At Dell, social media has been around much longer than Facebook or Twitter. The popular Dell Community Forum was borne out of the original Dell.com website, so its community is well established. It’s a user-to-user forum where anyone – including Dell employees and other customers – can answer a user’s question.

“Facebook and Twitter are typically folks that are having issues at the moment that just want to be heard,” says Amy Bivin, manager of community outreach for Dell. In contrast, the Forum often features more complex or esoteric questions, sometimes from owners of older legacy systems.

Bivin took some time out recently to discuss Dell’s integrated social support model on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast.