Canada Social Media Talking Points,

Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver, Week of November 11, 2010

1. Intro

Special thanks to “Third Tuesday” sponsors….Radian6, Fairmont Hotels, Rogers Communications….Wonderful trip and accommodations

Thornley post about trip says 4 year veteran of this space and forgotten more than most know --- truth be known, Im not sure I have forgotten an ounce of how we started and what Dell experienced in social media

Second, I see in Twitter and elsewhere that people say they are “tired of the Dell story”….AND I OFTEN think, YOU are tired of the Dell hell story….and so am I. …and if that is what you are tired of, maybe you don’t know the half of the Dell story

So tonight I want to focus on things you may not know about the Dell journey in social media

Dell Hell is four years old and we have written at least a new chapter every year in the journey of a large global business adopting and benefiting from social media… in my opinion.

Dell hell is history and while one never forgets roots and formative experiences, thinking about Dell beyond Dell hell is much more interesting and evolving, than that singular, formative incident.

Recent Ipsos study reports that in 2010 Companies are dipping their toes in the social media waters

2010 companies get serious says IPSOs survey…Last year 20% of [Canadian] marketers said they were using social media a lot, but this year that number is 47%,” said Mr.

Levy. “So double the number of companies we’ve spoken to are engaged in using social sites such as Facebook.”

If companies are dipping their toes in the social media waters today than after 4 years in social media pool, Im not sure if I am sinking or swimming the front crawl.

I do know since I was thrown into the deep end and basically told: “sink or swim but figure it out” Dell has not been merely treading water for 4 years.

2. From Social Media as Campaign or Support to Social Business

So Id like to share a bit of a personal perspective about 4 years of large businesses evolution using social media and its power for listening learning and engaging, moving beyond mere social media marketing “campaigns” or social media customer support activity to becoming a social business

In fact, we now talk at Dell about the value and process that can be put in place to get the social web embedded across the fabric of our company so much so that we see social media as part of our brand and Dell’s power to do more

3. The Social Web – growing here to stay and fundamental to who we are, how we connect, share, communicate

Lets be clear, the social web has become and will increasingly play a role in how we not only are informed or gather information and communicate.

It is also impacting how we form our perceptions, and indeed fundamentally influencing how we make decisions

social network or blog sites are visited by three quarters of global consumers who go online,

the numbers of people visiting these sites increased by 24% over last year. The average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than a year ago, almost 6 hours in April 2010 versus 3 hours, 31 minutes last year.

You name the statistic or social network, the fact is the Web has morphed from a static point and click, information gathering medium to an interactive, media-rich, robust, sharing and connective medium

And it involves people, virtually anyone and everyone can, or soon will, participate in some manner, from a myriad of devices and applications

The depth, breadth, global nature and connectiveness of the social Web makes it a very powerful tool….and businesses are impacted by that in many ways.

4. Take a Look at Dell’s journey in social media over 4 years,

Some highlights on the road going from incidental use of social media to embedding across a business, globally

Customer Support Integrated : Lets start with those formative experiences and roots…Dell hell led to a SWAT team off on its own doing specialized customer support and outreach. Today that SWAT team now takes the form of @dellcares – integrating customer care and technical support in one “face” and part of the operating business rather than off on its own. It operates 24x7, approaching 13 languages with growing global reach

Product Innovation and Development : Many know about Ideastorm and more than 400 ideas implemented. We are now embarked on a refresh of Ideastorm to make it more timely and relevant across all aspect of business

Did you also know that there are more than 170,000 ratings and review of Dell products on dell.com…with our product engineering teams reading those reviews and changing products where they need to; constantly drive better products and more high star ratings

User Generated Content , making it available to other users: People trust each other, more than they do media or business; so take those 170,000 reviews of Dell products, aggregate the information unedited around the way people use technology and feed it into an application on Facebook (tag Team) that lets you look for technology based on how you want to use it and how others like you use tech (ie film editing…laptop…etc)

Integrating the social web and real world experience: to connect and build stronger relationships, not just customer transactions, with your customers. CAP days

Social Web is Global: becoming among the top brands on China’s equivalent of Facebook and Twitter in just a few months does not occur merely by delivering customer support or marketing campaigns. A growing and successful blog in India and Norway all require understanding that “one size does not fit all”(despite Facebook’s apparent march to dominance; Niche’s matter) Global perspectives and engagement matter too

Social Web is not just about consumers, it is also a business-to-business matter: Dell on Facebook for business offers special information and about businesses growing and thriving using Dell technology;

Dell tech center a vibrant community and very productive social website…as well as a great team from Dell on Twitter, connecting with all kinds of CIO and IT department types.

Engagement matters and employees connected to customers is a tremendous benefit: Unconference with employees, trusting them to take charge and run the show…HQ in Round Rock, Europe, China and more coming

Training : more than 3000 employees trained in a quarter Listening matters : hearing what is said and getting it to

the right place in the business….any where in the business can be impacted.

Emergence of a social dell.com : go take a look yourself, especially in Canada where you are fortunate to see some of the evolution first, as much is beta-ed at dell.ca before going live on dell.com…it is shareable, shop with friends, the ratings and reviews…and links to external sites like Flickr and Twitter and more

5. Number of Initiatives tells you something about social media and business

a. Online heritage (dell.com) and connecting directly with customers is our heritage, but social media is an opportunity to realize these aspect of who dell is even more…sort of supersharging how we connect and customers have power to do more because of it

b. Listening, learning and engaging matters: no business, like no person is perfect; we can always learn and do better….that is a continual journey. Social media lets us move on that path further faster and with unvarnished unaided information being offered freely across the Web….there is both value and it delivers benefits

c. Using Social media in business does not scale. It’s a huge firehose and cannot be compartmentalized

d. Social media is not a channel, it is a tool to do better business and have better connections with people…that’s how it scales

6. What does that tell you about Dell, Social media and business

Social media is not about campaigns, or incidental use…it is more wholistic and valuable across the board.

Therefore, to realize its value and benefits we are embedding social media use across the fabric of the company, making it a cultural asset at Dell that allows us to do even better things for our customers

Getting there requires (HT shel Israel and Power to do more website article he wrote,

http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/d/corp-comm/social-media-ecosystem.aspx )

- A vision and defined strategy- Enablement- Education- Scaling throughout the organization

The result: is a living, human and connected company… constantly doing more for its customers

Back Up

Canada’s Internet population continues to grow - by 2013, it will hit 25.9 million, or nearly 75% of the entire nation.

Many of these people are among the world’s most committed Internet users, spending 45 hours or

more online each month.

While nearly 65% of consumers in the country own a mobile phone, they do not prize them as highly

as Americans do. And the majority do not feel compelled to pay for a data package to surf the Web

while away from home.

But traditional media isn't dead -- television still dominates, especially in the highly desirable over-35

audience.

How should marketers be adapting to the changing Canadian media landscape? This new eMarketer

report can help show the way.

Check out Roger’s video Next is Now (sponsor) http://publicimagedesign.com/2010/05/canadian-social-media-stats/

For the first time in history Canadians surf the Web more than watch TV

more Cdns on Web than people living in New Zealand, Ireland and Norway

Teens text enough to make a 24 hour day, actually 31 hours

Rank Country

Number of Facebook

users 1st July 2008

Number of Facebook

users 1st July 2009

Number of Facebook

users 1st July 2010

12 month growth %

24 month growth %

1 USA 27,811,560 69,378,980 125,881,220 81.4% 352.6%2 UK 11,171,540 18,711,160 26,543,600 41.9% 137.6%3 Indonesia 209,760 6,496,960 25,912,960 298.9% 12253.6%4 Turkey 3,464,640 12,382,320 22,552,540 82.1% 550.9%5 France 2,461,140 10,781,480 18,942,220 75.7% 669.7%6 Italy 491,100 10,218,400 16,647,260 62.9% 3289.8%

7 Canada 9,621,820 11,961,020 15,497,900 29.6% 61.1%8 Philippines 162,640 2,719,560 14,600,300 436.8% 8877.1%9 Mexico 1,042,820 3,644,400 12,978,440 256.1% 1144.6%

10 Spain 695,900 5,773,200 10,610,080 83.8% 1424.7%

http://www.facebooksniper.com/social-media-marketing-canadian-statistics.html

While the survey was global, in my opinion it has produced some of the most concrete Canadian statistics to date on the subject. Here were some of Canada’s Results.

- 34% of Canadian businesses have won new business through social media networks – the global average was 40%.

- 28% of Canadian businesses have set aside a dedicated marketing budget to social media

- Smaller companies were more likely to set aside a budget for social media.

- Small and medium-sized businesses were more likely to use the medium.

- 60% of medium-sized Canadian companies and 34% of small companies won new customers through social media, compared to 15% of large companies.

- 53% of respondents stated that “keeping in touch with business contacts” was the primary reason they use Social Media.

- 51% said that they used it to organize, connect to and manage customer groups.

Globally, 34% of respondents said that they believed social networking will never become a “significant method of connecting to customers and prospects

Business

New media marketing gains ground  

By Jameson Berkow, Financial Post November 1, 2010 Comments (1) TORONTO — The social networking phenomenon has changed more than just the way people interact with one another. According to Steve Levy of market research firm Ipsos Reid Canada, the rise of Facebook, Twitter and other digital media has also dramatically and permanently altered the way businesses interact with clients and customers as well.

“A lot more companies in 2010 have put their toe in the water and tried new and different things in [digital marketing],” said the president of Canadian market research for Ipsos Reid. “And specifically in social media.”

As part of a Digital Day conference being held Tuesday in Toronto, Ipsos Reid is releasing a study it conducted in October on the rise of digital media-based marketing campaigns. Having tracked the growth of digital marketing for five years, Mr. Levy found 2010 was the year new media marketing really broke out of its shell.

Mr. Levy found that until this year the organizations the Canadian marketing community had broadly associated with being heavily involved in digital marketing all tended to be technology companies.

“Apple was there, Google was there and Amazon was always there, but this year that has really changed,” Mr. Levy said. “A number of the key companies that appeared on that list now are consumer packaged goods companies, they are Coca Cola and Procter & Gamble and those are the companies that tend to spend a lot of money in the marketing arena,” he said.

That’s a sign digital marketing is becoming more mainstream, argues Mr. Levy. “Last year 20% of [Canadian] marketers said they were using social media a lot, but this year that number is 47%,” said Mr. Levy. “So double the number of companies we’ve spoken to are engaged in using social sites such as Facebook.”

Marketing through social networks such as Facebook, or through search engine advertising like Google Inc.’s Adwords service, tends to be less expensive than marketing on television, in print and on the radio. The budgetary belt-tightening of the recent recession, argued Mr. Levy, helped to fuel the expansion of digital.

“As their budgets contracted, or at least stagnated certainly during 2009, they were looking for less expensive mediums,” said Mr. Levy. “We’re certainly seeing marketing companies say they’re shifting away from traditional media such as television, print and radio and going towards digital.”

While the study found 36% of Canadian and U.S. marketers believe spending on TV will decrease over the next two years, Mr. Levy cautions those results do not mean marketers will “flick a switch and turn all the television advertising off.”

Rather, marketing firms wanting to take advantage of digital platforms should fold them into preexisting channels so they can provide a more comprehensive strategy for clients. After all,

marketing on Facebook, through blogs, email lists and mobile platforms can no longer be considered a passing fancy for marketers.

“A year ago I probably would have said I don’t think it is a fad in a guarded fashion,” said Mr. Levy. “This year I am convinced it is not a fad,” he said.

jberkow@nationalpost.com Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/fp/media+marketing+gains+ground/3760931/story.html#ixzz14MtLKXfO

Canadian Social Media Survey - the results are in

Posted by Rob Lewis on Tue, March 24, 2009 10:33 ASurvey highlights include:

Techvibes

70% of Canadians say they use social media.

Facebook is the most popular social networking site with 70% of people surveyed currently having an account.

47% of Canadians use Twitter and the majority of users are 19 – 25 years of age.

Only 20% of people surveyed currently use MySpace.

YouTube & Flickr are the most popular social media sites with 38% & 29% (respectively) of people surveyed using the sites.

42% of Canadians do not blog, while 58% do blog.

74% of people who blog, do so for personal purposes, 57% blog for work and 35% blog for both.

9% of people surveyed have hired an employee online and 22% have received a job offer online. 69% have done neither.

61% of businesses said they track what people are saying about their brand online.

Home » Featured, News, The Web

Canada’s Tech Habits – Lagging in Mobile, Embracing Social Media, But Wary of ‘TMI’

Submitted by Lee Rickwood on July 1, 2010 – 8:27 am

As Canadians celebrate a national birthday and share a most welcome holiday, a lot of that togetherness will take place online, using social media tools and mobile communication devices.

After all, we are one of the world’s most wired and most social networked countries.

But a new digital portrait of our media and technology habits shows that even as we continue to embrace new information and communications platforms, we are reaching a saturation point in some ways — people share too much personal information, and not much of it is particularly interesting.

TMI – too much information, flowing from user generated content portals like Twitter or Facebook – is just one of the findings from a new study conducted by global communications consulting and PR firm Fleishman-Hillard, and its look at ‘Digital Influences’ on the Canadian personality.

Influence here means the amount of time spent with a particular media device or platform, and the amount of importance or attention paid to it.

The study, conducted by Fleishman-Hillard in conjunction with Harris Interactive, looked at how we use the Internet, the ways we consume media, the degree of adoption of various digital behaviours, and our involvement in social networking.

It’s the first time the study looked at Canadians in this way, and the first publication here of such results. Later this year, a series of special roundtable discussions and users forums will be staged to dig a little deeper into the survey results, and how we can all learn from the detailed digital portrait of ourselves and our behaviours.

For now, some general conclusion can be made:

1    The Internet is the most important and influential form of media consumed by Canadians. Compared to the twenty-seven per cent of Canadians who say that TV is important to their lives, 54 per cent say the Internet is most important.

2.   Canadians are Sociable: Sixty-nine per cent of Canadian consumers have a Facebook account – the average across the surveyed countries is 47%. Although, we are cautious about using social media and how much we reveal about themselves.

3.   Canadians Seek Accuracy: In Canada, consumers are more likely to identify and follow a couple of trustworthy sources for the most accurate information on the Internet.

4.   Cautiously Trusting: We’re most likely to seek advice from others when making a   decision, and we value conversations with friends, families and co-workers when it comes to decision-making.

Online Privacy, Security…and Boredom

Analysis of the survey results shows that more than half of us (53% of the study’s respondents) think we share too much information about our lives online, and only around one-third of those online find user-generated content interesting.

Yet we do, for all that uninteresting stuff, spend a lot of time on line – Canadians rank #2 in the surveyed countries as far as time spent consuming media, and a third of us do it on the Internet (34%) more than any other platform (just ahead of TV, at 33%).

But what’s worse than boring? No job!

Some 20%, or about a fifth of us, worry that expressing personal opinions online can have a negative impact on reputation, public persona, career or financial security!

“Canadian consumers are comfortable yet cautious when it comes to using the Internet. We’re the second most active in terms of social networking and we call the Internet our most influential source of information,” David Bradfield, senior partner and global chair of Fleishman-Hillard’s digital practice, says in a phone interview.

The caution Bradfield speaks of is manifests itself in what he calls “good judgement” in how we assess relationships, and how we balance real world influences and friendships against those in the digital world.

(A friend of mine, unaware of the survey, voiced his approach to social media with that tone of cautious embrace: An active Facebook member with some 1,500 friends, he still avoids posting his personal weekend plans: “If I say I am going to be at so-and-so’s party on Saturday, I am also saying where I an NOT going to be…”)

That perception of online vulnerability means he holds back on some posted content, even as he embraces the overall concept.

“Our responsible, protective nature manifests itself online,” Bradfield elaborates. “We look for accuracy in our representations, we are very much attuned to putting real person forward. We’re all learning how to share, and we are learning that in some cases, what we post means we may not get a job. In another context, though, maybe what you do with managing your online persona will impress a different boss.”

In that admirable self-regulation is some risk, however.

While a sense of online privacy is good, it should not replace or be a substitute for more robust safety and security standards. Canadians are aware of the double-edged sword of online activity

– we embrace social media, but we are still hesitant to get into e-commerce, shying away from online purchasing more than most.

Getting Our Cellphones To Work

Meanwhile, as wired and networked as we are, many of us still don’t get how our own cell phone works!

An average of one-fifth (21%) of mobile phone users do not use the features or full capabilities that come on their mobile gadget.

It’s a global malaise – Canadians and Germans are least likely to take advantage of their mobile device’s capabilities, followed by users in France, the U.S. and the U.K., who use an average of about 40 percent of device functionality.

The survey found big gaps between the capabilities and our playing games, recording/playing video, accessing the Internet and sending/receiving e-mails. It may also be an influence on the amount of mobile commerce and retail interaction here, still a bit low compared to many other countries.

Now, we all know at least a few ‘older’ folks who just ‘don’t get’ watching TV on their handset, but it is not clear to me whether the survey reveals we don’t understand our cellphone’s capabilities, or we just don’t want them even though they are built right in.

Bradfield commented on this apparent Canadian lag in mobile behaviour and full use of portable media, saying that “a lot of it may come down to regulation, and access to different types of cellphone plans (data and pricing).

“How does the CRTC actually impact what we can afford or are allowed to do?” he asked rhetorically, but not without irony considering other reports that have also said Canada’s lags far behind other countries in terms of phone pricing and data packaging.

“Lots of devices now are very data-intensive,” he noted, “so there is a natural correlation between what we pay for our services and what the rest are doing.”

(It’s true – my buddy in the States is always rubbing it in, talking about his cellphone plan that still gets him unlimited international calls from home and unlimited data on the go. I can only nod in awe, and say to him that his days of ‘all-you-can-eat’ are likely numbered. We are all taking up way too much bandwidth for it to be free – or even cheap – for much longer.)

Reviewing the Results – Acting on Them

As it is want to do, Fleishman-Hillard has some advice for marketers, communicators and other opinion shapers: close the gap.

“While consumers go online, marketers aren’t making the move to digital fast enough,” Bradfield stated. “They need to realign their marketing and communication programs or risk irrelevance in the consumers’ mind. This report shows just how engaged consumers are with new channels, and new media. Canadian marketers and advertisers face the challenge of keeping up, and deciding how much to spend on social media – or even their own website.”

Acknowledging that while much of the media landscape – whether in horizontal or portrait mode – is still in flux, some core behaviours have been identified.

Relationships, community, integrity, honesty are among the respected principals. Internet and mobile consumption will only grow, and the mix of ways to connect with a customer or reach out to another citizen will be based not just on good technologies, but on open relationships.

“We’re on a launch pad,” Bradfield said. “There’s great potential coming out of this study, and we want to continue to explore and dig into the online behaviours of Canadians.

“In the fall, we will pull together a series of expert roundtable, with people from mobile marketing, with people from development, with ad and media people and we’ll gauge the overall industry response. We’ll have workshops that challenge or validate our findings, based on real-world observations. And we’ll talk about what’s next.

“It’s not just about the technology, but about the user’s behaviour once they have access to that technology.”