by Amber Naslund
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Social media is a hot topic among companies right now, from startups to the Fortune 500. Should we do it? What does it take to do it well? And where do I start?
Kodak has invested people, energy, and two years of dedicated effort into building its social media program—with great success. This summer, Chief Blogger Jenny Cisney traveled to The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, armed with her Kodak Digital Camera and her laptop.
Jenny posted to the Kodak "A Thousand Words" blog each day to detail her experiences and share her photos. Her posts covered everything from the opening ceremonies to Beijing culture to how Kodak produced hundreds of thousands of accreditation badges for the Games.
While many Olympic-focused sites detailed event results and medal tallies, Kodak's blog provided readers a behind-the-scenes look at the people and a human perspective on the Games.
This month, I spent some time with Kodak Corporate Media Relations Manager Krista Gleason and Chief Blogger Jenny Cisney to find out why their social media program is so valuable to their business, and how they've defined success.
Q: When did Kodak make the decision to make social media part of your corporate strategy, and why?
Krista: We launched our first blog—"A Thousand Words"—in September 2006 and have engaged in other social media since then, including podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Delicious. Our social media activities are part of our overall communications and marketing strategy. We use social media to connect with our customers—communicate, listen, interact, engage—and share information about our company and our products and services.
Q: Tell me a little bit about the three blogs you have, and how and why each one is important to Kodak.
Krista: Kodak has three blogs. "A Thousand Words" features stories from Kodak employees on a variety of topics but with a focus on photography and imaging. "Plugged In" features stories about Kodak products and services. "Grow Your Biz" features stories from Kodak's Graphic Communications business. Together, they reflect the breadth and expertise of our company—traditional (photography and film), digital, and print.
Q: How did blogging enhance the 2008 Olympic experience for Kodak, both as individual staff members, and for your company as a whole?
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Comments
by gianandrea facchini Tue Sep 23, 2008
Amber, great insight.
What I like to most is the approach to the return on investment which is not focused on selling something right away but to build an image to facilitate sales.
by Eric Miltsch Tue Sep 23, 2008
Jenny - great job with the Kodak's SN efforts; nice to see the big companies jumping into the fray with success.
Eric
by Becky Carroll Tue Sep 23, 2008
Thank you for this great interview! I especially liked that you asked the ROI question. It is so important to execute social media with goals in mind, and I think a number of companies are struggling to understand the benefits (they just know they need to do it). Well done!
by Diane Davidson Tue Sep 23, 2008
Both the ROI and the reference to engaging employees at Kodak (with an increase of moral which also could be listed on the ROI list) was very helpful. Love this topic, more more more, please!
by Mack Collier Thu Sep 25, 2008
Love how you wanted to delve into what their thinking was for wanting to start using social media. Always fascinating to see what happens 'behind the scenes'.
And I agree with Diane, more please!
by rotnad Mon Sep 29, 2008
Very, very interesting. New insights into use of social media