MackCollier.com

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How to grow your blog by leaving it

Beau wrote me an email asking the following: “Some time ago, you wrote a post called “40 Dead Simple Ways to Get More Comments on Your Blog.” This is a great post, and #27 in particular intrigues me: “Leave comments on other blogs.” You state: “The best way to grow your blog is to leave it.”

Could you share with me briefly just how this works? How is it that commenting on other blogs brings traffic back to one’s own blog? I suppose I could always leave my blog URL in a comment on someone else’s blog, but at a certain point this seems like spamming to me. My sense is that “URL-dropping” is not exactly what you had in mind here.”

Beau thanks for the question, and here is Beau’s blog.

Let me give you an example of this idea from 2005 when I started blogging. I was completely new to blogging, and I was writing on a group advertising blog Beyond Madison Avenue. Personally, I was hoping the blog could be a tool I could use to help me land a job. So I had a very vested interest in seeing it succeed.

Now I had no idea what blogging was about, but I knew I need a lot of visitors and a lot of comments. And BMA had neither. So I started reading all the supposed ‘best’ blogs, with the thinking being that I could learn from these other bloggers what the ‘secret’ to blogging success was, and then copy it for BMA.  So for the next few weeks, I started reading and studying the top blogs religiously. At the same time, I was writing every day for BMA, sometimes as many as 4 posts a day.  Nothing was happening.  No traffic, no comments, virtual tumbleweeds were rolling by and taunting me.

And I really wasn’t learning anything from the blogs I was reading, either. But as I was reading I was discovering new blogs that were interesting, and once in a while I’d even leave a comment on a post if I thought it was interesting. Over the next couple of weeks, I discovered more blogs, and left more comments on blog posts.

Then suddenly one day, BMA started getting comments.  At first it was only a couple, then every new post we wrote would start getting comments within an hour or two.  In a week we’d gone from a blog with zero comments from readers, to one where every new post was getting 5-10 comments!

Which was amazing, but I still had no idea what had prompted the change.  Then one day a reader left a comment and said that they were thanking me for the comment I had left on their blog, and wanted to come leave a comment on my blog.  That’s when it hit me: All these comments were coming from bloggers who wrote blogs that I had already commented on!  They had followed the link back in my comment to come check out my blog!

Beau thats when I learned one of the most fundamental truths of building engagement via social media: The more you participate, the more participation you get.  The more comments I left on other blogs, the more comments I got back on my blog. And it doesn’t work just for blogs, the more active I am on Twitter, the more tweets I get as well as followers.  And I don’t mean simply ‘name-dropping’ but actually participating in conversations and trying to build the discussion.

When you participate via social media, it raises your awareness.  It’s a way of getting your name out there, and getting people to notice you.

Now for increasing comments on your blog by leaving it, here would be my tips:

1 – Watch your referral traffic. If you don’t have a way to track your blog’s stats, there are many free options available. I use both SiteMeter and Google Analytics here.  But tracking your referral traffic will show you who is linking to your blog.  If you see from your referral traffic that another blogger has linked to your blog, go back to their blog and thank them.  Or even write them an email thanking them.  That simply encourages them to link to your blog again, plus comment on your blog.

2 – Leave comments on the blogs of readers that comment on your blog.  Same as above, this simply encourages them to leave more comments on your blog, because you are doing the same for them. It’s all about rewarding the type of behavior that you want to encourage.  This is one that I honestly don’t do as much as I should.

3 – Leave comments on blogs that are influential to your readers.  Think about where your readers are going now to get their information and connect with each other, and go there. By connecting with them there, leaving comments on posts, etc, you will get on their radars.  By participating in their space, that will encourage them to come check you out on your blog.

 

So those are some ideas on growing interaction on your blog, by leaving it. Again, the key to building interaction via social media is to participate. Great content will only help you if people know it exists, and that’s where interacting with others in THEIR space helps you build your own awareness.

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What impacts search traffic more, keywords in posts or post frequency?

So a couple of weeks ago I was blogging about how my search traffic seemed to be flat over the last few weeks.  I decided to do a 2-week experiment to try to see if posting frequency or posts with targeted keywords would have a bigger impact on increasing search traffic.  For the week 2 weeks ago, I posted 5 new posts during the week, but didn’t worry about targeting keywords in the post title or in the post itself.  Last week, I only posted 4 new posts, but I made more effort to target keywords and phrases in the post titles and the posts themselves.  Here’s a graph of search traffic over the life of this blog:

BTW, I promise my writing isn’t as terrible as it looks in this graph 😉  As you can see, there’s been a nice steady increase in traffic till the middle of April, and has been fairly flat since then.  The last two weeks at the end are with the red lines under the graph.

So two weeks ago I posted 5 times and didn’t worry about targeting keywords or phrases. I had 767 visitors from search the week before, and it fell to 705 2 weeks ago.  Now since 2 weeks ago included Memorial Day, that affected the search traffic a bit, but didn’t account for all of the drop.

Last week, search traffic rebounded nicely, up to 804 visitors from search, which was the 4th best week here ever for search traffic. And that was with only 4 new posts, but I made an effort in each post to target keywords and phrases in the title and post.

So what can we learn from this incredibly unscientific experiment? It seems that targeted keywords and phrases do a better job of increasing search traffic than simply posting more does.  BTW in case you were wondering, overall traffic last week was up over 50% over the previous week.  So the fewer posts with targeted keywords and phrases resulted in more overall traffic as well.

Writing this from the Huntsville Airport, so I hope to see some of you at the B2B Forum this week!

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Delta’s latest PR episode details the need to engage your brand advocates

Steve Woodruff started an interesting discussion at his place about the latest PR quagmire that Delta Airlines finds itself in.  Apparently, some soldiers brought 4 bags onto their flights home, and were charged for those 4th bags, as per Delta’s policy.  The soldiers were assuming that they would not have to pay for the 4th checked bag, and were upset, and made a video about it (that has since been removed).

Delta, to its credit, was quick to address the situation on its blog, and has now changed its policy to allow for a 4th free checked bag for soldiers flying in economy.  But given what a hot-button issue this is, you can see in the comments that hundreds of people are outraged and angered over this issue.

And honestly, I feel sorry for Delta, especially the people on Delta’s blogging and social media team. They handled this issue about as well as they could, but they are still getting absolutely raked over the coals in the comments to their post.

But as I read through that post and scanned the wall of angry comments, I was looking for the one thing that I never saw: Comments from Delta’s brand advocates.  There are a few comments from people that are sympathetic to Delta’s position, but they are quickly targeted by multiple commenters siding with the soldiers.

And to be fair to Delta, they can’t stay and respond to the individual commenters. That would literally take them all day, and would likely generate even more angry comments.  Because this is an issue where most people, rightly or wrongly, are going to assume that Delta is in the wrong. And if any Delta representative tries to explain their side of the situation, more angry comments will be the result.

Which is why Delta should have its advocates speaking on its behalf. But Delta can’t rely on its advocates, because it hasnt invested time in connecting with and empowering them.

For example, let’s say Zappos caught itself in a PR nightmare similar to the one Delta is in now.  If angry customers started attacking Zappos, how soon would it be before Zappos’ fans would come to the brand’s defense? Pretty darn soon, and my guess is the number of negative comments against Zappos would decrease as a result. In the Delta example, in the absence of Delta’s advocates, the volume of negative comments seems to be increasing.

So my advice to Delta, who I am sure is scratching their heads wondering what they could have done differently, is to start today connecting with your brand advocates. Find your most passionate customers, and embrace them. Then the next time you have a PR fight like this one on your hands, you won’t be going it alone.

PS: And Delta if you or any other company is wondering how in the hell you embrace and empower your advocates, here’s your roadmap.

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Fans, Friends, Followers, and the Reason Why None of it Matters

I’ve tried to stay off the soapbox for the most part here the past two years, but the first blog post from Kathy Sierra in 4 years has got my mind racing.

I’ve been blogging for 6 years now, and the blogging and social media spaces have gone through a lot of changes in that time. One significant change I’ve noticed is how we define who the ‘authority figures’ are in this space. In 2005, if you wanted to know who the top bloggers or the ‘A-Listers’ were, you asked around.  Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, Hugh MacLeod, Kathy Sierra, Seth Godin and Jason Calcanis were some of the names you heard over and over again.  All people that were moving the needle, that were legitimate ‘thought leaders’.

Then, rankings aspects began to enter into the picture. Technorati started tracking the number of incoming links a blog had (later called the site’s Authority).  That changed the A-List a bit, as now a site’s ability to gain incoming links became more prized.

Later, around late 2006/early 2007, we all discovered Facebook, and that added a new layer to defining the A-List: Number of friends.  As a result, the A-List changed a bit more.

Then around 2008 or so, Twitter really started to gain steam. Which, you guessed it, meant that Followers now became a new way to define who the ‘A-Listers’ were.

What I’ve noticed is that how we define who the thought leaders are in this space has changed dramatically. In 2005, we figured out who the experts and A-Listers were by listening to each other.  The A-Listers were the ones that got talked about the most, and linked to the most, and who were on the most blogrolls.  There wasn’t really a way to ‘rank’ them, we just knew who was creating great and valuable content, and those were the people that we listened to, and whose opinions we valued and trusted.

Now, the rules for defining authority have changed. Yes, good content still matters. But so does your number of Facebook friends, your number of Twitter followers, and your Klout score.

The problem is, your number of friends, followers and your Klout score can be gamed.  Let’s be honest, I would be seen as a greater authority in the social media space by many people if I had 50,000 followers instead of my current 25K.  And we also know that all I’d have to do to hit 50K, is follow another 25K people.  That would be gaming the system.

A very unfortunate side-affect of using rankings such as friends and followers to determining authority is that the ability to teach isn’t as important as it once was.  Let’s revisit that list of A-Lister from 2005:   Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, Hugh MacLeod, Kathy Sierra, Seth Godin and Jason Calcanis.  All teachers. But today, it seems that more of the supposed leaders want to tweet about how you should ‘be awesome’ instead of teaching us how to be awesome.

We don’t need another ranking board. We don’t need to know who has the most followers, or fans, or the highest stock price on Empire Avenue. We don’t need to know how to get more RTs or how to get on more lists.  And we sure as hell don’t need to deal with the grief of thinking we aren’t smart or influential if we don’t have X number of any of the above metrics.

We don’t need to see tweets telling us to ‘be awesome’, we need more teachers that will roll up their sleeves and teach us how. And if someone can’t do that, then do they really deserve to be viewed as authorities?

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Want to know what’s next in social media? Listen to your customers

On Monday I was lucky enough to speak to students and business owners from across the state of Alabama at the PRCA State Conference in Birmingham.  During my second session (here’s the slides), an attendee asked me ‘What’s next?  What will be hot in 5 years, or the hot tool in 5 months?‘

I answered by saying that she shouldn’t be focusing on the tools, but on how we use the tools.

Why did blogs rise in popularity?  Because they gave us a quick and easy way to create initially text-based content.  Then, over time, the platforms evolved and new functionality was added.  Then we could more easily add pictures, and video, and then widgets.  The concept of the blog itself evolved, now businesses could use the tool as a more traditional blog, or as a website.  Or some could combine elements of the two.

But at its heart, the blog gave us a tool to more easily create content.  That content might be our thoughts and opinions on a personal blog, or it could be our marketing and promotions on a business blog.  Or a combination of the two.

Then add in things like RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and ReTweets on Twitter, and Facebook Like buttons, and all these ways we have to more easily distribute our content.

So that presents a new consideration:  If everyone now can easily create and distribute their content, that means we all have a lot more information accessible to us, right?  Maybe even too much, so maybe we now need filters and ways to better organize that information.  We need sites like AllTop that will organize all this blog content by topic so we can find what we are looking for.

Then what about technology?  Smartphones and continuing to become more sophisticated, as mobile networks are trying to meet users’ demands for more bandwidth.  As the networks become more robust and even faster, that will change how we consume and interact with content while on the go.

So if you want to know what is next in social media, don’t focus on the tools, focus on why your customers are using the tools.  Why do they like Facebook now, where they used to love MySpace?  What is it about the experience or functionality of Twitter that they love?  Don’t think about what the tools offer your customers, but think about what your customers get from using those tools.

For example, 3 years ago if I had a major customer service issue with a company and wanted to get their attention, past traditional channels (contact them via website, toll-free number, etc), I might blog about my issue.  Now, I would go to Twitter.  Why?  Because I know that I can probably get their attention quicker via Twitter.  But if another channel existed that would let me get a quicker response and resolution to my problem, I would go with that channel.

Because I don’t care about the tool, I care about getting my problem solved as quickly, easily and satisfactorily as possible.  Whatever tool helps facilitate those outcomes, is the one I will use.

What do YOU think is next in social media?

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My SXSW schedule

social media training, brand evangelists

This time next week, my plane will (hopefully) just be landing in Austin.  I’ve never been this excited about attending SXSW and I have a ton of events I’ll be attending, so I wanted to list everything here, so hopefully we can connect.  I’ll be at SXSW from next Friday through Monday afternoon.  The majority of my time on Friday and Monday during the day will be devoted to meetings, and I’ll be in the Austin Convention Center for the most part.

If you are a company (Especially big brand B2C) that:

  • Needs Social Media Training
  • Needs Social Media Consulting or Advisement
  • Needs help launching a brand ambassador or blogger/influencer outreach program
  • Want to discuss sponsoring a future #Blogchat or sponsoring a LIVE #Blogchat event

Then please email me and let’s set up a time to discuss your needs.  I’ve already got some meetings scheduled during Friday and Monday, but if you want to discuss how we can work together, I’ll make sure we get a chance to connect.

As for Saturday and Sunday (and Friday night), I am going to spend those days connecting with my old and new friends.  Here’s the events I will be at:

Friday Night: Ignite Social Media Party, starting at 7pm.

Saturday: Tequila Now party for the Now Revolution from 1:30 – 3:30pm.

Saturday Night: Either Wiley book party, or Frog Design’s Opening Party (which would be better?)

Sunday: #AllHat3 from 12:30 – 3:00pm

Sunday: #Blogchat LIVE at SXSW from 3:30-6:00pm (YES!)

Sunday Night: #Blogchat on Twitter from 7pm-9:30pm (probably from the Hilton lobby ;))

So if we haven’t met let’s please do so at SXSW!  Feel free to email me and we can get together and I can shake your hand, at least 😉

 

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Which is better for your company, a blog or Facebook page?

Facebook pages and blogs for companiesThat’s the question that David Griner is going to help us answer at tonight’s #Blogchat, starting at 8pm Central.  #Blogchat is a weekly Twitter chat that happens every Sunday nite at 8pm Central where we discuss a different blogging topic.  This week, David Griner will be co-hosting as we discuss which is better for your company, a blog, or Facebook page?

David is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company, a Birmingham-based marketing agency that’s been crafting Facebook strategies for clients for years.  One of Luckie’s bigger successes is the social media marketing effort it has crafted for iconic Southern snack company Little Debbie, including a Facebook page with over 750,000 likes.

So David knows the power of Facebook for companies and organizations.  And since a lot of your companies are curious about whether a Facebook page or blog is right for them, I decided that would be the perfect topic to hash out tonite at #Blogchat.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

1 – Which is better for companies, a blog or Facebook page. David and I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both blogs and Facebook pages for companies.  We’ll need you to help us by giving us your thoughts on both.  We’ll stay with this topic till 8:30 CT, then we’ll shift to…

2 – If a company has both a blog AND Facebook page, what’s the best way to make them work together?  I think a lot of businesses have both, so if they do, how can they make them work together?  What’s the best way to use the FB page, and what should be the role of the blog?  And for those of you that work for companies or organizations that are using a blog and Facebook page together, we’ll need you to help us answer this question.

So join us at 8pm Central tonight for #Blogchat.  And before you do, make sure you are following David on Twitter, and that you have subscribed to his blog, The Social Path.  David recently wrote a post on the new Facebook redesign that’s been insanely popular, you’ll definitely want to check it out.

And if you’ve never joined #Blogchat, here’s what it’s all about.

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What happens when a brand evangelist’s message isn’t the same as the brand’s?

All week we’ve been talking about the value for companies and organizations of connecting with, and even embracing and empowering their brand evangelists.  But a recent post by Sean Howard raises a very valid question:  What if an brand evangelist creates content about a brand, that the brand might not approve of?  To illustrate his point, Sean even created a parody video about Marketing Profs, so I invite you to click over and check it out.

Here’s a couple of other possible examples that brands might object to:

  • A popular political blogger that’s an evangelist for a particular restaurant chain creates a post lauding the chain.  However, the post contains the blogger’s usual proliferation of 4-letter words, and the blogger actively supports several organizations that the restaurant chain’s founders are opposed to.
  • A video blogger creates a humor video where he does a ‘taste test’ of several different soft drinks, and spits each out, declaring that it tastes like (use your imagination here).  Then he finishes by drinking Pepsi, says it is amazing, and not at all like the other soft drinks.

The idea is, what should a company do if one of its brand evangelists creates promotional content for that brand, that the brand objects to?  How should they respond?

As I told Sean over at his place, I think it all starts with the connection that a company has with its evangelists.  The company/organziation has to make the effort to connect with its evangelists and communicate to them exactly what their branding is.  Companies and organizations can’t invite their evangelists to promote them, then try to slap their wrist if they create content on the brand’s behalf, that the brand doesn’t agree with.

Remember that evangelists WANT to see your company or organization succeed and they WANT to promote you.  And they WANT you to talk to them.  To give them direction.  To show them how they can best help you.  Take advantage of this to work WITH your evangelists to help them better do what they already want to do: Sing your praises.

How do you think companies and organizations can best communicate to their evangelists how their brand can best be promoted?  Should they?

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How The Red Cross defused a potential Social Media crisis situation

Coming off the heels of Kenneth Cole’s recent PR blunder on Twitter, the Red Cross found itself in a potential crisis situation on Twitter a couple of days ago.  Apparently, one of its employees that tweets from the @RedCross twitter account, inadvertently sent a tweet that was meant for her personal account in which she tweeted: “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer… when we drink we do it right #gettngslizzerd”

To its credit, the Red Cross quickly acted on the ‘rogue tweet’, deleted it, and posted this response:


Now anyone that’s attempted to use multiple Twitter accounts, especially one for your employee or a client, knows how easily this can happen.  And then the employee that sent the ‘rogue tweet’ also acknowledged her mistake on her own Twitter account:

Now all week here we have been discussing the value that evangelists have for companies and organizations.  What happened next in this story perfectly illustrates today’s lesson: Your evangelists will come to your aid in a crisis situation.

The Red Cross’ evangelists on Twitter quickly latched onto the #gettngslizzerd hashtag, and used it to drive blood donations!  Many committed to donating blood and some even took pictures as they were:

And to their credit, @dogsfishbeer, which was mentioned in the ‘rogue’ tweet, also encouraged its followers to get involved in the donation drive:

One of the ways we talked about in the post on creating brand evangelists was speaking in a human voice.  The Red Cross did this, they quickly admitted their error, and apologized.  And did so with humility and a splash of humor.  Then Gloria tweeted out an explanation as well.  How the Red Cross handled this potential crisis situation went a long way in rallying its evangelists to come to its aid.  They quickly forgave Gloria for the tweet, then took the hashtag and used it to drive donations.

This is the power of connecting with your evangelists.  As we talked about earlier this week, they WANT to see you succeed.

What did you think of how the Red Cross handled this situation?  What did they get right? Is there any advice you could give them for avoiding a similar situation in the future?

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How Dell is using Social Media to connect with its brand evangelists and detractors

All week we have been talking about the value of brand evangelists and why companies should be connecting with them.  Today I wanted to look at a company that’s connecting with not only its evangelists, but some of its detractors as well.

Recently, Dell held a CAP Days event in Germany.  CAP stands for Customer Advisory Panel, and it is an event where Dell meets with some of its customers that have had both good and bad things to say about the company.  This is the 3rd CAP Days event that Dell has held.  I am partial to this event since I helped Dell facilitate the first one last Summer in Austin, but I also think it’s an amazing case of how social media can help businesses connect with brand evangelists.

I talked to Richard Binhammer a few days ago, and he said that the participants for all the CAP Days events (there have been 3 so far in the US, China and Germany, with plans to expand to other locations) were identified via the social media and online monitoring that Dell is already doing.  A good example of social media making existing business processes more efficient.

But back to the most recent CAP Days event that was held in Germany.  Dell met with 10 customers that all had feedback for Dell, both good and bad.  What I found fascinating was that Dell was extremely open with what it learned about connecting with its customers at this event.  Here are the takeaways from the company’s point of view, and when you read these, keep in mind that this was published on Dell’s Direct2Dell blog:

  1. Our customers seem to have lost the emotional connection to Dell. They no longer understand the benefit of our direct relationships with our customers.
  2. We have reliable products and good support (if they pick the right support option!), but our advertising is misguided and an annoyance to some of our customers.
  3. Listening can be incredibly powerful. It’s unusual that a company the size of Dell listens to customers in such an open forum. Customers had never experienced such open dialogue with a global company.
  4. Customers do care about Dell, and they are spending their own time helping other customers and defending Dell online.
  5. We must deliver a better customer experience. There are millions of customers out there who will be loyal to Dell and buy more if we up our game and deliver the best Customer Experience!

As I was reading this, it seemed as if this was being written as an internal reminder and lesson for Dell’s employees, as much as anything.  But note the bolded areas (which I added).  How often do you see a big brand talking this openly and honestly about themselves?  Not very.

And let’s remember that Dell has this honest feedback available to them because they sought it from their customers.  They monitored the online conversation around their brand, identified key participants, and met with them directly to learn from them how they can improve their business and customer service processes.  Now they are taking that feedback and not only improving existing business and customer service efforts, but the CAP Days program itself is becoming a more efficient way to connect with customers.

And it is becoming a way to convert detractors into evangelists.  Think about yesterday’s post and how we talked about the ways that companies can create brand evangelists.  We talked about how companies should monitor online conversations, how they should respond to customers and talk to them on their level, and how companies should understand who their companies are.  All of these are present in the CAP Days program.

When I was involved in the first CAP Days event last Summer, I was talking to one of Dell’s customers that had some issues and problems with Dell’s products and services.  I listened to him tell me about his problems, but then he added ‘Mack I want to see Dell succeed’.  And then he told me how being involved in that event had opened his eyes to the fact that even though Dell was making mistakes, that it showed that they were committed to finding those mistakes, and correcting them.  He had arrived at the event skeptical of Dell’s commitment to improvement, but left feeling much better about being a Dell customer.

In closing, I want to restate the supreme importance of monitoring online brand mentions for all companies.  Especially higher companies like Dell.  While I am thrilled with the progress Dell is making, I also see that it’s putting their competitors at a self-imposed disadvantage.  Dell is taking the scary step of connecting directly with its online customers, and they are reaping the rewards of their bravery.

Here’s some very basic (baby) steps that your company can take to better connect with your online customers:

1 – Start monitoring online mentions of your company, brand, competitors, and industry.  If you’re a larger brand that has hundreds if not thousands of new mentions daily, you should probably invest in a monitoring platform to help get deeper insights from the data.  Or if you’re a small business, you can probably get by with Google Alerts or a free option.  Here’s a post I wrote on how to set up Google Alerts in 5 mins.

BTW a big reason why I think it’s important for your company to monitor online mentions is to get a better understand of WHO your online customers are and WHAT they are saying.  I still think many companies live with a largely unfounded fear that bloggers are people that are going out of their way to slam their company.  This is almost always incorrect, and companies can see this by monitoring and uncovering exactly what customers are saying about them online.

2 – Start reaching out directly to customers that mention you, especially bloggers.  If you see a blogger that’s covering you, offer to connect them with someone at your company that can give them better information.  For example, Richard mentioned CAP Days in Germany to me, I told him I would like to do a post on it (this one), and he had Carly Tatum (who helped facilitate CAP Days Germany) to give me more information on it.

Your company should be doing the same thing, you should be reaching out to bloggers and other online customers that are talking about your brand, and interact with them.  This will help ensure that these customers get accurate information about your company, and if you handle the exchange correctly, it will encourage more coverage from bloggers.

3 – Act on feedback you get from online customers, and let them know you are doing this.  If a customer raises a valid point or complaint online, help them, but then you can use that exchange to let other customers know that you want their feedback as well.  By listening to customers and acting on their feedback, you are ensuring that you will get more (and better) feedback, but also, you will improve customer satisfaction.  Customers want to be respected and heard by the brands they buy from.  They appreciate the ones that show a willingness to do this.

So those are some ideas on how you can better listen to your customers’ online conversations, and act on them.  Oh and if you are curious, here is a short video (in German) that Dell created to document their CAP Days event in Germany.  It will give you an idea of how the event was structured.

What are your thoughts on how Dell is using CAP Days to directly connect with its evangelists, as well as detractors? Is this something that other big brands should be doing? What could be improved about the process?