These are the lessons that SCN learned as a result of working with us.

1. 8 to Great!
Simple Steps to Better B2B Engagement on Twitter
The SAP Community Network Marketing team has come a loooong way
since launching our social media channels in late 2009. Over time, we’ve
developed eight simple practices that enable us to run a more effective
Twitter account –one that our followers seem to like:
We’d like to share our eight simple tips with you in this blog. Lots of
common sense here, but not approaches that many B2B account teams
seem to practice.
Let us give credit to *Laura Fitton (@Pistachio),who has been in
conversation with our team for the past few months, helping us discover
our mojo and get to the core of authentic Twitter engagement.
1. Follow Everyone. We have had some of our best interactions and
quotes from members who initiated a conversation through DM. I think
we all know by now not to be overly concerned about the
follower/following ratio. We have found it invaluable to follow back the
human accounts that follow @SAPCommNet. This gives followers a
chance to know they are valued, that we are listening to them and that

2. we are allowing them to DM us if they ever want to give private
feedback.
Hint: We use a tool called ‘Tweepi’ to manage our Twitter follower. You can flush
the accounts that you are following but not following you or reciprocate your
followers that you are not following. If your account is on Sprinklr, the bulk follow
feature under Audience will work too.
2. Collect Followers’ feedback. We created our own Google survey that
we privately send out to our followers when they publicly or privately
express how they feel about our content. We also send this survey to
followers who honor us with #FollowFriday.

3. Here is some of the feedback that we received from the survey.
“It's (@SAPCommNet) may be the best resource of knowledge for SAP products.
Every week pops up at least a great blog or wiki and every month there is some
mind-blowing stuff, what can be possible with SAP, I never thought about it
before.”
“I use @SAPCommNet for a lot of reasons: to learn something new every day, to
introduce myself to new SAP products, to collaborate w SCN members…”
3. Set aside time to review conversations each week, you busy bee!
We make a big effort to ensure that we are initiating and taking part in
conversations that our audience actually cares about. We are all busy, but
if we can’t take the time to slow down and review conversations that are
happening and our own effectiveness, then, why even make the effort? We
have been taking time to focus on points such as tweets that receive the
most retweets, sentiment of tweets, and clickthrough rate.
4. Honor Thy Followers on Fridays. Take time to know your followers,
and I mean the living beings that that follow your account. Know what their
big accomplishments for the week were and what they are good at. Don’t
just talk about your company’s accounts on Follow Friday. #FF is an
opportunity to let your followers know you were listening. Don’t try to cram
10 names into a 140 character space but instead give individual followers
credit on their recent blog, their recent promotion, their great
questions/comments, and for being a great source on Twitter. This is a
great way to encourage a new member to be more engaging and active in
your community.
@tbedro is a first time blogger in our community and we highlighted her
contribution.

4. This group of individuals won SAP InnoJam in Netherlands. They wrote a
blog to talk about their winning entry and we decided to honor the whole
team.
@johnkleeman is a passionate contributor in our community and we
highlighted him for achieving Gold Contributor status, which is based on
points.
5. Get better engagement by ENGAGING. Remember to ENGAGE with
your followers. Think beyond “+1” and “Gr8!”. They want to know that there
is a human behind the account so reply to them, directly. Dedicate a whole
post to them and interact! They really appreciate the gesture.
(@Britopian responded via DM)

5. 6. Watch your timing! Watch your frequency!
We aim to post 8-10 tweets a day and aim for critical messaging to go out
between 9 am - 1pm EST.
In the beginning we tried to please many internal teams by honoring every
promotion request. We were sending out tweets every free slot we could
find, and at one point sending out 20 tweets a day! Our weekly reviews
helped us catch this big mistake. Also we benchmarked @SAPCommNet
with @CiscoSystems (Cisco brand account, similar to @SAP) which is an
account that tweets less but receives more retweets and replies. This
helped us realize that we should focus more on the context rather than the
quantity.
7. New Week, New Hashtag. Add some spice to your social media mix by
following a new hashtag or keyword each week to your watch list. This
helps you to step outside of routine and discover new followers. The
@SAPCommnet account has an average of 5-6 % monthly follower’s
growth. It is critical that you constantly search for new potential community
members to keep the number growing. Most likely, you will see the same
faces on your decks if you always follow the same hashtags.
8. Be a Cocktail Party Host. Your followers follow you not only because
they are interested in your topic but they are also looking for other
community members who think alike or can help them solve problems. You

6. can strengthen your community by strengthening the relationships of the
members. For example,
● If your channel is hosting an event, keep attendees in touch with each
other by creating an attendee list
● Help expand their networks, introduce follows to one another
● Help those who are new to Twitter to jump in by providing hints like
the key hashtags to follow for the industry
---
Laura “@Pistachio” Fitton is the founder of www.oneforty.com and co-author of Twitter for Dummies. She is
credited with explaining Twitter's business value at top business schools and to thousands of others tech leaders,
she's been speaking professionally about the business use of Twitter since October 2007.

7. @SAPcommnet’s Recommended Twitter Tools
Follower Management Tool
○ Social Too - Auto follow back and followers synchronization
○ Nutshell Mail - Notify who quit following you and receive
updates via email
○ Tweepi - Unfollow people who do not follow you back in bulk
and reciprocate your followers
Influencers Seeking & Monitoring tool
○ WeFollow - Finding the leading Twitter accounts in the topic
area and industry
○ Viral Analytics - Find the key positive and negative influencers
that mention the brand
○ Tweetstats - Find the people that we engage with and
influence us on Twitter every month
Content Analysis Tool
○ Tweeteffect - Find which tweets made people follow or
unfollow
○ Sprinklr - Find the theme and messages that have the highest
engagement (clicks, retweets, Facebook feedbacks)
Archiving Tool
○ Sprinklr - Archive mentions and replies and sent messages
Tweetchat Tool
○ Twebevent - Find public tweetchats to participate