SmartBlogs on Social Media

My company, GasPedal, recently hosted “BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media” in San Francisco, a fantastic event featuring eight case studies on corporate social media from some of the world’s biggest companies. As we gear up for our next BlogWell in Minneapolis on Aug. 13 — featuring case studies from McDonald’s, H&R Block, Wal-Mart, CME Group, General Mills, Ford, and Progressive — I’m sharing some key lessons from San Francisco.

Here are a few tips from Mark Yolton, SAP’s community network senior vice president, on how they maintain vibrant communities connecting more than 1.6 million people around the world:

• Establish focused communities. SAP has a wide range of communities — some public, some private — that support collaboration around specific interests.

• Use metrics to measure health. By measuring overall activity, membership levels, and consumption, SAP is able to constantly monitor the success of their communities.

• The “real-world” part of community is key, too. Through events like TechEd — where more than 4,000 members show up to learn about and test new products — SAP is able to provide opportunities for in-person collaboration for their mostly virtual communities.