Drupa 2012 is also known as the Social drupa. We’re actively engaged in social media and encourage all exhibitors and visitors to engage with us on all levels, so we can spread the (graphic) word. Kodak also makes great efforts to build and further develop their social media actions. Kodak’s chief blogger, Jennifer Cisney, explains how.

And don’t forget to join us on the drupa social media channels: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Xing.

We’ve seen a lot of blogs posted about the technological innovations launched at drupa, but none so far on another key development at drupa: the deployment of social media.  Kodak has been at the forefront of taking social media seriously as an integral part of the communication mix, so why not feature a guest blog on it?

Walking through the halls, we see people with their smartphones at the ready to e-mail pictures of interesting applications back to the office and coworkers, upload pictures to Facebook, schedule meetings using Twitter or track down other people on Foursquare.

And that’s the way it should be. When Kodak was at drupa 2008, the Kodak B2B blog Grow Your Bizhad just launched and there were daily stories posted to the blog. Since then our social media presence has grown as we share tweets on Twitter, photos on Flickr, videos on YouTube and updates on Facebook.  At events you can even find the Kodak booth on FourSquare and check in.

This year at drupa 2012, you will find us posting and engaging on all these social media sites, but in addition we are using some innovative new methods of communicating and sharing via mobile and tablets. At this year’s Kodak booth it’s all about QR codes and iPads to thoroughly inform visitors and make sure they get a maximum amount of information in a way that fits in their time precious schedule. Next to the printed samples they can take home to study later, of course.

We’ve seen how the graphic arts industry has grown on social media channels like Twitter and Facebook. The #drupa hashtag connects us and most certainly at this point in May. So check out who the key twitterati are and follow them, upload your pictures to Facebook (don’t forget to tag them with drupa) and don’t be afraid to get engaged and interact online.

After all, we need to keep spreading the word: we love print, print is not dead and drupa rules!