If you’re a regular reader of the 60 Second Marketer blog, you know that we’re big fans of Dell Computer’s use of social media. They were an early adopter of social media and have continued to to leverage it to their benefit.

It took Dell about 18 months to generate its first $1 million in revenue through it’s @DellOutlet Twitter account. The DellOutlet page has about 641,000 followers, all of whom tune in to stay up-to-date on special offers from Dell.

It took Dell 18 months to generate it’s first million on Twitter, but it only took them about 6 months to generate their second million.

Oh, sure, a couple of million dollars to a $61 Billion corporation isn’t a lot of money, but when you think of the ROI on that cash, it’s very impressive. Just as a completely wild guess, let’s say the DellOutlet on Twitter is run by 10 people devoting 15% of their time to it. If the average salary for those 10 people is, say, $50,000 per year, then it only cost Dell $112,500 in salaries to generate $2,000,000 in revenue. That’s a rough guess at an ROI that any CFO would be thrilled with.

Here’s what we can learn from Dell’s experience:

1) Social Media can be measured. The best way to measure the revenue generated by social media is to create a landing page that tracks conversions. If you’re not doing that, you’re missing out on the #1 way to measure a social media campaign.

2) Social Media generates buzz. We’re not the only blog that’s mentioning this story right now. There are hundreds of other media outlets who are reporting on Dell’s success. Right now. As you’re reading this. That’s great PR for Dell.

3) Social Media creates brand loyalty. Let’s say you’re an IT purchaser for a large corporation. Let’s say you just saved your company $10,000 by buying a batch of laptops through DellOutlet. Let’s say your boss was very happy about that. Question: Where do you think that IT purchaser is gong to look next time they need to purchase computers? You guessed it — Dell.

Social Media is a bit over-hyped right now. But it’s also a very real, very tangible tool for marketers. Don’t underestimate it. Don’t overestimate it, either. Just use it. You won’t be disappointed.

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