Yesterday, Dell’s Australian PR agency, PPR, was kind enough to fly yours truly to Sydney so that I could spend some time with Dell’s Richard Binhammer. (It’s a perk of the job that almost balances out the insomnia inducing deadlines… almost.)

According to the company bio, Binhammer is “a core member of Dell’s Social Media Advisory Council and responsible for designing and implementing digital media and blog outreach, with a special emphasis on communities and corporate reputation.”

What does this mean? What this description fails to convey is that he’s the guy largely responsible for Dell’s pioneering moves in social media over the past four years.

While ‘pioneering’ is a strong word (and at the risk of sounding unduly sycophantic after an interstate trip on the company’s dime), I think it’s an apt one, particularly when you check out this chart (click to enlarge).

Dell’s Social Media Milestones, 2006-2010

As my eyes wandered over the various steps Dell has taken to embrace news way of marketing, one thing in particular caught my eye: “Global Twitter Revenues of $6.5 million” (top right).

With so many business owners still unconvinced (quite erroneously, it now seems) about social media’s potential to help achieve established business fundamentals, I cornered Binhammer with my trusty Zi8 to gain a better understanding into the ways Dell uses this social media platform, in particular, for genuinely measurable commercial purposes.

The sound of this clip is not great and the camera angle is just plain weird but I doubt you’ll be watching it for the production standards (apologies anyway for making you squint with concentration).

Richard Binhammer on Dell’s Twitter strategy and measuring social media

Over coming weeks, Dell has a few groovy and new Facebook apps to announce. Unfortunately, after agreeing to an NDA, I can’t disclose then yet. However, watch this space.