At BlogWell, we often hear about launching programs, taking first steps and early results from new experiments. But in his presentation, SAP’s Mark Yolton took us behind the scenes of the company’s 8-year-old social media program to show us the patterns, models and methodologies that have evolved over time.
Yolton walked us through the fundamentals the company has learned in building a community of more than 2.5 million members with 8,000 active bloggers (70% of whom are not SAP employees) — all generating more than 4,000 posts a day on more than 360 forums.
A few of his big ideas:
- Social media is an ecosystem. SAP’s strategy is based on an ecosystem approach. At the center is SAP.com — where they control the message. Close to this live hosted communities, followed by public forums such as Facebook and Twitter. And finally, they focus on participating in external communities such as BNET, Forbes and CNNMoney.
- Community engagement requires orchestration. SAP focuses on content (sources, coaching, tagging), cadence (timing) and conversations (monitoring and responding, identifying influencers, and supporting collaboration).
- Measurement and metrics have to align with your business objectives. Yolton explained that this fundamental is how he’s able to repeatedly define and demonstrate the ROI for what they do: They measure what matters to their business. For example, if the company is looking to attract loyal customers, then it is measuring customer loyalty.
Watch Yolton’s case study. Slides are available.
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Maybe I missed it in your article … is SAP an acronym and if so for what?
According to the FAQ on their website: What does the acronym "SAP" stand for?
"SAP" stands for Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing.
They are one of the biggest (if not the biggest) accounting + software providers (the + being Enterprise Resource Planning, Business Intelligence, etc.),.Lot of Fortune 500 customers.
The statistic about 8,000 bloggers is amazing – that is one management challenge! It is hard to believe there is that much for them to talk about.
My recent post The Face Behind the Brand
Thank you for your interest… Yes, SAP actually is an acronym for German words which roughly translate as David reports above. SAP provides business applications to run many of the world's largest brands you've heard of, and many SMEs you haven't (yet)… several estimates say that roughly 1/2 of the world's business transactions and commerce (think global GDP) touch an SAP system at some point in the flow.
You can take a drive through the SAP Community Network (SCN) at http://scn.sap.com — it's an open community, hosted by SAP, with millions of customers, partners, employees, and others sharing info and solutions and best practices with each other.
Thanks to Andy for this shout-out.
My recent post Meet the SAP Mentors
David – there is so much in the SAP ecosystem that it needs 8000 bloggers to scratch the surface. There really is a lot to talk about.
Cheers,
Nigel James
SAP Mentor
My recent post Welcome to Square Cloud
SCN is a vibrant and thriving community network. Apart from teh statistics it's a great place to share thought, expertise, ideas and above all connect with the largest user base of SAP Customers, Vendors, Partners, Employees and Experts.
All together it's a Lifetime experience.
Regards,
Harshit Kumar
SAP Mentor
Wow – I think I've gotten more comments on my comment here than I have on any of my own blog posts!
That means one of two things – a) it is a sorry state of affairs for the 'ole Treasury Cafe, or b) we have just witnessed a great demonstration of the topic of this blog – SAP's engagement in the social community.
I prefer b for obvious reasons!
I checked out your links and left messages on them where possible. I do begin to see why 8,000 bloggers are needed. If I were to download one of those developer tools I would keep an army of them busy just holding my hand through the process!
Nice job guys, thanks!
My recent post The Best Thing to Bring to Work Today? A Box of Pins!
[...] engaging in social media for 8 years now – and their approach focuses around community. Andys blog captures how their approach to social media engagement [...]
[...] (Lightbulb!!!) The key to social media ROI? Measure what matters to your business. Andy’s Answers: What SAP has learned through 8 years of social media engagement [...]