Question Seven – Social Media: A Virtual Storefront

To see how social media works for those of us in the wide-format industry, we talked to 10 print shops who, through trial and error, have found a way to make their mark in the world of online marketing.

Each day over the next week, The Big Picture will post a new, critical question centered around the use of social media in the world of wide-format with invaluable answers from our panel.

Our Social-Media Panelists
Ryan Broderson, Director of marketing and customer relations, SuperGraphics, www.supergraphics.com
Kaitlyn Burns, Britten Inc., Marketing special project coordinator, www.brittenbanners.com
Blake Castestter, Account executive, Advertising Vehicles, www.advertisingvehicles.com
Randy Clark, Director of communications, TKO Graphix, www.tkographix.com
Dolph Frederico, Owner, Pelican USA, www.pelicanusa.com
Damon Henrichs, Sales and marketing manager, ABI Digital Solutions, www.abidigitalsolutions.com
Jill Rowen, Sales and marketing coordinator, Apple Visual Graphics, www.applevisualgraphics.com
Darin Smith, Director of strategic planning, Printscape, www.myprintscape.com
Sean Tomlin, Owner, Designer Wraps, www.designerwraps.com

What about success stories: When has social media really helped your business?

Tomlin: Now! It helps our business on a daily basis, literally. Our customers and potential customers have access to our portfolio at any time. In short, I feel that our Facebook page is really just an extension of our website and it regularly turns into business.

Broderson: Our blog postings have effectively promoted our business. New customers searching for particular products have found our articles, learned about the process to build the product, and called our team to help execute their initiative.

Rowen: One of the best examples of when social media obviously helped our business was a few weeks ago via Twitter. I posted a link about smart-car wraps. It was re-tweeted several times, and the very next day we received a call “off the Internet” about smart-car wraps. We are currently having our in-house designer handle this project.
 

Read Question Six: Does your company have a social-media policy?

Monday: Being that social networking is an uncontrolled medium, has there ever been a time when social media might have worked against you?