Top 50 SAP Employees by Twitter Followers 2014
An update to last year’s list of top tweeters at SAP excluding official accounts (which typically have much higher numbers of followers).
This is based on the SAP twitter list created by the head of SAP Digital (and #3 tweeter), Jonathan Becher. That list has some data quality problems that I have tried to correct, but please let me know if this list is incorrect in some way.
Note there are quite a few changes from last year — notably at the top of the list, where several of the highest social users at SAP have gone on to take up new roles at social-media focused organizations.
Does the number of followers actually mean anything useful?. Clearly, it’s only an indirect vanity metric, but people do follow people because they are interested in the content tweeted out, so the list may turn out some names you haven’t already seen that you might be interested in. This time around, I’ve included the number of people that the account follows (if you follow lots of people it’s “easier” to get follows back) and the number of tweets (a high number of followers per tweet may be related to tweet ‘quality’ — or to the notoriety of the person, e.g. SAP CEO Bill McDermott has by far the highest ratio in the list).
At analytics.twitter.com individuals can track better measures such as “engagement” (i.e. the number/proportion of tweets where there’s proof that somebody saw it, i.e. they retweeted or clicked on a link etc.) — but that’s not easily available to others.
Finally, you should always question the bias and choice of metrics of people providing you with information! 🙂
| Twitter account | Name | Followers | Follows | Tweets | Description |
| @reuvengorsht | Reuven Gorsht | 19882 | 13960 | 12196 | Designing and Humanizing Business, Connecting Dots | People, Culture and Change |
| @maggiefox | Maggie Fox | 17489 | 600 | 19699 | Global SVP of Digital Marketing @SAP. Board Member @TheHSF. Former CEO of Social Media Group. This is my personal account. |
| @jbecher | Jonathan Becher | 15041 | 656 | 5562 | Head of SAP Digital. Previously, CMO @SAP. Performance management enthusiast. Sports analytics aficionado. Three time CEO. I believe words matter. |
| @timoelliott | Timo Elliott | 14432 | 810 | 14970 | Passionate about analytics, big data, and the social enterprise. Employed by SAP, but all my own thoughts here. |
| @rratkowski | Ric Ratkowski | 13917 | 12220 | 2993 | Enterprise Architect at SAP, Passionate that better business planning creates predictable success |
| @SameerPatel | Sameer Patel | 12100 | 728 | 34306 | Dad. SVP, Products & Go-to-market. Leading an amazing team at SAP Cloud / Successfactors. 15M+ subscribers on #SAPJam. Squash nut. |
| @tchrisburton | Chris Burton | 12070 | 376 | 1176 | #SAP Head of Global Sponsorship. Connecting the SAP brand to LIFE is what I do. Sports, arts and entertainment is what I love! Views are mine. |
| @BillRMcDermott | Bill McDermott | 11611 | 116 | 238 | Owned a deli as a kid, got my big break @Xerox, innovating @SAP. Relentless optimist. Devoted to family, friends and a better world. #winnersdream @winnersdream |
| @gailmoody | gailmoody | 9246 | 8442 | 3288 | Social media and community addict & expert. Advocate for personal development for all. Accept your genius and say what you think.-Emerson |
| @KaanTurnali | Kaan Turnali | 8908 | 9200 | 1440 | Global Sr. Director, BI at @SAP. Passionate about smart integration of business & technology. All views my own. |
| @bkwalker | Brian Walker | 8617 | 3944 | 9506 | Strategy @hybris_software @SAP. ex- @Forrester & @Amazon. Dad, gardener, cook, traveler, @soundersFC, @UW, poetry. Opinions here… never mind, you get it. |
| @ihilgefort | Ingo Hilgefort | 7313 | 2257 | 3411 | Solution Manager at SAP for Business Intelligence as part of SAP applications |
| @nstevenlucas | Steve Lucas | 7235 | 67 | 2113 | SAP exec, Husband & Dad, fan of analytics, million mile traveler, author, cat owner, weight lifter (fig & literal), lover of tech and passionate 2 help people |
| @peterdobler | peterdobler | 7082 | 5777 | 17428 | Sr. Consultant and Database Expert specialized in SAP Sybase (ASE, IQ, Rep), Oracle (10g, 11g, RAC) and SQL Server (2000, 2005, 2008).. |
| @finnern | Mark Finnern | 6951 | 1349 | 9419 | SAP Chief Community Evangelist founder/herder SAP Mentors; Future Salon; Alive Schools; Don Finleone It’s my opinion! |
| @sapymes | Frederic Page | 6775 | 7414 | 6813 | Trainer at the @SAP Academy for Sales. Learn more about our program at http://t.co/QeEexfP3xH The views expressed are my own. Follow me @carbonimpact too. |
| @vendorprisey | Thomas Otter | 6670 | 2838 | 11153 | Product Management at SuccessFactors, an SAP company. Curious about software. Cyclist and cricket fan. |
| @thomas_jung | Thomas Jung | 5946 | 744 | 5887 | Product Management for SAP HANA – specializing in development and platform tools for SAP HANA. Views and comments are my own, not SAP’s. |
| @JenCoCrompton | Jen Cohen Crompton | 5785 | 6268 | 13441 | Marketer, blogger, writer, tech lover, prof, speaker, entrepreneur, cycler, yogi – been knocked down plenty in 31 yrs. SAP, NewsCred, Scribewise |
| @marilynpratt | Marilyn Pratt | 5504 | 1700 | 7400 | SAP Community Advocate working to be a sustainable world citizen |
| @Wussow | Kai Wussow | 4711 | 4623 | 303 | Kai Wussow Chief Business Consultant @SAP. Winner Best of Consulting Marketing, Sales, Innovation @Wirtschaftswoche Personal views! http://t.co/ayPLNsfbzi |
| @SDenecken | Sven Denecken | 4614 | 631 | 21939 | SAP SE, Cloud Suite, Co-Innovation and Strategy | s-innovations, Cloud, SaaS, PaaS, ERP expertise | Profile: http://t.co/4AdXbBHqnZ |
| @steinermatt | Matthias Steiner | 4383 | 1044 | 10862 | cloud platform evangelist | working @SAP | SAP Mentor | web + open-source enthusiast | techie … [All views are my own!] |
| @maxwellelliot | Maxwell Wessel | 4317 | 189 | 4125 | Innovator @SAP. Writer @Harvardbiz. Think tanker with @ClayChristensen. Investor @NextgenAngels. Student of business history. Opinions are my own. |
| @oliver | Oliver Kohl | 3875 | 648 | 10517 | Coder, Principal Consultant at SAP, SAP Mentor, Mac Fanboy, iPhone Addict, Cake Baker, Music Lover & Fashion Victim – @zSAPping is my alter ego! |
| @Blag | Alvaro Tejada | 3859 | 1310 | 11550 | Developer Evangelist at SAP Labs Palo Alto. Used to be an ABAP Consultant for 11 years. Addicted to programming since 1997. Opinions are my own…obviously… |
| @ccmehil | Craig Cmehil | 3831 | 1775 | 18322 | Communication, Innovation, Technology. |
| @nicfish | Nic Smith | 3805 | 3312 | 1939 | Marketing director and analytics DataGeek at SAP. Telling stories with data. |
| @TClark01 | Tim Clark | 3685 | 3306 | 3040 | Head of #SAP Employee Brand Journalism (@SAP_Journalism). @Forbes SAPVoice Editor-in-Chief. Tell the story you want to tell. |
| @socialrobinson | Nick Robinson | 3635 | 2676 | 6377 | Digital Marketing at SAP. Love tech and analytics. Co-author of StumbleUpon for Dummies. Views are solely mine. |
| @SourcingDavid | David Landsman | 3456 | 923 | 9622 | Ariba Discovery Leader. Globally recognized expert in direct materials sourcing, e-sourcing and b2b marketplaces. Passionate @ connecting companies! |
| @SarahGoodall | Sarah Goodall | 3449 | 2778 | 4022 | Digital Marketing & #SocialBiz Lead @SAP EMEA. Mother, baker, self builder and Nespresso drinker. Own views. |
| @RobertEnslin | Robert Enslin | 3375 | 150 | 143 | SAP Executive Board Member, family man, businessman, and voracious news junkie. Inherent believer in the power of young people. |
| @chirag_mehta | Chirag Mehta | 3370 | 139 | 14337 | Vice President, Product Management at SAP with focus on Big Data Applications, Platform, and Cloud. Blogger. Faculty. Design Thinker. SF Giants fanatic. |
| @MacdeBruijn | Mark de Bruijn | 3281 | 3026 | 633 | Ik geloof in absurde klanttevredenheid en ben altijd wel bezig met #marketing (@SAP), sport & muziek. Lichtelijk verslaafd aan Nutella. |
| @Ckochster | Chris Koch | 3274 | 1595 | 3168 | Editorial Director of the SAP Center for Business Insight, focused on business, IT, and marketing. Former analyst and journalist (opinions are my own). |
| @briansrice | Brian Rice | 3213 | 2136 | 4810 | Director, Integrated Digital Marketing @SAP – Views/Opinions are mine, not necessarily my company’s or anyone else’s. |
| @gpeuc | Goran Daemon Peuc | 3171 | 607 | 19951 | Principal UX Designer at SAP Dublin – Adobe influencer – Mountain Biker |
| @mstrat | Jose Colucci | 3126 | 2679 | 2584 | #Mobile and #Enterprise Application Strategist @SAP #Telco, #IoT and Connected Stuff. Mobile Strategy Blog. Personal @jhcolucci @la4sed Thoughts mine! #latism |
| @JamesMarland | James Marland | 3093 | 2938 | 3251 | Connecting companies together with @SAP & @Ariba. Write about Cloud, Networks and BigData but always with an English accent. |
| @BrianEllefritz | Brian Ellefritz | 3018 | 804 | 1556 | Global social media lead at SAP. The views I express are my own. |
| @MartinLang | MartinLang | 2949 | 998 | 6675 | SAP Global IT Mobile CoE, SAP Mentor, Husband & father of two, play trombone & sing in a choir, views are mine, not SAP |
| @tminahan | Tim Minahan | 2818 | 233 | 3059 | CMO SAP Cloud & Line of Business, Business Networks and Supply Chain Evangelist, Family Man |
| @cgodek | TechKnotty | 2804 | 1401 | 1043 | Global Marketing Director, Events at SAP. Twired inhabitant of the tech world, and indie music fan. Views are my own. |
| @_bgoerke | Björn Goerke | 2785 | 48 | 1985 | Executive Vice President at SAP | Head of Products & Innovation Technology | R&D | Views expressed are not SAP’s, sometimes not even mine. |
| @calipidder | R. Sowards-Emmerd | 2745 | 1016 | 27739 | Free range human. Mountain sports addict. Craft beer drinker. Tech nerd. The best days are those spent above 10k ft. Team #omniten and #evernotelife Ambassador. |
| @imht | Husain Al Tamimi | 2738 | 925 | 9283 | Head of PR at @SAPMENA. Tweets are personal, retweets are not endorsement .. yada yada yada. Rambles about PR, technology, Middle East affairs & social media. |
| @JPFinnell | JPFinnell | 2711 | 1616 | 5101 | Head GTM programs @SAPAnalytics @SAPInMemory @SAPLumira for @SAPNorthAmerica | alumnus @CoroNewYork @LauderInstitute @GigaomResearch @TenthPres |Views are mine |
| @renekerp | Rene Kerp | 2638 | 142 | 3137 | working@SAP | traveller ✈️ | sports | contains my personal views |
Thanks for this Tim, it is always good fun to see these things and perhaps find a new person to follow.
Chris,
Someone stopped me on the SAP TechEd Las Vegas show floor, asking me if I knew where you were - but not by your name, but by your Twitter handle. Times are changing!
Hi,
i just want to say that i´ve unfollowed and blocked one of these people because of a comment about a political affair.
I think that sometimes it´s better to know less of a person.
Best regards.
Sorry to see you didn't like the post -- may I ask why, or what I could/should have done differently? (you don't have to answer, of course...)
Hi Timo,
First i do not like the post because when i ask myself:
does the fact of having thousands of followers in twitter make SAP employees better personally or professionally?
i have to answer NO.
Next the fact of referring only to SAP employees makes me think that this forum is becoming each day more orientated only to the "initiated / chosen / Gelehrte" one´s.
I thought SCN was an OPEN forum regardless of you whether you were a SAP employee or not.
And finally because this list will not appeal but to those mentioned here.
What do i get from the fact of knowing that SAP employee X is the second one in this list?
Timo, honestly i still support my initial answer.
For me it´s been very disappointing having to unfollow one of the people mentioned in this listing.
I do not have a G+ account because i do lead a better life without having news of certain people.
The same thing happens to me with the people listed here. I do follow some of them (worth of it in my humble opinion)
and i won´t ever follow others.
Best regards.
Pablo,
I don't think the list is a - 'This person is better than this one' type of list and also I took the fact Timo concentrated on SAP employees because those people are subject to the same social media policy and so their profiles and tweets are measured and professional. If he took a random person from Jonathan's list, Timo may run the risk of accidentally endorsing someone he does not know and who tweets inappropriately. (Disclosure I work for SAP as well, but didn't feature )
If you do not follow someone because of something they have said/done, then that is your concern and choice - but I think it exemplifies my assessment above about whom he is analysing in his dataset.
Finally, I think Timo has done something pretty cool, he stimulated a conversation about the analysis he did. Whether he meant to or not, he did not include any visualisations and as a result I have had 3 conversations about this blog post already and seen 2 sets of visualisations. That is good engagement in my book.
Chris
I have to agree that the number of followers, in isolation, is not a particularly useful measure of the quality of a twitter account. It is useful in combination with other measures, but not on its own, in my opinion. As Timo says in the blog, more useful measures are available to the twitter account holder, but they aren't easy to get to for 3rd party analysis. For me, Twitter, at least for personal accounts, is about engagement, so I'd want to see measures like:
I've done some of this analysis for my own account in the past (recently using Lumira:-), but it is hard to do for others.
I also have to agree about only including SAP employees. There are many non-SAP employees more active on Twitter and, in my opinion, more important in the SAP community than some of the SAP accounts listed here. But how do you get to that list?
In summary, I think you're right, but I also understand why Timo has done the analysis he has. He admits as much in the post. But it provoked this discussion, so it isn't all bad! Maybe next year's will be better... 🙂
Steve,
It would be nice to have a "SAP Nation" analysis, but I was uneasy using Jonathan's list for that -- it's a bit out of date, so for example some SAP social media employees have left and no longer tweet much about SAP, and I found accounts that seem to have been hijacked, etc. -- keeping it to SAP employees seemed the lesser evil for now...
You did the right thing. I'm not sure how you would start building a list of "SAP Nation" tweeters. Who curates such a list? I don't know of one. It would be huge, anyway!
Timo (and others),
I'm happy to update the list by removing people who are no longer SAP employees or accounts that have been hijacked. No curated list for something in the digital world will ever be completely accurate.
Regards,
Hi Timo,
so what kind of KPI's can be drawn from this list? raw count may be a good start, but hardly an analysis.
thx for the compilation.
greg
Interesting list! Thanks for that.
I see one guy has over 34K tweets - was that calculated over the last year, or in their lifetime?
If I started following someone and got almost 100 tweets a day, I'd delete them (and their bots) toot sweet.
cheers
Paul
Paul, yes, it's lifetime tweets -- but that still means quite a lot per day!
Interesting - do you have the 2015 list?
Here's the latest top 20...
Thank you! will use this when I next deliver Social Selling enablement.