When we came up with the idea of a week of live streaming on our SAP Store Facebook page, I’ll be honest – we couldn’t be 100% sure it would go without a hitch. At SAP Digital, we’re trying new formats to be at the forefront of engaging people through social media (read my blog here), and there are always risks when you’re testing new ground. As it happened, with more than 800 people tuned in to the first session of “SAP Store Facebook Live Week” on July 11, a technology glitch would have been a bit embarrassing.
Wait – did I say 800 people? Yes! And the technology did come through, and so did each of our speakers and host Brian Fanzo of iSocialFanz, who essentially took over our Facebook page for a half hour each day all week. Let me thank everyone who participated, including our audience – many more than we expected – who posted comments and liked our Facebook page and generally got engaged with the event.
I especially have to hand it to Brian, our “chief streaming evangelist,” who helped make all the interviewees comfortable in this live format. For me watching, it was so exciting. I felt like I was right there in the same room with them, sharing the same experience. He describes it as “a human digital story-telling revolution” enabling him to interview people from all around the world and bring those conversations right to your Facebook Live platform. What a great way for us to engage new audiences and make people aware of SAPStore.com!
And that’s what the event was all about: our online store, where a variety of “digitally native” offerings are available, including software, education, and data, from both SAP and partners. The common thread is that they all offer immediate value to individuals or small teams – developers, sales managers, data scientists – with transparent, credit-card-friendly pricing. Each episode of SAP Store Facebook Live Week focused on a different aspect of SAP Store: a specific offering, a customer success, and frequently asked questions about the store itself.
In case you missed it, here’s a quick recap.
Building Apps with SAP HANA Cloud Platform. Build, integrate, and extend applications in the cloud quickly and easily with SAP HANA Cloud Platform. One exciting new feature is the free edition of user-based packages. This is a different way of thinking about how developers can leverage this platform. Features of the free version include up to 10 users, 3-month trial with renew or upgrade options, and credit card purchase, available in 190 countries.
Top 5 Questions About SAP Store. Here, we answered the top questions our customers have asked, collected from the front-line support staff, operations team, and @SAPStore Twitter handle. For example, how much are the offerings, and can I get a quote? Where can I access free trials? Where can I get SAP HANA?
Knock-Knock, Who’s There? Putting Location-Based Consumer Data to Work. This segment focused on SAP Digital Consumer Insight, our data-as-a-service offering that generates aggregated insights about consumer behavior. Designed for do-it-yourself marketers like restaurants, bars, and food trucks, as well as small businesses and retailers, it uses mobile network data to provide location-specific data about on-the-spot demographics.
United VARs Stays Connected with SAP Digital CRM. Brian interviewed Andreas Czech of United VARs, an alliance of 37 SAP channel partners doing business around the globe, about SAP Digital CRM. Andreas is so enthusiastic about SAP Digital CRM, a three-in-one sales, marketing, and customer service solution, that he’s recommended it to members of United VARs and presented it at a recent annual meeting.
Recap: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About SAP Store. On Friday, Brian presented a recap of key takeaways of the week’s interviews.
All these videos are “evergreen,” which means that you can watch them anytime you like. Go ahead and tune in. You’ll see that they aren’t perfect – there’s a slight audio lag – but I think you’ll find that’s part of the fun of trying out this new medium. And while I’m on the subject, I’d like to give a shout out to SAP, which lets us experiment with these new formats and more freestyle approach within the confines of our corporate marketing. As Brian said, “Great companies are great not because they have great products but because they have great people doing great things. The way you start to experience that is to tell the stories and to let those great people amplify what’s going on – to provide access to places, conversations, and experiences that their ‘fans’ can’t get anywhere else.” Exactly!
Check out the shows here, and please comment below to let me know what you think of our SAP Store Facebook Live Week.
