Antony Mayfield is delighted with Dell’s approach to social media, as represented in this video interview, in particular. Even without that, it’s clear that the company has embraced many of the concepts wholeheartedly through initiatives like IdeaStorm. As Antony the interviewee, Andy Lark, Dell’s head of Global Marketing, points out, the company’s commitment to social tools is pretty thorough:

The social media stuff is probably the most important we do today, from a marketing stand point. The other elements of marketing mix has sort of become more and more transactional and more and more tactical in nature. Social media stuff is much more strategic… Use social media to power the fundamental of the business. That’s what we’re focused on. [Mayfield’s transcription — thank you]

Great stuff. And here’s that interview in full:

To be clear, Antony is one of the good guys — I just disagree with his opinion on this one.

The part where I started to become anxious comes late in the piece, at about 4:00. Lark contrasts the approach taken by new media journalists with the old school. BBC journalists apparently now come along with a digital recorder and immediately ask if they can podcast the interview. The old school — regional journalists, he says — turn up with a notepad and pen. That’s a failure on the part of the latter group, according to Lark:

“The content that I’m giving them is the asset, not their translation”.

That’s *not* true. The media is there to question, to analyse and to be sceptical about the ‘asset’ that’s been given to them by Lark. It is certainly not its function to broadcast that ‘asset’ verbatim and without question. That’s what we people who turn up with a notepad and pen and ‘don’t get it’ call an advertisement.

I think we raise a couple of questions here about quite how wonderful 24-hour on-the-moment publishing and releasing to social media sources at the same time as traditional media sources is. If the statements issued by marketing directors are taken as ‘the record’, then we miss out on the opportunity to compare a company’s claims with their financial records, the research that’s been done into their brand value and customer service records, comparisons with competing propositions from rival manufacturers, and the benefits of a broader view. I have nothing against Dell — my current PC is a Dell, and it’s fine.

But, goodness, if I were head of global marketing at any brand, I’m sure that a podcast of my words on a well-trafficked website would be far preferable to an in-depth review of my products or an analysis of my financial performance somewhere else.

The function of journalism is not simply to report or transcribe what powerful figures and institutions want us to. We need to question, analyse and remain continually sceptical, while also remaining neutral. If we can’t do the latter, then declaring our interests immediately.

Taking a little longer to file a story doesn’t mean that you don’t ‘get it’ (a dreadful expression) but might mean that ‘oh yes, we get it alright, and we’re not letting you get away with it!’

42% are planning to apply user-generated content (UGC) to their websites in the next 12 months; 23% are using it already.

35% are planning to use corporate blogs in the next 12 months; 17% are using them already.

33% are planning to use podcasting in the next 12 months; 18% using it already.

35% planning to use videocasting in the next 12 month; 17% using it already.

In brief, there will be twice as many companies involved in this stuff next year. (Unless they get distracted. The report also mentions that 66% regard lack of time and resources as a “great barrier” to delivering better customer service.)

While I am an evangelist for all this stuff to some extent, it’s hard not to feel that there’s a bandwagon element to this group of respondents. While the positive impact of blogging is pretty well-established, considerable question marks remain over the impact of some other Web 2.0 elements.

Yesterday, news emerged that very few people (1%) regularly download podcasts though awareness of the format has risen considerably. I’d want rather better assurance of positive results before I advised a company to go down that route. Even more are planning to videocast. I wonder whether the very large support for this idea might be related to the news that the format is now considered the best vehicle for advertising online?