Much as the technology industry is claimed to be an early adopter of all things social, Web 2.0 and community, its not making as quick progress as people think it is.

SAP TechEd08 is the annual SAP developer conference, is currently taking place in Berlin. Our good friend Mike Prosceno (who authors a good blog in his own right BTW) is there and so are many of the other SAP folks we know. I dont believe its for lack of trying. They have a TechEd Blog, a full time twitter account just for the event and forums for discussion. Over 16,000 people attend the show worldwide and a good number (over 30%) just in Berlin. So we should expect a lot of sharing, blogging, twitter, etc. Right?

1. Tweet volume (# tweets) over the last few days barely broke 300 (Just to give you a comparison, BlogWorldExpo broke 3000+ tweets daily).

2. By the hour tracking shows tweeting was more frequent in the afternoon (very counterintuitive) than in the morning. This was again very different from BlogWorldExpo.

3. The people LOVED the show though, so SAP’s gotta be happy. Positive sentiments showed up overwhelmingly which is again very different from BlogWorldExpo (where it was at 55% positive).

4. The number of unique people that did twitter was less than 0.01%. That’s very low compared to the 43-55% for BlogWorldExpo. Maybe the SAP guys are just not the chatty types.

5. Here is the best chart. Who were the influencers? The top 7: SAPTechEd, Mike Prosceno, Mike Stopforth, IdaRose Sylvester, Vuk Trifkovic, Phillip Pott, Dennis Howlett.

I do have all the data on blog posts, delicious and the rest of social media to give you a comprehensive perspective, but this post is already too long.

Summary: Few people did share and talk, and the ones that did absolutely loved it.

Questions:

1. If even a technology company with leading edge early adopters (developers) is not very socially engaged, is the market still early? Or is social media just getting acceptance? What stage do you think we are?

2. What other questions would you want to have me address from a social media perspective (what reports do you wish to see) on SAP TechEd so we can get a more comprehensive perspective?

# Update: We were primarily tracking SAPTechEd, SAPTechEd08, TechEd as the keywords. Mike and Tom Raftery emailed me saying they are seeing a lot more twitter and delicious folks, who are using no associated words to describe the event.

Robert pointed me to 19 things to consider when planning a blogger launch event by the Mobile industry review. I read through it left with very mixed feelings. On one hand it was pretty open and clear about things they like or dont like. On the other hand they seemed like a bunch of prima donna’s asking for free handsets, asking hosts to pay attention to food. Anyway it got me thinking about the blogger events we have hosted and what we learned from them.

When we hosted blogger outreach events at my previous company the question always comes up about a) What are the best things to do and b) how do you measure the success of such an event. So I thought I’d take a stab at 5 simple tips to being a great host for a blogger event.

1. Figure out the level of your bloggers and cater to their specific need: Tech bloggers like to actually play with the products, see demos, etc. The last thing you want to do with this crowd is to put 30 min PowerPoint slides upfront about your company, culture, market etc. If the bloggers are more strategic in their thinking and not the hands-on type, it makes more sense to provide access to C-level executives who can provide their opinions on the market, stategy, etc.

2. Location and time matter a lot: This is an obivious one, but where you host your event tells a lot about the importance you place to the event. I would highly recommend hosting your blogger event at your company. Pick a relatively large sized room and keep the number of attendees from your company to about 1/2 the number of bloggers invited. With respect to time, most full-time bloggers prefer lunch or late evening (early pizza) times, but dont attempt breakfast blogger sessions. Having tried 3 I can tell you they always start late, end late and mess up the rest of the day.

3. Giveaways: Highly recommend keeping them consistent with the brand and theme of your product / company. We hosted 2 blogger events and had a nice table top logo bean plant giveaway and a flash drive with the press release, latest whitepaper and product details pre loaded on them.

4. Measurement of effectiveness: The only measurement we did was to learn how many of the 21 bloggers invited to the first event showed up, how many blogged about the event and what the general sentiment was. The bloggers collectively had an audience of about 35,000 unique visitors and the cost of the event was about $1500. The total number of bloggers that wrote about the event was 11 (18 of the 21 invited showed up). The collective audience of the ones that did write about the event was about 8900. Treat it as any other press event. There were other benefits we got from the event – good will, some link love, but those were more difficult to measure.

5. The right people attending and available to answer questions. Believe me, most bloggers are there more for learning and sharing than for the food. The best thing you can provide to them is access to the right people in the company that will be able to build that connection with them so they can understand more about the company, the culture and products. Depending on the type and level of audience, make the right folks from your company available to discuss with them. ]]> http://news.buzzgain.com/5-simple-tips-for-hosting-a-great-blogger-event/feed/ 1