Jennifer Lindsay Digital

Richard Binhammer, Photo By: Brian Solis

This is a guest blog post from Richard Binhammer is the Senior Manager, Corporate Affairs at Dell. Richard might be best-known simply by his Twitter handle, @RICHARDatDELL. Some of my A-List podcast guests described Dell’s early efforts to deal with the advent of social media discourse as ‘ignoring it,’ while still others said they had their ‘head in buried in the sand’ – but all point to them as an example of a company who has course corrected and is now reaping the benefits of doing social media ‘right.’ Richard is at the heart of shifting perception of Dell from ‘hate’ to ‘great’ (case in point: Richard’s T-shirt in the photo, left). Join the conversation at Dell here.

It used to be that brands were based on presumed or understood values. Our interactions with a brand were not much more than an affinity based on transactions we made. Today, brand affinity and values run much deeper. Social media is bringing those formerly “static” brand values and promises to life.

Social media opens the doors for companies and their brands to have more lively and active relationships with customers, ones that allow us to interact in real time and breathe life into the brand. By connecting people in business with the people who consume our products and services, customers are closer than ever to what were thought of as far-off distant corporations. More than bringing a customer-focus to our businesses, connecting online is like having customers as colleagues and walking the halls of the corporation every day.

Whether it is a customer blog post, comments on a company blog, interactions with Twitter followers or Facebook fans, social media not only empowers the customer, it brings the focus for any business right where it should be… the connections between it and its customers.

Continue reading ‘Connecting with Customers, Bringing Business and Brands Alive’