The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Kodak, Jeffrey Hayzlett, is ubiquitous and seemingly knows everyone. Well, on Twitter. He's always tweeting about where he is and what he's doing, and he's become a fixture at something called the "140 Conference," which celebrates Twitter as a communications method.
As somewhat of a joke, I recently commented: "I didn't think it was possible to increase sales just by tweeting and speaking at every #140conf, but @JeffreyHayzlett is proving me wrong."
His almost immediate, teen-just-read-adult-book reply was interesting: " 
Power of the crowd #140conf it works. and is powerful."
Besides the grammar issues, and buzzwords, and hype in this response, what's interesting about this is asking whether it really has done Eastman Kodak Co. any good in the last year. Keep in mind, Hayzlett isn't some customer service guy in the bowels of the company – he's a corporate VP reporting to the CEO.
How has Kodak done over the last year? Just a simple glance at articles like this and this show that Kodak is a company in trouble, losing money and losing it consistently. Over the last 12 months, their stock (EK) is down. Over the past five years, the stock is way down. They've debuted new products, like the very nice Kodak zi8 camera (which I own), but all the buzz is about other companies – and presumably to some degree, sales follow the buzz.
Social media is nice and I use it a lot. But how it is tied to organizational goals is the important issue. Maybe Kodak seems a little more hip with a tweeting CMO, but that does relatively little to get me to buy a product from them; it just lays a little groundwork. Tweets like, "break-at my NYC fav diner having some smoked whitefish on crackers. Wonder if I can shove some in my pockets for later?" do little for me personally. And Hayzlett's tweetstream consists of little more than that, frankly.
Today, Hayzlett is, "heading over to do a keynote at 2010 CMO Leadership Forum #cmony will see my friend @ecava and others" Well, I hope that speaking engagements at 140 Conference, the CMO Leadership Forum, and The Apprentice are helping to sell Kodak stuff. But I doubt it.
My tweet back: "@JeffreyHayzlett Your stock went down over the last 12 months, and the company lost millions last year. Social media worked…how?"
I think that's all there is to say.
Disclaimer: I'm a graduate of the University of Rochester, which George Eastman practically built with his generosity. Kodak is based in Rochester, NY. The music school is named after Eastman.
Power of the crowd #140conf it works. and is powerful."
Besides the grammar issues, and buzzwords, and hype in this response, what's interesting about this is asking whether it really has done Eastman Kodak Co. any good in the last year. Keep in mind, Hayzlett isn't some customer service guy in the bowels of the company – he's a corporate VP reporting to the CEO.
How has Kodak done over the last year? Just a simple glance at articles like this and this show that Kodak is a company in trouble, losing money and losing it consistently. Over the last 12 months, their stock (EK) is down. Over the past five years, the stock is way down. They've debuted new products, like the very nice Kodak zi8 camera (which I own), but all the buzz is about other companies – and presumably to some degree, sales follow the buzz.
Social media is nice and I use it a lot. But how it is tied to organizational goals is the important issue. Maybe Kodak seems a little more hip with a tweeting CMO, but that does relatively little to get me to buy a product from them; it just lays a little groundwork. Tweets like, "break-at my NYC fav diner having some smoked whitefish on crackers. Wonder if I can shove some in my pockets for later?" do little for me personally. And Hayzlett's tweetstream consists of little more than that, frankly.
Today, Hayzlett is, "heading over to do a keynote at 2010 CMO Leadership Forum #cmony will see my friend @ecava and others" Well, I hope that speaking engagements at 140 Conference, the CMO Leadership Forum, and The Apprentice are helping to sell Kodak stuff. But I doubt it.
My tweet back: "@JeffreyHayzlett Your stock went down over the last 12 months, and the company lost millions last year. Social media worked…how?"
I think that's all there is to say.Disclaimer: I'm a graduate of the University of Rochester, which George Eastman practically built with his generosity. Kodak is based in Rochester, NY. The music school is named after Eastman.
