You can’t buy a Dell on Facebook (yet). But you can of course keep up with what’s new at Dell – deals and products – from their Facebook page news feeds and via a customer support app, you can get support directly from within Facebook. And now you can also explore, learn and share information about Dell products through their new Facebook user review app.
The Dell Tag Team review app (screenshots below) on Facebook allows you to explore product reviews from a tag cloud of functional keywords describing what the products are used for – connecting with friends, video editing, data analysis etc.
You can zoom into the tag cloud to reveal less popular and more esoteric tags and then select one or more tags to see a filtered list of products – with reviews – used for the selected tag activities.
The app also supports product search if the whole tag cloud thing seems a little 2007. You can then like, share or post your own reviews.
In all, the Dell Tag Team review app simply replicates functionality in product reviews software on e-commerce sites – such as PowerReviews tag-based review software.
And the app, as it stands, is a bit of an island – it doesn’t yet link through to an e-commerce store or cart, thus limiting utility for customers, and ROI measurability for Dell. We expect that will change soon.
But we do think the Dell Tag Team Facebook review app is the shape of things to come insofar as Facebook is a perfect platform for user reviews. It seems only logical that the leading digital platform for user content should become the leading digital platform for user reviews. Perhaps Amazon, given its new love affair with Facebook, will port product reviews across to Facebook. Now that would be useful.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Paul Marsden, Eric Erway. Eric Erway said: RT @marsattacks Dell Brings Tag-Based Reviews to Facebook [Screenshots] http://bit.ly/d2dzYX […]
As usual, Paul, a highly vivid, useful summary. Many thanks.
Unlike 1800Flowers, Dell seems reluctant to use Facebook gratuitously as an e-commerce destination. But Tag Team still seems forced. It's a lot like Ikea's use of Facebook when it decided to open a new store. Heralded as a huge success in marketing trade media, it provided little value to Ikea beyond the quantitative display of product images across Facebook user pages. What if Ikea took its photo-tagging concept and added a “need capture” element? By simply asking Facebook users to identify a qualitative aspect about themselves. (as a requirement to participation) Ikea could have developed a prospecting database for future follow-up.
Similarly, what if Dell figured out a way to understand what individual or groups of Facebook users actually needed and/or when they needed it. Sure, Tag Team's tagging element gives them an idea of how customers use products. But again, big deal. It would be far more powerful to take that kind of qualitative knowledge and put it to work — as part of a larger system of prompts that move Facebook users toward products…. that guide them toward the destination they choose.
What is Dell doing to identify needs (even in latent form) and eventually capture it? Dell seems to be doing this on its own w/ IdeaStorm and other initiatives. Which is why this feels forced I suppose.
Jeff: I'll be publishing a post re: Tag Team on Direct2Dell soon. Thanks for taking the time to weigh in with your thoughts.
The short answer is this: Tag Team is more about our customers than it is about us. It's purpose is to help them find products that will meet specific needs based on what other customers say via their own reviews instead of what we say.
The other thing I can say is that Tag Team is a starting point. It's a first step toward blending activity on Facebook with Dell.com. Users can submit reviews right from Facebook that will appear on the respective product page on Dell.com.
We'll make this smoother over time.
Thanks,
Lionel