EMC Corporation and social media marketing

Every week I encounter people working for large organizations with huge marketing and PR budgets who are resistant to the ideas of The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

They're used to the things that worked in an exclusively offline world (TV ads, tradeshows and events, media and analyst relations, Yellow Page ads, direct mail, and the like) and they don't want to experiment. Or there might be an individual who wants to jump into new marketing, but the bosses are resistant. Or the PR department is scared of "losing control of the message."

EMC is a big company (revenues in the USD$10 Billion plus range) and is jumping into social media marketing. Unlike other large organizations that are good at making excuses, EMC is good at experimenting.

For example, at the EMC World Conference 2008 (which brings together 9,000 people), EMC set up a social media newsroom, an EMC Twitter feed and other ways that people could stay in touch online while the physical event was happening. In fact, Joe Tucci, CEO of EMC, talked about these things in his presentation at the event. I find this compelling because most large company CEOs don’t even know what Flickr is, let alone would be willing to talk about it from the podium.

EMC also has a stable of employee bloggers. You can find a directory of them here.

Dan Schawbel is a blogger and EMC social media marketing machine. He spends a lot of time figuring out, experimenting and executing social media programs at EMC Corporation, where he is a social media specialist. Dan is also the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success a new book which will be released in early 2009 from Kaplan. Dan’s Personal Branding Blog is read by tens of thousands. Not your typical big company employee, Dan is stirring it up and making it happen.

Barry Burke, is another blogger who works at EMC, writing The Storage Anarchist. Barry is a technologist who's spent most of his career in product marketing and management of products and services for enterprise IT and MIS.

I like the disclaimer on Barry's blog. It reads: "The opinions expressed here are my personal opinions. I am a blogger who works at EMC, not an EMC blogger. This is my blog, and not EMC’s. Content published here is not read or approved in advance by EMC and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of EMC."

Great stuff. Isn’t it great that EMC encourages bloggers in this way.

As much as I like what EMC is doing, I wonder how much the company is paying attention to it's buyers and the search terms that buyers use? Some time ago, I wrote a post on this blog What are the search terms your buyers use to find products and services like yours? Where does your company rank on Google for those terms?

I still don’t see EMC at the top of these results…

Comments

[Siobhan Bulfin]

Hey David
I share the same frustrations at getting the organisations I work for in New Zealand to embrace social media and interactive marketing-despite the huge sums of money they spend on traditional marketing with little return. Here at the New Marketing Summit in Boston learning how to deal with all that! great stuff.
Thanks
Siobhan Bulfin

[Ricardo Bueno]

"I still don’t see EMC at the top of these results…"

Just goes to show that "listening" is a big part of the process that can't be overlooked! What are consumers talking about? What are they looking for?

In fact, it's not only a part of the process, it's the first step (or at least it should be). Don't you think?

[Erika]

Your website is so informative and your book (New Rules of Marketing and PR) is great. In fact its sitting right next to me and i plan on finishing it up today. I've worked in the typical PR firm where there was no use of social media for clients. Employees buzzed around like little worker bees and for what? they were utilizing the old ideas that you speak of when they could have been using that great energy to accomplish so much more! I however, am glad i've taken it upon myself to utilize and study these new rules and not fall into their habits. Thank you!

[David Meerman Scott]

Hi Erika, Glad the book has been helpful for you. And an added bonus is that this sort of marketing makes work more fun too.

[Bruce Lewis]

David,

I am on a plane trying to learn more about using social media and saw the Century 21 post. You'll make the PR guy look like a genius.

Me and My colleagues have just purchased 7 of your books and are plowing through it. I don't have mine with me (gave it to a client at a trade show yesterda) so decided to check out your website. I'm wondering if you might have suggestions for how I can help the City of Fort Bragg, California draw people to the city to see redwoods. Two members of the city promotion committee have finished ready the book. I'm a 60-year-old PR guy trying not to fall into the LaBrea tar pits of old rules PR. I have to get social media smart fast and figure out the best approach for building FortBragg.com content to attract peple to our redwoods. Ideas you might share?

[David Meerman Scott]

Bruce - glad you are making use of my stuff. I would focus on video -- man, you could do some great ones there! David

[Walter Adamson]

Hi David, I wrote more recently on EMC "How with just 3 Asks EMC encourages staff to embrace Facebook for business" which builds on your comments about how they encourage staff, and minimize the friction for those staff who are enthusiastic to be in the social media.

http://www.walteradamson.com/2010/06/how-emc-3-asks-facebook-business.html

Like others, I'm also enjoying the latest release of your book.

Walter Adamson @g2m
http://xeesm.com/walter