Sage ERP X3: Social Media Restructuring

Overall Objective of the Campaign

Approached by Sage ERP to develop a global social media strategy for their 17-country marketing and PR team, Mambo Media embarked on a long-term partnership with this world-wide ERP heavy hitter to create the most effective approach to modern marketing from a global perspective that could also be replicated across the multi-country landscape.

Leveraging our well-established social media methodology, we worked with Sage to develop a highly-successful and ever-evolving social media strategy.  Our first task, and the first step of our methodology, was to establish strategic goals with the leadership team and align them with Sage’s target audiences, messaging and offers.

The overall objectives of this program were to:

1. Assess the industry social media landscape and the client’s global presence with respect to the competition by means of an historic six-month social media audit
2. Become more strategic in social media thinking and integrate a team approach to campaigns and content development
3. Identify and engage thought leaders, partners and prospects and deepen the client’s relationships with each
4. Leverage social media to support and achieve critical marketing and lead generation goals
5. Identify key opportunities for market advancement to be implemented through social media strategies
6. Align Sage’s Marketing and Communications Groups with modern marketing best practices

What strategy did you use to complete the campaign?

We implemented our five-step methodology to create a comprehensive global social media strategy and country-wide practice for Sage.  The resulting strategy can be summarized with the following 8 points:

1. A Strong Centralized Brand Strategy – including channel guidelines and consistency of brand presentation across the online and offline spectrum
2. True ROI Measurement of Campaigns/Budget, leads to Re-evaluation of Marketing Mix, maximize budgets
3. Dedicated Inter-departmental Co-ordination, Planning and Participation (SWAT Team)
4. Inter-country Sharing of Best Practices, Content, Campaigns, Training, KPIs
5. Integrated Content Development, Management and Distribution (Integrated Editorial and Campaign Calendar)
6. Continuous Stream of Smart, Strategic, Lead-generation Oriented Content
7. Strategic Thought Leader Identification, Targeting and Engagement (Micro-targeting, hyper-targeting)
8. Internal Subject Matter Expert Development & Outreach

SOCIAL LANDSCAPE ASSESSMENT

We analyzed Sage’s social media presence in countries around the world and developed a rating chart to compare their efforts with competitors. The social landscape assessment included:

• Strategic goals alignment and audience identification
• Discovery
  • Social media audit
  • Competitive landscape analysis and rating
  • Thought Leader and Social influencer identification

PROGRAM PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT

We established key messages, optimized social media channels, and began to identify thought leaders so that we could build social programs:

• Program Development
  • Key messages
  • Channel optimization
  • Thought leader identification

  Program Planning

  • Social media plan
  • Social event planning
  • Social SEO planning
  • Social PR planning

INTERNAL READINESS – TOOLS & TRAINING

The process of identifying subject matter experts, training them and integrating their content into the channels is always challenging. When they are convinced that the time expectations will fit into their schedules, subject matter experts will begin to share ideas for blog posts and other social content, allowing us to build a varied and interesting content calendar.

• Team Training
  • SWAT (Social Web Action Team) training
  • Internal Subject Matter Expert identification and training
  • Integrated channel and content calendar
  • Channel training

  Tool Implementation

  • Install Appropriate Listening System
  • Develop KPIs & Analytics
  • Develop Communications Guidelines and Policies
  • Perform Crisis Communications Training
  • Train team on “Before, During, After” Event Planning

CAMPAIGN & ENGAGEMENT

We began to work with Marketing and PR managers to create and execute organized social campaigns, leveraging social influencer relationships.

• Campaign Planning and Organization
  • Establish multi-touchpoint editorial calendar
  • Asset development
    Campaign execution
  • Measurement and ROI

• Thought Leader Engagement Strategy
  • Categorize based on subject matter expertise or audience
  • Identify priority targets (most authoritative)
  • Identify internal Subject Matter Experts for each category
  • Develop key messages for each category of thought leader
  • Create engagement tactics – and approach in channel where you found them

ONGOING MANAGEMENT & MEASUREMENT

We listen daily for brand, product, competitor and industry mentions and use this information to:

• Respond, engage and interact with potential customers and partners
• Gain knowledge about industry trends
• Learn about competitor priorities and focus
• Identify and engage with industry social influencers (thought leaders)

What quantifiable results do you have?

TEAM ENGAGEMENT

• We hold monthly all-country meetings to share wins, best practices, global messaging and country-specific case studies
• We’ve built up to social media participation by all 17 countries: Regular Sage ERP X3 tweets, retweets and engagement, Facebook updates, Blog posts
• Our event methodology is now used for all major events, and has even been adopted by other countries
• With our Social Dispatcher role, we’ve established rapid, organized response to opportunities identified in social media
• We have a complete integration of the PR team in social media efforts, built by a weekly coordination of calendars and plans

EVENT RESULTS

Momentum event in May 2011

• Generated over 1 million impressions to highly targeted audiences in LinkedIn, Facebook and SmartBrief email subscribers
• Increased Twitter followers by 27%
• Direct contact and buzz generated with more than 150 ERP/IT industry bloggers, editors, ISVs and other industry influencers
• Sent 2,404 visitors to the event registration page
• Received 1,502 views of the pre-conference Social Media News Release
• Generated over 300 clicks to the post-event video and 272 views of the conference Slideshare deck

PowerPoint slides about the Sage ERP X3 Social Media Restructuring:

Sage Social Restructuring 040112