![I just read an interview with the guy pictured above - who happens to run Marketing at SAP. Quoting a CMO to support social media philosophy might be a little convoluted, but this piece was too good to pass up. Some key takeaways from a social media perspective:
“we have to move away from the notion that we can control the message to a mindset where we orchestrate the conversations”
That’s a solid, and I think most people get this now. But sometimes you find those who just pretend to get it. People who use social channels as yet another way to carpet-bomb messages are of the latter persuasion.
“Being in B2B or B2C is an arbitrary distinction. Buildings don’t buy from buildings, people buy products from people”
This is a relatively new concept, and I would have argued against it only a few months ago. But I’ve seen the light now. Consumer, corporate buyer. Same expectations, same funnel. All merged now.
80% of customers do not visit corporate web sites prior to making buying decisions
Although I’ve read many articles quoting research to that effect, I find it hard to believe it’s that high. Nonetheless, WOM and coupons <sigh> drive purchase decisions nowadays. If you have a functioning website but, say, no mobile presence to speak of, or no social integration, place your bets on the mobile/integration table and forget the stupid website. No one cares (apparently).
SAP [has] a goal of having 50% of their own website content authored by third parties in the future.
I’m very wary of crowdsourcing in general, but in certain cases Community (and not internal “experts”) knows best. Put customers in charge. Better bang for the buck. This is particularly true for support content provided strong curation is practiced.
SAP has started taking consumer cultures into consideration for their product positioning as well
I’ll just note this should also apply to social media. In the current effort to paint everything with a global brush, it’s easy to forget people don’t drive on the same side of the road in every country. And social tactics should adapt to ground conditions accordingly. Especially with social support.
Passion needs to be organized, it needs to be channeled
Clearly, however passion needs to (1) exist at and (2) flow from the top. It doesn’t miraculously appear. Only once you have vision at the top, then you can have passion. And then seepage. Worry later about channeling it. It’s a good worry to have anyway.
Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.
True that. The trick lies in separating the two :) And presenting things differently depending on which altar you pray at - Marketing, PR, Service - All of the above?](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6jwgpGcnG1qae5teo1_1280.png)
I just read an interview with the guy pictured above - who happens to run Marketing at SAP. Quoting a CMO to support social media philosophy might be a little convoluted, but this piece was too good to pass up. Some key takeaways from a social media perspective:
“we have to move away from the notion that we can control the message to a mindset where we orchestrate the conversations”
That’s a solid, and I think most people get this now. But sometimes you find those who just pretend to get it. People who use social channels as yet another way to carpet-bomb messages are of the latter persuasion.
“Being in B2B or B2C is an arbitrary distinction. Buildings don’t buy from buildings, people buy products from people”
This is a relatively new concept, and I would have argued against it only a few months ago. But I’ve seen the light now. Consumer, corporate buyer. Same expectations, same funnel. All merged now.
80% of customers do not visit corporate web sites prior to making buying decisions
Although I’ve read many articles quoting research to that effect, I find it hard to believe it’s that high. Nonetheless, WOM and coupons <sigh> drive purchase decisions nowadays. If you have a functioning website but, say, no mobile presence to speak of, or no social integration, place your bets on the mobile/integration table and forget the stupid website. No one cares (apparently).
SAP [has] a goal of having 50% of their own website content authored by third parties in the future.
I’m very wary of crowdsourcing in general, but in certain cases Community (and not internal “experts”) knows best. Put customers in charge. Better bang for the buck. This is particularly true for support content provided strong curation is practiced.
SAP has started taking consumer cultures into consideration for their product positioning as well
I’ll just note this should also apply to social media. In the current effort to paint everything with a global brush, it’s easy to forget people don’t drive on the same side of the road in every country. And social tactics should adapt to ground conditions accordingly. Especially with social support.
Passion needs to be organized, it needs to be channeled
Clearly, however passion needs to (1) exist at and (2) flow from the top. It doesn’t miraculously appear. Only once you have vision at the top, then you can have passion. And then seepage. Worry later about channeling it. It’s a good worry to have anyway.
Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.
True that. The trick lies in separating the two :) And presenting things differently depending on which altar you pray at - Marketing, PR, Service - All of the above?
