SAP Marketing - Should they back off the community?

[Former Member]

SAP Marketing seems to have a strengthening presence in the Cloud space. Personally, I think they should back off and let the community be itself. There are plenty of good reasons for this:

- They are preaching to the choir. We're all ByD/Cloud practitioners and customers already. We get it. And I very much doubt that prospects are eying this space.

- Every SAP Marketing post discourages a post from the community. Almost all the featured content is straight up SAP Marketing. I feel like giving up every time I see a post explaining what the 'cloud' is and how it can help whatever kind of business.

- No one reads the SAP Marketing posts. They don't encourage conversation, collaboration, or creativity, which posts from the community often do.

So, should SAP Marketing back off, and let the community be itself? Unfortunately, that's not for us to decide.

[Former Member]

Hi Judson,

I'm always looking for new stuff to put into the SCN newsletters, and I want you to know that my editorial preferences are clearly for community-generated content over SAP-generated content.

We call our editorial/curation approach the "Voice of the Community," which is a very cool publication model because we have the right to publish it (don't have to ask the author), and we don't have to edit the content to make it comply with SAP marketing-talk (One-Voice).

I think the issues you are having are not so much from where are the blogs coming (SAP Marketing), but have more to do with whether or not the blogs are interesting and engaging.

Marketing itself is experiencing a huge transition from a so-called "push" advertising model full of ad-speak, to a "pull marketing" model whose centerpiece is social media engagement. We're all experimenting now, and learning at the same time. And in this process, there is nothing quite so good as direct community feedback like that which you've been providing.

Keith

[Former Member]

Thanks for the info Kieth.

[schalk_viljoen]

Hi Judson - valid points... so where do we draw the balance?

by posting more general blogs (and inviting partners and customers to blog as well) we are drawing a broader audience to the SCN community. All promotions for these blogs are done through non-SCN channels, therefor the new audience. Some of the bloggers are new to this and are still finding their voices. We all need to start somewhere.

So what would your suggestions be? create separate spaces? Better usage of tagging?

     cheers Schalk

[Former Member]

Perhaps make it clear in the post that it's from SAP Marketing.

Also I find it strange that blogs by people who are not actively contributing to this space are listed in the Featured Content.

[schalk_viljoen]

Thanks Judson - I think that would be a good best practice.

Even if SAP contrinbutors' profiles state from which part of the business they come from (and this is by no means always up to date) , we will encourage them to sign off their blogs stating where in the company they are working in.

Then the reader has the choice whether they want to read the post or not.

  regarding the feautures content - this is the space editor's choice. I will investigate what the guidelines are (I am only a contributor) and get back to you.

   We will work hard at changing behavious, but if you see a blog slip through which does not clearly enough state where it comes from then please do not hesitate to ask for clarification via the comments.

[Former Member]

Thanks Schalk. Will do.

[Pazahanick_Jarr]

Great topic Judson and I challenged SAP on why only SAP resources we allowed to control the "Featured Content" area of the spaces and not the moderators as almost every area of SAP has outside "volunteers" so it became clear quickly their vision around controlling the promotion of content was something they wanted to tightly control within SCN. Since SAP marketing pays for the community (or should I say SAP customer maintenance) 🙂 I guess it is reasonable it is their decision to make.

It is one of the reasons I have tried to build up my SAP & SuccessFactors Linkedin Group which currently has over 4K members, build up a Twitter Following (4K followers), active in other social media platforms (ie G+) as well as write for different blog sites (ie CloudAve, Insider SAP, HR Expert, ASUG News) as I want to multiple ways to "promote" critical blogs that I feel are important for SAP customers.

On a side, great job over the past several months on being willing to tackle tough topics in public forums as we need more of that on SCN.

[Former Member]

I think you bring up some good points in that SAP certainly has the right to control the featured content. Though most of it makes them seem naive to anyone familiar with the 'cloud' (every human on earth).

I don't have the stomach for LinkedIn groups, because I find there are way too many jokers on the scene, though I do get constant alerts on your group.

Thanks for the kudos. I actually have been 'commissioned' by SAP for a 2013 blog and video series, but I think I need to branch out more as you have.