Back in early November I wrote a post about my experience using Twitter to connect with people in China. At the time I had just spent a couple of months really focusing on the site and my network. Prior to that, I had been using it sparingly and had not truly considered the possibilities.

"The more you put into it, the more you get out of it." - social media. If you don't consider what it is you want to achieve or take time to think of how you want to do this, you will probably FAIL. Its like going to a Networking mtg and not talking to anyone or giving out a business card or two and then returning to the office declaring it a waste of time.

I decided I had 4 points to consider:

1. Grow existing connections and new relationships within the graphic arts industry
2. Learn from, and educate, others in the online marketing community
3. Create awareness and demand for Kodak B2B technology
4. Engage and excite people about creativity in print

I am happy with my progress to date on the first 3 points and decided that I needed to focus on the 4th point for a while.

Working for Kodak affords me an almost endless supply of leading edge products to talk about. From the Kodak ZX1 pocket video to the amazing developments in high volume inkjet we call Prosper, I could spend the rest of the year talking about revenue generating ideas and differentiating yourself from the competition with Kodak.

But lets just take it 50 tweets at a time shall we...

For my first attempt at a Tweet Campaign, I chose the Kodak Nexpress and the dimensional ink solution. It allows you to 'add feeling to print'. Unlike raised ink from long ago, dimensional ink can be 'controlled'. The first time I saw felt it, I stated to those around me that if I was still doing print creative, "I could come up with 50 ideas for this in a heartbeat".

I decided that, pumping out one amusing or potential use for it each day would be fairly easy and would help me cover points 1,2,3 and add focus on point 4.

For 50 days I posted a potential use of Kodak dimensional ink and how it could truly differentiate yourself and your client. I actually thought of one each morning over a coffee - live without a net...on the net! Some im quite proud of like the use of Braille, the fake 'wax seal, the cheque holders for restaurants, the individually themed menus for each restaurant tables...its quite fun doing this and im confident it ads value for the people that follow me.



Success.

Several people asked me about the technology, each day people 'RT'd' posts or messaged me as to where they could get it done or more information about it. Some Kodak Nexpress owners received inquiries everywhere from Ottawa, New Jersey to Wellington New Zealand and Mumbai, India.

People discovered that it was for Commercial printing and not a Kodak AIO printer, as amusing as these conversations were, it showed that I had informed more people about the breadth of our commercial products.

Two actual Kodak Nexpress owners sent ideas in for me to tweet. Some consumer oriented Kodak employees even suggested ideas for the technology.

A Kodak customer from India asked for templates to try the idea from a blog I did last year.
2 digital printers have since demo'd the Nexpress.

From a marketing communications perspective, it was a success. With print followers on Twitter seeing the support the Kodak team enjoys providing to its Customers. It added credibility to our statement, helping customers grow their business and some of the ideas made people smile!

A search on Google for Kodak dimensional ink showed that my twitter account had risen to the top 10 results page - even after I had completed the campaign over 8 weeks ago.



Hmmm...what will happen with live search and ports like Google?

...if I were to research a new product and the search results showed 5 static sites with mostly outdated content - or 3 or 4 live links to employees on a social network that I am already a part of...I would choose the live ones. Consider where this will take the internet in the next 24 months.

I have since reposted an idea or two each week and have translated the ideas into Chinese language for posting on local sites here in China. I actually repost the ideas a few times each week on twitter, and they still get retweeted like it was new.



Creativity has been and will always be the true game changer for companies, technology and people. Business just needs to listen!

On the fourth day of the show, Kodak's Graphic Communications Group (GCG) concluded a hugely successful event, taking many orders, delivering numerous demonstrations, logging in a lot of qualified leads, and exceeding the company's aggressive goals at China Print 2009.

On the site, Kodak's digital solutions draw great interests of the visitors: Glossing, fifth color option, and software and substrate flexibility make NEXPRESS Presses ideal for applications requiring outstanding quality; With the reliability, productivity, cost of ownership, and quality of offset, the STREAM PRINTHEAD adds variable data to inline production without the need for additional offline laser printing; The latest expansion of the KODAK VERSAMARK V-Series Printing Systems portfolio brings higher resolution to Kodak's inkjet line and provides an affordable solution for the mid volume range of bill and statement producers; The KODAK GENERATION NEWS System provides both the superior quality of thermal imaging and throughput speeds of up to 300 plates per hour...

Kodak's strategy of placing workflow at the hub and showing conventional and digital solutions within this blended production environment resonated with visitors. We showed how customers can expand their capabilities and profits. With our digital technology, we have collected a lot of sales leads taken at the show filling the funnel. Without exception, every region, segment and product line exceeded Kodak's expectations.

Make it brilliant, make it Kodak!

With the economy being what it is, it was great to run across some good news in a back issue of American Printer: Action Printing, a Kodak customer, was elected to the NAPL's Management Plus Hall of Fame.

Action Printing's President, Gregg Davies, credits their success to one single business philosophy — excellence — in employee relations, print quality and service. They empower employees and pull out all of the stops to meet and understand the needs of their clients. But that's only two-thirds of the secret.

"Maintaining a high-level, consultative relationship with our clients and providing consistent quality requires not only a highly trained staff and innovative management, but the ability to move forward with advancing technology," says Davies. "As an example, Action Printing was the first printer in the United States to digitally link its customer service department to its high-speed saddle stitchers, replacing time-consuming hand adjustments with CSR-generated instructions."

The digital link Davies mentioned is actually KODAK UPFRONT Production Planning Software. Using UPFRONT's job building wizard, the CSRs at Action Printing digitally create their folding dummies, plan their jobs, and then export JDF data to automate the setup of their bindery equipment. Adjustments to set fold, cuts and more are no longer manually done. This automation has reduced setup times from 65 to 24 minutes. And wasted plates have declined from 3% to 1.4%. For this achievement, Action Printing received the CIPPI award for best cost/benefit realization from automation. You can read the more on about this story here.