Kodak and Social Media

Kodak's Tom Hoehn (@TomHoehn) was recently interviewed in the social media maven series on the Viral Garden blog. In the interview, Tom shared the Kodak social media approach and strategy that he co-developed along with Kodak Chief Blogger Jenny Chisney (@kodakcb). After reading the interview I had a few thoughts and decided to share them openly. First, a few disclosures:

1. I am a big admirer of what Kodak has been doing with social media. They have a great blog, their chief marketing officer is highly active in Twitter and is leading an effort to use social media to continue a successful brand turnaround.

2. I am not associated with Kodak in any way. I have never worked at the company nor have I ever had them as a client

3. My understanding of their social media strategy is limited and based solely on the interview in the Viral Garden blog and with a few Twitter exchanges with their CMO.

What I like

There is much to admire in the strategy shared.

First and foremost it's a strategy and not a bunch of tactics and / or tools tied together in some loose fashion. Tom and the rest of the team have clearly thought through the various aspects of social media and created a framework that has actionable goals and associated tasks/ projects. The notion of proactive and reactive is a powerful way to organize work streams.

Tone takes a big place in the strategy. Many companies miss this very important guide post. Social Media is the most powerful tool that marketers have to truly activate their brand and bring it to life. Tweets or Facebook messages that do not properly represent the company brand and culture can do serious damage. On the flip side, a consistent voice regardless of who is conversing helps fully establish the positioning in peoples mind. Kudos to Kodak for bringing that front and center.

Cross functional team. I'm guessing here, but it looks like a cross functional team has been established. This is crucial. Customers do not think in internal organizational silos. One moment they might have a new product idea and another moment they might be pissed off because their digital camera broke. If they spend the time to write about it online, it is a major opportunity missed if a company does not respond quickly and accordingly. This takes coordination and a team of people across marketing, corporate communications, customer service, product development, sales and the executive suite.

What I think is missing

Passion points. These are the subject areas that connect brands to a wider audience. A fundamental question that every brand should ask, "If social media is about conversations, what conversations should we have and initiate?" It is a crucial question because the conversations that brands initiate and engage in says a whole lot about who they are as a company. It also establishes them as a member of the community that is passionate about a subject area.

I'll make up an example for Kodak to help bring this to life. Let's pretend that after doing a thorough review of the Kodak brand, the social media team at Kodak decides that they will focus on 5 passion points, the first being independent films (I have no idea if this fits with their brand but I don't think it's a stretch given their products aimed at film makers). With that passion point in mind, Kodak creates new presences in social media platforms (for example@Kodak_Films). It then uses tools like Radian6 to search for people talking about independent films and to discover and follow the influential bloggers and online press. Kodak then staffs a team of people and experts to dive into the subject and discuss it wherever and whenever they can. To help establish expertise and to add value, new content is created and posted frequently.

Why would Kodak do this? Because it serves a business purpose. It becomes a very powerful way for Kodak to associate itself with independent films and establishes itself as a leader in that community. The more that Kodak posts content and converses about independent film, the more followers and fans it will get that share that passion point. Brand awareness goes up in the community, brand associate happens and the next time one of their fans or followers is out looking for a video camera, they will most likely place Kodak in the consideration set.

Most people do not realize that Kodak is so much more than just digital cameras. Much of its business comes in the form of B2B sales. In checking their website, they list 18 B2B verticals. This might have been done or is in the works, but each and every one of those verticals should have it's own social media strategy and approach. Although each vertical is tied to the same brand, I am sure that they have very different sales cycles, target buyers and competitive pressures. These factors need to be taken into account.


Wrap Up

Kodak seems to have fully embraced social media and the notion of sharing. I have found that when you share things openly with people you usually get something back in return. Hopefully my comments have provoked some additional thinking.