“Kodak’s Social Media Success—and What Bloggers Can Learn From It” plus 1 more

Kodak’s Social Media Success—and What Bloggers Can Learn From It

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 01:00 PM PDT

This guest post is by Ricky of www.wickedleo.com.

With an active Facebook page, three corporate blogs, a couple of Twitter accounts, a YouTube channel, a Flickr profile and more, Kodak seems to be smiling pretty much all over the social media arena.

And no, it's not just for the sake of social media presence alone. Kodak is, literally and figuratively, swimming and sailing in social media space—replying swiftly to users' tweets, creating polls, seeking suggestions, organizing contests, uploading viral videos, and more.

The social media success of this company can be attributed to the fact that Kodak's SMM is a well-thought strategy, and not a bunch of loosely tied tactics—something that anyone with a brand should seek to emulate.

As Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Media office and Vice President at Kodak puts it, the company has specially appointed energetic individuals all across to achieve “4 Es of Kodak”: Engage, Educate, Excite and Evangelize. I must say that I was quite surprised to read that the company has a professional Chief Listening Officer (CLO). The CLO, as Hayzlett disclosed in this interview, monitors all the social media outlets to hunt for conversations involving Kodak so that they can be addressed, assisted, and enriched by the media evangelists later on:

"In fact, we've just put in a chief listening officer who acts like an air traffic controller… who listens to the conversations that are going online because I can't be online every second, every minute (although a lot of people think I am). But it gives us an opportunity to listen to the conversations and route those to sales people, route those to customer service or get them fixed or just say 'thanks'."

It seems that Kodak has plunged into the social sector with a no-nonsense approach. You might call Kodak's earnest commitment to be all over the online space to be the company's “secret to social media success.” Here's what Tom Hoehn, Director of Interactive Marketing and Convergence Media, has to say about Kodak's social media strategy:

"From the consumer side our products are all about enabling people's self expression, telling the stories of their lives … On the commercial side it is about making connections to get people answers to questions they may have about our products and services. We have embraced social media for some time now. Our blog launched in September of 2006 and our Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube presences followed in early 2008. We love what social media is doing for our business."

Kodak's personal interactivity

Another thing that separates Kodak's social media strategy from the rest is the fact that it lets the real Kodak people talk online. Obviously, the logo does not do the talking for other brands, but with Kodak, it's explicitly the person talking.

As mentioned above, the company runs a couple of Twitter profiles: @KodakCB, @KodakChallenge. @JeffreyHayzlett, @KodakCL, @KodakCameras, and @TomHoehn.

Here’s an example of the kind of interaction these representatives encourage on social media:

Kodak's Chief Listener's Twitter account features her actual photo and a small Kodak logo below that. And in all the conversations, she maintains a tone that’s light and personal. Jeffrey Hayzlett also uses a rather easy tone in his feeds. This strategy helps the company in two ways:

The customers are assured that they are not talking to the company's logo.
Using a gentle tone can help to calm down upset customers if needed.

The Ripcurl strategy

Convergence Ripcurl is the winning social media strategy at Kodak. The driving forces behind this model this have been Tom Hoehn (Interactive Marketing director) and Jenny Cisney (Social Media Manager and Chief Blogger). The duo describes Ripcurl to be their "path to participation" in the social space. Here's what Tom Hoehn has to say about the concept officially called Kodak Convergence Media Ripcurl [PDF]:

"You will note the words, Twitter, blog, Facebook, YouTube, etc. do not appear anywhere on this graphic. It isn't about the tools it is about connecting with our customers. This helps people within Kodak understand the opportunity at hand without getting caught up in jargon … Our proactive (speaking) activities are influenced and informed by our reactive (listening) efforts. When we do it right we will see a variety of results. When we get it wrong, well, we try again and keep moving forward."

How do Kodak's blogs fit?

Kodak runs three corporate blogs:

A Thousand Words, a lively blog on how Kodak employees think about imaging and photography in their personal lives. The stories cover a rainbow of topics, but with photography as the focus.
Plugged in, an instructive resource on Kodak's products and services, announcements, reviews etc.
Grow your Biz, an insightful place presenting the experiences of all those who have a passion for print and communication.

In Kodak's Social Media Guide, Jeffrey Hayzlett explains how these three corporate blogs helped the company:

"The blogs start conversations as I mentioned before, and they also have a direct positive impact on Kodak's search engine rankings. In addition, Kodak receives more than 11,000 mentions in other authors' blogs every month in the form of product reviews, opinions on products, rants, fan mail and more. We directly participate in many of these conversations to ensure our customers know we're listening and to share answers and additional insights."

As with the other social media channels used by the company, Kodak’s blogs are kept brimming with energy and enthusiasm. For instance, back in 2009, they posted a contest on the official blog which asked people to email a snapshot (theirs or their family's) to the company. On being selected (and with the person's consent), the snapshot appeared six times on Kodak's screen in TS from 31st December, 2009 to 31st January, 2010. Going by the comments that appeared on the Kodak blog, it seems to have been a successful move.

This strategy isn’t just about creating a couple of social media profiles—it’s about keeping the ball rolling, and Kodak is really smart at that! The company knows precisely how to trigger interest, how to maintain that level of interest, and how to keep it growing.

Kodak has also successfully used this strategy to generate worthy ideas from its end-users. For instance, Kodak found that its customers were fuming over its latest launch named “Zi8 Pocket Video Camcorder”. With a little more research, the company found that a majority of people liked the product per se, but they didn't quite like the name. The company immediately responded by throwing open a virtual contest that required followers to suggest a good name for the next Kodak pocket camera, which was ultimately named the Kodak Playsport.

And as Jeffrey sums it up:

"It's all about bringing people together around shared interests and reaching them in way that's meaningful and memorable … I strongly believe that if you get involved in social media, it will grow your brand, strengthen the connection between you and your customers and keep you grounded and aware of what people really think about your company. It's well worth the time invested."

So, if you are ready to take the plunge and are on the look-out for a starters' guide to social media, take a look at Kodak's Social Media Guide. If it has worked for this massive brand, there is no reason why it won't for you!

Ricky is a technophile & a zealous blogger & evangelist for www.wickedleo.com. He has a strong impulse to spread bits of web tech & Internet Marketing wisdom that he picks from his own personal experiences.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Kodak's Social Media Success—and What Bloggers Can Learn From It

How I Fast-tracked My Blog to 10k Subscribers and $15k Revenue in a Month

Posted: 19 Sep 2012 07:09 AM PDT

This guest post is by Alex Becker of Source Wave Marketing.

Image courtesy stock.xchng user Thoursie

When I first got into blogging, gaining any sizable amount of engaged subscribers seemed like a slow, tedious task. As bloggers, I am sure you know the popular ways to get people to your site:

guest posting
participating on forums
SEO.

But when your blog is brand new, getting featured on a site with a ton of traffic is next to impossible. Creating a solid reputation on a forum takes time. SEO is a popular tactic but also takes a long time. To put it bluntly, if you are new to blogging, the deck is not stacked in your favor.

This is why I decided to use another method to grow my blog: product creation.

“Wait, what?!” you might be thinking. “Making products as a way to grow your blog/brand? Does that even work?”

Well, my blog is just over seven months old. It has an email list of just over 10,000 people and brings in a total of $15k+ in revenue monthly. So yes, product creation is a super-effective and underutilized method to grow your blog. But before you can put this method to use on your blog, you need to understand why it works so well.

Why blogging and making products is like pouring gasoline on a fire

Ironically, the easiest place to get traffic you can capture is not on other websites. It isn’t on Facebook or Twitter. It is the massive email lists people have in certain niches.

But I am not just talking about any big email list. Getting a monster blogger or magazine to feature you in their email list is pretty tough, and oddly enough, they do not even have the best traffic.

Blogger and news lists: the hard way

A huge blogger might have 10-30k emails. The funny thing is that many of these are worthless because these are what we call “freebie chasers.” These are people that joined an email list for free and are only interested in one thing—more free stuff. They are also commonly not committed to a niche.

Now this blogger is going to make you jump through hoop after hoop to get featured in his or her list. While you can traffic from the list, it’s going to be very hard unless you also have a big reputation (which 95% of bloggers do not).

We want to focus on one and only one type of list: the massive email lists that other product creators have. And here’s why.

Product creators’ lists: the easy way

Think about the owner of a successful Clickbank product or information products. Even small-time product creators routinely have email lists of 5-20k. Bigger names can easily have 20k-100k. That’s a lot of people, folks.

Here’s why their lists are so valuable: every single person on their lists has loaded up their PayPal accounts and paid for information in the niche they’re selling in. As they say, money talks. And when these people have put money down, they’re telling you a couple things:

They are very interested in the niche.
They participate in the niche.
They are comfortable spending money in the niche.

This is exactly the type of person you want coming to your site and joining your list.

The ironic thing is that product creators are far less stingy with their lists than many others. This is because they usually have their list for a much less honorable reason than most straight-up bloggers. Most product creators (not all of them) use their list to promote other products and make an affiliate income.

This means one thing to you: if you have a product that will make them money, they will throw a tidal wave of traffic your way.

This is why they are such a great resource. They have one simple button you need to press to get access to “buyer” traffic. In this post, I’ll show you exactly how to push that button.

My product creation blueprint for blogging

I understand your thoughts right now: “What if I’ve never made a product before?”

Don’t panic. You don’t need to create a mega-product, nor I am not telling you to put crummy material out on the market. However, my father always told me “Keep it simple, stupid.” Sometimes something small and simple works insanely well. In fact, for this method, we want small and simple.

For example, one of the first products I made with my partner was a list of the most reliable Fiverr sellers, which we sold for five bucks. This simple product has sold over 6,000 copies, earning us over 6,000 subscribers.

So just keep in mind that you are totally capable of doing this. With that being said, let me walk you through the steps I used to create a product and blow up my blog, and then how I used my blog to create sales.

Step 1. Find an idea for a short product and make it happen

The first thing you want to do is find places online where your targeted visitor hangs out. These will usually be forums or Yahoo Answers-type sites.

The sites are so valuable because there you will see your visitor tell you exactly what they want. Look at the questions and problems that are getting the most focus. Then, make a product to solve these problems. Simple, huh?

Step 2. Make a juicy offer for product list owners and their customers

One of the best ways to get product creators interested is to offer 100% commission on your product. Remember, we’re not trying to make money: we’re trying to get them to hand over their traffic. You have to remember your motives, first and foremost.

We also want to make a product that’s cheap enough to convert very highly with their list. If you make, say, a $50 product, not very many people will buy it. However, if you produce a $5 product, the interest will, naturally, skyrocket.

Step 3. Find big list owners

This is fairly simple. Look around your niche and find information products. I guarantee you the owners of those products had a way to collect the emails of their customers. Email these product creators and pitch them on your product. (Hint: Be sure to mention the 100% affiliate commission!)

Step 4. Collect the emails

Now that you have a product creator blasting your product with traffic, it is time to collect the traffic that converts. (Remember, keep your product cheap for maximum conversions. More conversions means more emails.)

You can easily collect and manage these emails through a server such as Mail Chimp. After a person purchases your product, redirect them to an opt-in form that they must fill out to get access to the file.

Step 5. Treat your new subscribers like gold

Now that you have the emails of these people, it is time to deliver value, and really wow them with your brand.

One thing you need to keep in mind is that most of these people are used to being abused with affiliate offers whenever they get forced onto a product email list. This your chance to step up and do something different. Differentiating yourself will be what makes you so successful. Treat them with respect and earn their trust.

Constantly link them to cool things that are happening on your blog. Bombard them with value.

I did this by providing free weekly webinars, sharing my most potent internet marketing secrets for free and taking every chance I get to make personal connections with my readers. I also never asked for anything in return. Remember these words: what can I do for you?

This is the secret to turning a list of people that randomly bought your product into a community of friends and colleagues that trust you and like you enough to invest in your business.

Step 6. Use that trust in you and your brand to grow a profitable business

The funny thing about this is that most people would assume the next step is, “spam them with affiliate offers!” No way! That’s very, very bad.

The simple truth is that you will now have a community of buyers who trust and respect you. If you maintain that trust, they will invest in offers your promote and be eager to be a part of any business you create. So why push them away with spam?

A great example of someone who’s used the trust he’s developed with an audience is Pat Flynn of the blog, Smart Passive Income. By always having his readers’ best interests in mind, Pat has become not only a very rich man, but an internet marketing icon. Do not ever underestimate the power of a trusting audience.

The results

My partner and I have used this traffic generation method on our blog, and, in under seven months, we’ve created a thriving community in an extremely competitive niche. On top of this, any business we launch is an instant success due to the trust we have built with the subscribers we gained from product launches.

In fact, the last premium service we launched from our blog sold completely in under one hour. That is the power of combining buyer traffic from product launches with the amount of trust quality blogging can generate.

You were meant to make products

As a blogger, you are undertaking a role as an authority on information in your niche.

To me, creating products and being an authority go hand and hand. When you create a good product (remember, simple can be good), the people that buy it will naturally be interested in your blog. This is because authority figures make products and authority figures blog. Period.

By making products, not only do you get access to hoards of traffic, but you also become an authority.

This is why I encourage every ambitious blogger to break out of the “strictly blogging” mindset and spread your message through as many formats as possible. Remember, it’s important to differentiate.

Of course, creating a product is not going to be an easy 6-step process, but niether is growing a massive brand. I do promise one thing, though: If you take the ideas presented in this article and run with them, your blog will become a red-hot source of awesome faster than you ever thought possible.

Alex Becker is the co-founder of the Source Wave Marketing and owner of multiple online SEO services.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How I Fast-tracked My Blog to 10k Subscribers and $15k Revenue in a Month

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