Dell's Social Media Listening Command Center: A Breakdown

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Among the more intriguing news items yesterday was that Dell's "Social Media Listening Command Center" (SMLCM) was ready to be unveiled. So, ClickZ reached out to the firm that helped with the project, Radian6, to get a rundown of its capabilities.

The SMLCM promises to be a key cog in the computer marketer's well-regarded @Dellcares customer care and tech support initiative. Austin, TX-based Dell is following in the footsteps of Gatorade, which launched a similar social media data-mining system in June.

From an e-mail exchange with the Canada-based Radian6's spokesperson, Sarah Carver, here are the major marketing data components Dell will be able to glean.

- It will track 22,000-plus daily social media posts related to Dell.

- Mentions will be gathered from the public Facebook API; Twitter; and "billions of sites" like blogs, forums, and video-sharing destinations.

- Dell will be able to view things like vote counts, comment counts, unique commenters, a commenter's number of Twitter followers, and sentiment metrics.

- Data can be segmented based on topics of conversation, trends, geography, and language.

Carver said such information could be used for both CRM- and advertising-related measures.

"For example, Dell can use the data to solve customer service issues in real-time, or answer product questions from customers or potential customers," she explained. "In terms of using the insight for marketing and advertising, I think that it is fair to say that the [SMLCM will help] Dell learn more about what matters to their customers. I believe that they will use this information across departments and become a more socially engaged enterprise."