Coverage of this session by SAP’s Marilyn Pratt. Follower her on Twitter at @marilynpratt.
1:30 — Kurt Vanderah introduces SAP’s Senior Director of Social Media Marketing, Brian Ellefritz.
1:30 — Brian quips with the audience saying the difference between ethics and disclosure – Ethics prevents Brian from saying this (his) session is better than the one upstairs – Disclosure, the chairs here are more comfortable.
1:33 – Brian describes the social media program created for SapphireNow – May 2010 which had simultaneous live events in Frankfurt and Orlando. Their approach: Attendees and virtual attendees are peers and not recipients. Their goal: Perception changing – Showcase SAP as a savvy user of social media.
1:35 — Brian describes their Social Media Ambassador Concept and shouts out to the SAP Mentors – the influencers of SAP. [Ed note: To learn more about #sapmentor program, contact Marilyn Pratt – @marilynpratt]
1:37 — Brian discloses fears around a touch screen wall with live tweets and comments from participants.
1:38 – Brian outlines the preparation around this media program — selected topics, training (blog tools, flip cameras, and expectation setting). For permissions: forms were filled so that video and releases were covered. It was a concise and professional release form. A concise business card also gave information of where this would go.
1:39 – Brian shares the quantitative results of the program: followings, reach (1.5 million) 152 videos with 15K views. Substantial content generated during the event.
1:41 – Brian: Lessons Learned – Diversity of skills among ambassadors (different levels of training and prepping). He also discusses how live video blogging was under resourced and stressful.
1:44 – Brian: Real-time energy was more important than trying to pinpoint which demographics the contents were generating the content.
Q&A
Q: Question about funding and executive buy-in.
A: Brian says selling was fairly easy because the social media momentum was already in place
Q: Business Associates queries about the audit and 1.5 million reach — what does that mean?
A: Brian responds whimsically that management is impressed. But more seriously when things were analyzed in more depth , quotes, tweets, energy, brand recognition. Management began to look at themes and topics rather than just numbers.
Q: How else did you measure success?
A: Scorecard: metrics yes, but themes, messages being picked up, tonality.
Q: How did you tie this back into the community.
A: 3 plans and slightly different focus of PR team, community team, marketing. They were actually disparate.
Q: Who was vendor for Touchscreen Wall?
A: Brian will need to check on vendor name. It was more about the technology and the wow effect than the content on the screen
Q: Was there a microsite location?
A: There was but people don’t follow “a site” they follow individuals — Twitter was tethering people back to their destinations.
Q: Question about privacy.
A: There were sessions that were for analyst and press, but the idea is that we are being more and more willing to share and understand that content isn’t that private.
Q: Question about 2 months of training for the ambassadors.
A: Correction 90 minutes of training, 2 months of planning
Q: If there was one thing you could do differently, what would it be?
A: We would have been more prepared from a resource perspective. Video turned out to be creating tremendous momentum. We will over-resource video next time.
