March 2nd, 2009
SAP's pimposphere is driving me nuts
SAP has been quietly developing a new direction in marketing, seeking to make use of the new class of tools that is available. All good stuff you might think. Lowering the cost of marketing and getting more bang per buck are all to be welcomed in these austere times. Unfortunately, it’s not quite working for me. Actually, it’s driving me nuts. Especially in Twitter.
I have a running Search: SAP in Twitter. It helps me discover interesting perspectives on the company, track how its job market is doing and introduces me to topics I might be interested in from time to time. It even lets me see when others are writing stories that ain’t quite right. (Note: I have other searches running as well.) Or at least it was.
Last weekend, the company unleashed a bunch of SAPpers onto Twitter. Their sole purpose seems to be to Tweet whatever SAP is churning out in press releases, event announcements or what have we. Others seem to be engaged in enthusiastically re-Tweeting the same stuff - relentlessly. It’s painful.
Check this from Scott Feldman aka @patentsquire:
OK - so SAP has announced a big sustainability push today. I got that in a press release. Twice. In five minutes. That’s once too many.
At the weekend I tweeted that it wasn’t working. To be precise, I said:
Steve Mann who works in SAP marketing and who I know well had the good heart to print my Tweet and then explain what’s going on. That was after he had the brass nuts to tell me on Twitter I’d got it wrong but without speaking to me. Gotta love the pre-emptive strike - even if it does hit the gasoline dump. This is how Steve explained what SAP is up to:
I can imagine that many of you are wondering to yourself? Am I pimping crap? I don’t think so. And I haven’t yet spoken to Dennis directly to get his thoughts. But I think its fantastic seeing so many new SAP initiatives which include a Social Media component. I’m so pleased to see it and be a part of helping to create these strategies. But remember, our capabilities as marketers must evolve so that we become Conversationalists and Storytellers….
My guess? (and it is a guess) Dennis is reacting to the fact that there has been a tremendous influx of SAPers into Social Media channels.
I would have loved to agree with Steve’s sentiment on this. I may yet do so over the fullness of time. Instead I was seeing a relentless, mindless, re-Tweeted stream of ‘look how gorgeous we are’ stuff. Pimping crap in my parlance. Steve switches to speaking in SAPense to his tribe of fellow SAP Twitterers:
And we’re kinda swarming about trying new things, some of it more uni-directional than true conversation and some of it which may or may not belong in these channels. Also some of us have not yet used Social Media in support of a business brand before. That’s why we’ve been doing the training and immersion that many of you have attended.
I’ve no idea what training they’ve been doing but it’s not been terribly effective *for me.* Heh - I’m all one for experimenting. You can be sure I’ll be on the next shiny new thing. But in all the excitement of the ‘new’ please don’t drown me in noise. Especially not marketing noise. I don’t want Twitter to be another channel for press releases or sycophantic blog posts. (The same goes for Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and all the rest.)
Steve may think that SAP is at some sort of ‘tipping point’ (as he says) but if that’s true then right now some are tipping themselves straight into the ‘blocked’ pool.
If something is interesting then give me a clue why it’s interesting. Let me know why I should consider reading it. Pimping a link once, of itself, is sufficient. Think about who else may be looking at your stuff on Twitter.
Before anyone gets on my case I’m always aware that when I point the finger there are always three pointing back. I have been known to tear into people on Twitter, bang on about whatever is irking me at the time and get noisy. I am not without fault in that regard. Hopefully though, I’ve learned enough so as to know when to draw the line.
Dennis Howlett has been providing comment and analysis on enterprise software since 1991. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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