How Being Specific about Social Strategy can Increase Social Influence

Cutting Down to Expand

It’s no mistake that Nick’s title has changed from Social Media Channel Manager to Digital Strategist. Social media is no longer just a job title; it is a skill set that permeates the entire brand and its strategy. Nick says, “Where possible, we’re integrating social into every tactic that we deploy.”
SAP has set up a community hub similar to the community hub at VMware: it’s a central space from which tendrils reach out to every corner of the internet that relates to SAP.
This is essential for a global company like SAP because until about 6 weeks ago, they had over 200 SAP Twitter accounts. Nick’s team is also going through and aggressively pruning email accounts, all with the idea that focusing the social strategy will be easier for their team and, more importantly, easier for the community.
SAP still needs a @SAP4SME account for fast-growing small and medium businesses that’s separate from the @SAPCloud handle that covers cloud technology and solutions. But many of the handles they owned were outdated or had been abandoned long ago. Nick decided it was time to streamline.
Cutting down on the numbers of accounts to handle has allowed his team to increase their focus on more specific social campaigns.
Thought leaders in each region can tweak the strategy to fit their respective audiences. Strategists can share more content with the people who are looking for it. With less individual channels, SAP is actually increasing its social influence.

Holy Social!

The Tribeca Film Festival and AT&T are teaming up this year to find out which film every New Yorker should see. The Film for All campaign’s mission is to connect more people to the power of film, and they’re asking for input from the viewers. New Yorkers were asked to tweet their selection @ATTNYC with the hashtag #FilmForAll. They projected nightly results on a building in Tribeca, and the final selection will be screened in all 5 boroughs of the city later this summer.

The AT&T local New York City Twitter handle is the main hub of all this activity, and the hyper-local nature of the campaign increases relevancy for the people participating. AT&T is a multi-national company, but in this case they’re focusing locally, and sometimes being relevant at the local level can have a national impact.