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Dell Makes $3 Million From Twitter Sales

Posted by kdawson on from the tweet-deals dept.

Barence writes "Dell has admitted to raking in over $3 million from advertising its products on Twitter. The PC maker has been using Twitter for two years, and employs proprietary software to track sales from users clicking through from Twitter links. Of that $3 million, the company claims that $1 million was made in the past six months, following an explosion in Twitter's popularity. (Here is an analysis indicating that 72.5% of Twitter users joined in 2009.) The majority of sales have come through the @DellOutlet account, which posts six to ten special offers a week — with at least half of these being Twitter exclusives. Though the $3 million is a drop in the bucket given Dell's $12.3 billion in revenue during the first quarter of this year, it further bolsters Twitter's case for charging businesses."

2 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Twitter IS a good marketing tool by FooBarWidget · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As a software development company, we regularly use Twitter to see what people think of our software and try to improve it based on the feedback on Twitter. Twitter has also been a tremendous help in spreading our news announcements throughout the community. The business value is huge.

    Each time I'm baffled by how Slashdotters totally miss the point of Twitter, and try to paint it off as a useless website with no substance. It isn't about whether blogs/mailing lists/email/etc are better communication tools.

    1. Re:Twitter IS a good marketing tool by FooBarWidget · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There already is a support forum. There already is a bug tracker. Why do you think I still take the time to search Twitter for feedback?

      It usually goes like this. Somebody posts a complaint about Twitter, something like "Software XXX sucks, it says 'YYY', WTF?"
      These people are obviously too frustrated to take the time to ask something on the support forum. So instead of waiting for them to file a bug, I actively help them by providing a solution, or by asking them for more information. 9 out of 10 times they respond positively with more details. These are all feedback that we would never have gathered using just the support forum and the bug tracker.

      The fact that you mentioned the 140 characters limit already shows that you are totally missing the point. It is not the technology that matters, it's the social aspect. The 140 characters limit is irrelevant.