Dell cozies up to its Twitter followers
The PC maker offers exclusive discounts to those that follow it on Twitter.
That Dell is offering a 30 percent discount on refurbished XPS M1210 notebooks on Tuesday isn't particularly novel. How Dell is communicating the offer is, however.
The deal is available on the Dell Outlet Web site Tuesday only (it expires at 11:59 p.m. Central) to those who click through to the page from Dell Outlet's Twitter feed. (There doesn't appear to be a requirement to actually follow @DellOutlet on Twitter.)
The Twitter discount will continue with different hardware on a weekly basis, according to Dell. It's part of the company's extensive social-media outreach, which includes 80 different Twitter feeds, and 11,000 followers on the microblogging service.
Though Twitter may be new to many major multinational corporations, it's not for Dell, which has been quick to experiment with the service as a tool for customer service, public relations, and now advertising. Dell revealed late last year that its marketing efforts through Twitter have been paying off, adding about $1 million in revenue.
Right now, Dell needs a lot more than $1 million, which is chump change for a company whose sliding quarterly revenues are in the tens of billions, but the willingness to try new ways of attracting customers in a variety of media can't be a bad thing.