play / Download Michael Buck / Dell Episode 4 Podcast Here

You can find and connect with Michael at Michael_Buck@Dell.com, or via Linkedin, or on Twitter as @WorkingForDell

Here are links to material related to the interview that you may find useful; the entire conversation in one extended recording and a transcript of the conversation

Play / Download Michael Buck / Dell SMB Entire Interview Podcast Here

Read / view the Michael Buck / Dell SMB Podcast Transcript at Scribd.com

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a great interview who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview them and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

The Podcast and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This podcast / transcript was developed from a live recorded interview on April 13th, 2010 between Michael Buck, Director and General Manager for the Global Small and Medium Online Business at Dell, Guy Powell and Steven Groves.   The interview was arranged via Jerry Dimos.

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, which is available from SourceForge.net, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

The transcripts are sponsored by Social Marketing Conversations and the introduction Voice Talent is Ms. Cynthia Propst.

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• How Dell SMB Supports Customers in Diving Deep in Social Media
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• What the 5 Customer Value Drivers and Top 5 Metrics are for the Dell SMB Social Presence

In previous episodes we met Michael Buck, who is the Director and General Manager for the Global Small and Medium Online Business at Dell, responsible for the overall online business and strategy for Dell SMB worldwide.  He spoke with us from his offices in Stuttgart Germany and first told us about the Four Pillars of the online effort at Dell that are a part of everything they do.

In our last episode, Michael shared how the approach differs for a business-to-business (B2B) customer versus a business-to-consumer (B2C) customer and how they make sure the top Customer Value Drivers are embedded in their tactics.  In that episode he also shares what the top five metrics are that they apply to their online marketing and social media efforts – all really great information.

In this episode, Michael declares that ‘Marketing is the New Finance’ because with the power of social marketing, Dell is able to affect both the revenue and the expenses of the organization.  He tells us that eCommerce is not the beginning of a relationship with their customers – it is an outcome of the relationship they build via the online elements they deploy to connect to their customers.  Michael goes on to share that they have been benchmarking social tactics versus traditional and find that social elements are so powerful that, in the SMB education they provide to their customers, in some cases social elements warrant a clear consideration to perhaps flat out replace some traditional components.

He explains that it is very important to start the relationship with the customer from a level of trust, a trust that is earned from customers; it is not a given for Michael that customers will engage with Dell online just because they produce a campaign to helps them do so.  He suggests that without that trust, the customer will not engage regardless of the tactic used.

A campaign that he refers to in the interview is the ‘Take Your Own Path’ campaign that leverages actual Dell users from a variety of industries to tell their own story and how Dell has supported them in their computing journey.  They encourage customers to share their stories and in this campaign, Dell has melded the online and offline components to present a consistent look, feel and message to the audience.  What you see in airport signage, magazines, billboards and online all mesh to share the message that Dell is a good partner to count on for your business computing needs.

To encourage user interaction for the Dell team, consumer choice is key in the Dell presence and they strive to support a broad offering of community and communications options that lets the consumer dive into the Dell experience as deeply as they wish.  An invitation to connect in social media though is not with out a caveat however, Michael suggests that if a company does adopt a social presence, they need to take the presence online seriously and to participate willingly; he suggests that if the online presence is perceived to be a gimmick to pump the same content and marketing message they can get offline and that there is no intention of engaging, elements of the audience will call you out and they 1) will not engage and 2) they will tell others that your presence is hollow.

Play / Download Michael Buck / Dell SMB Episode 3 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

To support the work in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, and a LinkedIn Group.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

Related posts:

• Why Social Media is Not Just a Gimmick for Dell SMB
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In this episode Michael suggest that while there are distinct differences in employing social media to connect to the business-to-consumers (B2C) and the business-to-business (B2B) audience, both groups benefit from the engagement between the vendor and other customers.

What Michael shares with us is that the B2B sector is not as active or engaged in popular social media platforms as B2C and that B2B requires a bit more facilitation to get them to interact and participate.  What he also tells us is that there is a much broader set of influencers and decision makers in a company setting that need to be addressed and that Dell deploys a broader set of communication tools in the effort to reach them.

The adoption of metrics that demonstrate success however is never an issue; Dell is a very metrics driven organization.  As important as the metrics are though, they first examine the Customer Value Drivers that support the communication tactics they deploy to connect with the audience.

Michael shares the Customer Value Drivers for Dell –

1. Provide a meaningful connection with customers based on shared interest
2. Provide the customer the ability to express themselves
3. Provide recognition for contributions the customer provides
4. Support the customer in getting advice, validation, or assurance of their decision making
5. Help solve the customers problem

The Customer Value Drivers relate to 5 particular metrics -

1. Customer Insights That Drive Innovation
2. Marketing Spend Efficiency
3. Conversion Rates
4. Customer Lifecycle Value
5. Cost Savings / Support Call Center Avoidance

Play / Download Michael Buck / Dell SMB Episode 2 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

To support the work in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, and a LinkedIn Group.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

Related posts:

• How Dell SMB Supports Customers in Diving Deep in Social Media
• Why Social Media is Not Just a Gimmick for Dell SMB
• How Dell Does Online Media – The Four Pillars

One of the big names that always comes to mind for social marketing success is Dell Computers.  They adopted social media early on for a number of reasons, primary of which is the belief that listening to a customers wants and needs is the best way to market to them.  It has not always been perfect – the ‘Dell Hell’ posts by Jeff Jarvis on the BuzzMachine.com was a wake up call back in the 2005 and it seemed to get Dell to invest more heavily in tools like Twitter.

The headquarters for Dell is in Round Rock, Texas, just outside of Austin.  Austin is the host city for an annual event that showcases the best in social media, South by Southwest (SXSW), which is an art & technology event that many social media participants and technology providers launch new products and capabilities – Twitter was debuted there in 2006.  So being near ground zero in social media may have had an impact as well.

Dell has been regularly referred to in case studies too,  many of which point at the $19M in revenue they attribute to the social media effort and others point at the call deflection that saves them millions in customer support costs – with all that history, we could not wait to get a chance to talk with Dell about their social media programs.

Our co-author Jerry Dimos of LiTMUS Group in Singapore helped set up the call and it was a great pleasure to talk with and interview Michael Buck who is the Director and General Manager for the Global Small and Medium Online Business at Dell, responsible for the overall online business and strategy for Dell SMB worldwide from his offices in Stuttgart Germany.

In this episode we meet Michael and he outlines what Dell has been doing around online communities and social media since the early 90’s.  Back then Dell knew the value of connecting directly with customers and they started with forums and blogs and since then Dell has been pretty near the front of the line in implementing and using online social technology.

To support their efforts online, Michael introduces the Four Pillars of the Dell effort -

• 1st Pillar is Dell.com where they have their ecommerce platform, which includes chat, ratings & reviews and feedback from customers
• 2nd Pillar is their own communities like IdeaStorm and other branded communities
• 3rd pillar is the external communities like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.
• 4th pillar is the 100,000+ employees that can act as Brand Ambassadors as they talk to customers everyday in messages, communities and forums

While Michael does not see any real big obstacle in the growth in the use of social media by the company, the only real barriers is the migration of the organization from one of an in-bound / out-bound company to one that listens and responds to feedback from a wide variety of channels, but he is confident that they will continue to grow into the effort.

The debates they have to contend with are like those in almost every company: funding projects, the best way to measure their effort and defining what success looks like.  The real benefit for Michael Buck and his initiatives are that from the top of the organization down, from Michael Dell to the front line employee, everyone is empowered and able to use their voice and fully engage in social media.

Play / Download Michael Buck / Dell SMB Episode 1 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

To support the work in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, and a LinkedIn Group.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

Related posts:

• What the 5 Customer Value Drivers and Top 5 Metrics are for the Dell SMB Social Presence
• How Dell SMB Supports Customers in Diving Deep in Social Media
• Why Social Media is Not Just a Gimmick for Dell SMB

In this episode, Esmee tells us that in the food world people tend to use traditional media because the format (print) is ideal for use in the kitchen and for casual reading – the typical consumption pattern for food and entertainment content.  Esmee and the team are keeping an eye on devices like the iPad and how they impact that model.  What Esmee sees is that there are two modes of use the device bridges – one mode of usage is the casual reading we just covered and the other is when a user makes a search on specific ingredients, usually indicating they are looking to prepare a meal for those ingredients.  Both are common with their member / user base and they want to make sure they address the different user models regardless of platform.

The future of social media in the food area is very exciting for AllRecipes.  Esmee suggests that the evolution of content on the web related to food and entertaining will be relative to the interactions available with other cooks and the quality of the recipes provided.  She asks us to imagine the blending of social media, recipes, video and the utility provided by grocery loyalty programs and smart appliances.

If you tie all that to recipes behaviors and by using collaborative filtering, you could feasibly get meal plans provided relative to what you actually have on hand in your refrigerator automatically delivered.  Smart appliances support that paradigm via the emerging Stickybits.com technology that are now being placed on food and a smartphone can scan that sticker and provide recipes using the ingredient related to the season.

As we conclude, Esmee shares more about how AllRecipes has been expanding overseas in 15 different countries that embrace the local food culture.  The impact will expand the user base in those countries and provide am expanded recipe base of authentic preparations; while a French cook may not be too interested in what a hoe chef in Mississippi says about preparing éclairs, a cook in Mississippi might be very interested in how a French cook prepares a genuine éclair.  Likewise if a consumer decides they want a real taste of Mexico, they’ll be able to get a recipe from a home chef of Tacos al Carbone.

Play / Download Esmee Williams / AllRecipes.com Episode 5 Podcast Here

To get a hold of the AllRecipes.com team look at their website, www.AllRecipes.com of via Twitter (@AllRecipeNews) and their Facebook Fan Page at www.Facebook.com/AllRecipes.

Here are links to material related to the interview that you may find useful; the entire conversation in one extended recording and a transcript of the conversation

Play / Download Esmee Williams / AllRecipes.com Entire Interview Podcast Here

Read / view the Esmee Williams / AllRecipes.com Podcast Transcript at Scribd.com

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a great interview who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview them and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

The Podcast and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This podcast / transcript was developed from a live recorded interview on April 13th, 2010 between Esmee Williams, Vice President of Brand Strategy for AllRecipes.com, Guy Powell and Steven Groves.

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, which is available from SourceForge.net, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

The transcripts are sponsored by Social Marketing Conversations and the introduction Voice Talent is Ms. Cynthia Propst.

Related posts:

• How AllRecipes.com Became the Worlds Largest Food / Recipe Site
• Why Consumer Brands Tiptoe in Social Media and How AllRecipes.com Helps
• Why the Best Metric is Not ‘Unique Visitors’ – Esmee Williams of AllRecipes.com